APPENDIX
A:
Brief Description of Alaskan Athabascan
Culture
I. GENERAL INFORMATION
Interior Alaska has some of the harshest environmental conditions
in the world. Its continental climate is a study of extremes -
extreme cold in the winter (it is not unusual for temperatures to be
in the -50's) and extreme heat in the summer (often in the
80's). In addition, summer days become exercises in patience and
endurance because of the hordes of mosquitoes which abound at that
time of year. The land is wooded with spruce, willow, and birch, and
is traversed by many river systems.
Athabascan Indians have lived in this
environment characterized by forest, rivers, and extreme climate for
centuries, their ancestors for thousands of years before them. As
might be expected, their way of life has incorporated a series of
adaptations to the environment, and many aspects of the culture can
be traced to these adaptations.
The name "Athabascan" comes from the
large lake in Canada called "Lake Athabasca". The lake was given its
name by the Cree Indians, who lived east of it. In Cree, "Athabasca"
means "grass here and there", and was a descriptive name for the
lake. The name was extended to refer to those Indian groups which
lived west of the lake. It also refers to the large language family
of which all the languages of Athabascan Indians are a part.
There are eleven different Athabascan
languages in Alaska, many others in Canada (see the Native Peoples
and Languages of Alaska map), some in California and Oregon, and the
Navajo and Apache languages in the Southwestern United States. Within
each of the eleven Alaskan Athabascan language groups there are local
dialects, and in the past each dialect corresponded with a social and
geographical unit called a "regional band", made up of from 30 to 100
nuclear families. (A nuclear family is a unit consisting of parents
and their ungrown offspring.) The eleven language groups themselves
were not political units, and Athabascans did not recog-nize
membership in any group larger than the regional band (dialect
group). Thus, although the language of several regional bands was
Ingalik, members of those regional bands did not consider them-selves
part of the same large group called "Ingalik". The eleven language
groups were thus externally observed groups, not groups in the minds
of the Athabascans themselves.
Three major principles affected the
social groupings of Alaskan Athabascans:
The first principle was pragmatism. Group
formation was dependent on the number of people who could most
efficiently utilize the resources available. Since different
resources required different numbers of people, a person belonged to
several different social groupings in any one year.
For instance, summer fish camp often
brought an entire regional band together. There were enough fish for
all, and often the site for fish camp was the part of the local river
system which was most abundant in fish. The entire regional band
might also join together for fall caribou hunts, when the cooperation
of all members was necessary to repair and man the caribou
fence.
In the winter, the regional band might
split up into smaller units, called local bands, each one made up of
perhaps four nuclear families. Each local band had its own territory
within the territory of the regional band, and engaged in hunting and
trapping activities at this time of year.
The regional band might meet again at a
predetermined place and time in mid-winter for a gathering-up
ceremony or potlatch, and then split up again for beaver and muskrat
trapping.
Athabascans thus recognized membership in
a regional band (dialect group) as described above, but the more
important social unit was the local band. Members of this local band
lived together and moved around the territory together.
The second principle which determined
social grouping was kinship. Local band members were generally
related to each other in some manner, either on the mother's or
father's side. Although kinship was determined on both sides, each
person also had a more specific identification with relatives in the
maternal line. A person belonged to the same "side", "clan" or "sib" as his mother,
and all other members of the same sib were relatives of a very special nature.
One couldn't marry a member of the same sib
(but one could marry members of one's father's sib). In addition,
wars and gathering-ups (potlatches) were sib affairs.
Most of the Alaskan Athabascan groups
recognized three sibs, and each sib was in some cases divided into
smaller named family units. Sibs have not operated in some areas for
many years, however, and neither Indians nor anthropologists are
aware of the total importance which the sibs had in pre-contact
days.
The third principle governing Athabascan
social grouping was individual choice. Each person was free to choose
his local band affiliation within certain bounds. In general, a
person was accepted into a band as long as he had relatives in the
band. Aside from this limitation, people could choose among several
local bands within a regional band. This allowed the local bands to
be fluid groups, with individuals changing membership as personality
conflicts or availability of game dictated.
Each regional band (and, to some extent,
each individual) had its own life-ways, beliefs, and customs. Despite
the differences between bands, certain generalizations can be made
about Athabascan life. Those things which were common to all the
groups, were on the one hand, the parts of the culture which were
most dependent on the environment. And were most closely adapted to
the environ-ment, and on the other hand, were a series of beliefs
about the environment which remained fairly constant across the
linguistic boundaries.
