Gunarhnesemgyet

Gunarhnesemgyet, commonly Gunarh, is a legendary hero whose adventure is among the most widely carved of Northwest Coast narratives; among the Tsimshian and Gitxsan he corresponds to the figure the Haida call Nanasimgit. His beautiful wife is seized by a killer whale and carried down to the town of the Killer Whale People, where the whale-chief means to wed her once he has fitted a dorsal fin to her back. Refusing to yield her, Gunarh makes the perilous descent to the sea-floor, riding upon the back of a killer whale, penetrates the chief's longhouse, and brings his wife back up to the world of the living. The story is held as a crest privilege and appears on many carved poles depicting the hero grasping the whale.

Domains

• sea

Powers

• descends to the village of the Killer Whales

Sources

• Gunarhnesemgyet (Gunarh), the Tsimshian/Gitxsan counterpart of the hero elsewhere called Nanasimgit, journeys to the undersea village of the Killer Whale People to rescue his wife, whom a killer whale has abducted to make his own.: Native Canadian Arts, 'Gunarh and the Whale' (nativecanadianarts.com). (secondary); Barbeau, Marius (1950). Totem Poles (National Museum of Canada Bulletin 119), on the Gunarh-and-Whale crest narrative. (secondary)