Kiusta

During the maritime fur trade era Chief Cuneah was the primary leader of Kiusta and had influence over the entire region.[7] George Dixon visited the Kiusta area in 1787 and called the inlet where he traded "Cloak Bay",[8] for the large number of beautiful sea otter cloaks he acquired there.[9] The first European to visit Kiusta and meet Cuneah was William Douglas, in June 1789.[7]

Kiusta was first portrayed in 1799, in a drawing in the journal of the ship Eliza. The illustration provided a panorama of the town from the water.

In the late 1830s an epidemic of smallpox ravaged the North Coast resulting in the death of more than half the Haida (though others have estimated the deaths to be closer to 80 to 90 per cent of the population.) With the reduced population, trade became monopolized by a smaller number of chiefs. Over the next quarter-century other chiefs, including Chief Edenshaw of Kiusta, had to establish stronger links with other chiefs as a result of their remote location and dwindling population and many gravitated to Masset where there were missionaries and other service and commercial people.[7]^: 15

Evidence of trade in abalone shells is based in part on recovered abalone shells from a site in Kiusta. it is suggested that traders imported California-area abalone shell because "they had noticed local peoples' use of "paler, smaller" abalone. Such importation was likely done by American traders who dominated the sea otter pelt trade in the Haida Gwaii area from the mid-1790s to the 1840s (Lyle Dick, Parks Canada, pers. comm. 2001)."[10]^: 279 This trade is important as the "Haida used abalone shell fragments for personal adornment including labrets, jewellery, appliqué on garments, inlay into personal ceremonial dress such as frontlets, and inlay in argillite carvings for sale (Barbeau 1953). Boas (1898: 15) reports that sometimes pieces were glued directly to the skin for facial decoration.", and some families adopted abalone shells as crests.[10]^{: 276–277}

"The name Edenshaw is first mentioned by fur traders of the 1790s. As with all Haida chiefly names, it was passed down the matrilineal line to a chief's eldest sister's son. At least one Chief Edenshaw preceded the one who dominated most of the nineteenth century, Albert Edward Edenshaw.

Albert Edward Edenshaw built his house in Kiusta around 1840 after the details of the carvings on the corner posts, rafter ends and frontal pole were revealed to him in a dream. He named it Story House, and it stood on the site of his predecessor's dwelling, called Property House. When Story House was finished, Albert Edward gave a great potlatch and invited guests from Masset, Skidegate, Kaisun and Cha'atl, as well as from Kaigani villages. The noted artist Charles Edenshaw, who was Albert Edward's nephew and heir, made a model of Story House for John R. Swanton, and it is now at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.[10]^{: 276–277}

The Stastas Eagles are part of the Eagle contingent on the north coast of the Islands. It has been suggested that the Stastas originated outside of the Islands, some probably on the Stikine River and others on the Nass River. Although most of their lands were around Rose Spit, at the northeastern tip of the Islands, and in Naden Harbour, they were town chiefs of Kiusta village at the northwest end.[7]^: 14