For instance, Athabascans used every
available resource in their food quest. Thus, the general pattern of
life was one of fishing in the summer and fall, to take advantage of
the salmon runs and schools of whitefish and grayling, with hunting
caribou in the fall, trapping water mammals in the spring, and
harvesting vegetable foods (roots and berries) in the spring, summer
and fall. The food quest was, of course, much more complicated than
that, but the general pattern was very similar throughout the
interior.
Variations occur where the environment is
slightly different from the inland wooded riverine environment
assumed above. Thus, the groups who lived on Cook Inlet took
advantage of the abundant source of sea mammals which was available
to them. The Ingalik and Lower Koyukon groups which lived along the
Lower Yukon where fish runs were large and regular spent a greater
part of their year harvesting fish than did those groups farther
inland. Finally, people in groups such as the Chandalar Kutchin, who
lived in the foothills of the Brooks Range, spent a larger percentage
of their time hunting big game animals like caribou and mountain
sheep.
The animistic belief system common to all
Alaskan Athabascan groups might be briefly characterized as follows:
All creatures, and some inanimate objects, had spirits which were
active and powerful components of those creatures. The spirits
enabled an animal to know more than was immediately apparent to him.
Thus, if human beings did something which displeased the animal's
spirit, the animal itself would remain aloof from the people, and the
people might starve. There were very definite rules which people had
to follow in dealing with animals based on this belief in animal
spirits. The specific rules differed from area to area, but the
general concept was the same throughout.
The belief in animal spirits was actually
a logical extension of what the hunters knew about their environment.
When all past experiences and logic told a hunter that game should be
in a certain area, and it was not there, then the conclusion the
hunter drew was that there was a reason for the animal's aloofness.
And the reason was, often, that the hunter or a member of his band
had broken a taboo and angered the animal's spirit. A sub-sequent
ceremony attempted to conciliate the spirit.
Material culture was also similar
throughout Interior Alaska, again with variations depending on the
specific environ-mental conditions of specific areas. The most
notable variations from the inland hunting and fishing emphasis
displayed by these artifacts occurred among the peripheral Athabascan
groups, the Ingalik and Tanaina. The Ingalik, with their heavy
reliance on fish, had many more specialized fishing implements than
did other groups. The Tanaina, bordered by Eskimos and close to
Tlingits, borrowed various elements of material culture from those
cultures.
II: THE YEARLY CYCLE BEGINS
Movement from place to place was an essential part of the lives of
most Alaskan Athabascans. The local band was generally the social
unit which stayed together in the travels for food.
The following excerpt from Olson's
Master's Thesis (1968: 41) describes the yearly movements of one
group, the Minto Lower Tanana:
There was a regular pattern to the
hunting and fishing migrations which demanded that the people be on
the move almost continually throughout the year. They had to travel
in small bands. Late in the fall, men who controlled the moose or
caribou fence would gather their friends and relatives and set out
for the small encampment near the fence. This is where the log houses
were located. They would remain in this camp until mid-December or
January. If there was to be a potlatch, they would travel to a
central point where they would meet others for the celebra-tion. If
any were going down the Kuskokwim, they would start in January and
return about three months later. Later on in January, they would be
back out in small bands searching for caribou or moose, and trapping
smaller animals and birds until late in the spring. In the warm
weather, they would move to the lakes before break-up to trap beaver
and muskrats. As summer approached they moved to their fish camps on
the small rivers where they fished and hunted water fowl until the
fall.
III: WINTER TIME-SETTLING IN FOR
AWHILE
For Alaskan Athabascans, mid-winter meant a slowing down of activity
and a temporary settling down for a few months. Each local band
generally settled down at a site near the river, but set back into
the woods a bit and up on a rise where tempera-tures are usually a
little warmer than they are in hollows. The winter camp was often in
the locale of the caribou fence that the band used and was inhabited
from the time of the hunt until January or February, when days were
longer and warmer and families moved out to hunting camps. Exceptions
to this general pattern were the Ingalik and Tanaina groups, whose
regional bands inhabit-ed their winter villages for the greater part
of the year, depart-ing in summer for fish camps.
Winter camp was made up of several
households, and although the exact house plan and building materials
varied from area to area, the winter houses of many Athabascan groups
were similar.
They were semi-subterranean structures
made of a wood frame covered by birch or spruce bark, which was
itself covered by moss, and topped with dirt. All that was visible of
the houses from ground level were mounds of snow with smoke curling
out of the centers.
The most obvious variations from this
type of winter house appeared in the Cook Inlet Tanaina and Ingalik
areas. Tanaina winter houses were also semi-subterranean, but they
were larger than the interior Athabascan houses, and housed several
families. Also, the outsides of Tanaina houses were composed of wood
boards chinked with moss between the boards and then thatched with
grass, rather than the bark/moss/dirt combination described above.
They were called "barabaras" by the Russians, and that name has since
been adopted to identify Tanaina houses.
Ingalik homes were also
semi-subterranean, though they were built on a model which closely
resembled Eskimo winter houses more than the "typical" Athabascan
model described above. Eskimo influence was also evident in that
Ingalik vil-lages contained kashims, or large men's houses, used as
men's sleeping quarters and workrooms and as ceremonial
centers.
The semi-subterranean house plan used by
most Alaskan Native groups in winter is excellent for retaining heat,
as there is little surface area through which heat can escape, and
cold winds cannot penetrate the structure. In addition, the many
layers of insulation used on Interior Athabascan winter houses kept
the inside quite warm.
The make-up of an Athabascan household
was variable, even within a single band. An extremely charismatic
leader, who was usually a good hunter as well, might house several
families in his home. Other households might hold two nuclear
families, or might hold an extended family consisting of a man and
woman, their young children, a sibling or two, and their aged
parents. Again the exception is the Tanaina household, which
contained several nuclear families. In almost all cases, more than
one set of adults lived in a single house. This had implications for
child rearing, since any children in the house benefited from having
a variety of role models and protectors, as well as potential
step-parents should their own die. It also meant that there was
little individual privacy inside. It might be noted that the concept
of individual privacy as Anglo culture knows it is a recent
innovation in the history of humanity.
Life in the winter camp was a bit more
slow moving than life during the rest of the year. Extreme cold,
sometimes below -40, prohibited extended trips for weeks at a time.
Some food gathering activity still took place; for instance, snares
were put out all around the camp, deadfalls were set to catch larger
game, and men went out on short hunting trips for a couple of days at
a time. Still, most of the local band was in camp at any one time
during the dead of winter.
Favorite activities during the winter
were story telling, singing, and dancing. Not only were old legends,
humorous hunting stories, and myths told, but children were also
given instruction in proper modes of behavior. Many Athabascan
stories contain morals which were made quite explicit to
children.
Winter was also the time for the annual
Gathering-Up festi-vals, lately called potlatches after the somewhat
similar affairs which were held along the Northwest Coast.
Neighboring bands were invited in mid-winter for one or two weeks of
feasting, dan-cing, and singing. The Gathering-ups were given in
honor of a deceased sib member, and presents were given away in his
memory. The festivals also served to enhance the prestige of the
persons who hosted them. In addition, social and kinship
relationships were sometimes established by the arranging of
marriages be-tween members of different regional bands. Trade
relation-ships were also sometimes established at Gathering-Ups when
men from different regional bands decided to become trading
partners.
As with other elements of Athabascan
culture, there were regional variations in the form and function of
the winter potlatches. For instance, Lower Koyukon Athabascans at
Nulato and Kaltag hold a Stick Dance, as did people in Shageluk and
Holikachuk in the past.
IV: BEYOND THE BAND
Potlatches
Although the family and the local band
have been stressed up until now as representing the social world of
Alaskan Athabascans, the interior Indians did have periodic contact
with people from other groups. The Gathering-Up Ceremony or potlatch
has been discussed in the previous section. This was one event at
which people from different local and even region-al bands met. The
several regional bands attending a potlatch might have spoken
slightly different dialects which were none-theless close enough to
each other to be mutually intelligible. The importance of potlatches
in establishing friendly ties with outside groups has already been
discussed: marriages and trade partnership often grew out of
association at a potlatch.
Wars and
Feuds
Relations between neighboring bands were
not always friendly, however. Wars among people of different bands
and between the Indians and neighboring cultures (particularly Eskimo
and Tlingit) were quite frequent in pre-contact times. These wars
took the form of surprise raids and ambushes rather than open,
planned, hand-to-hand combat. A war became a feud when two groups
con-tinually raided each other's settlements in retaliation of
casualties incurred during the previous attack.
The original motives for wars seem to
have been desire for women and for goods, and, in the case of ongoing
feuds, revenge. A principle which seems to have underlain feuds was
similar to a Judaeo-Christian precept, "An eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth". When a member of a person's family was killed, it was
his duty to avenge that death. If the murderers were of a different
band and totally unrelated, the death of a member of the murderer's
family was often the only satisfac-tory payment for the first murder.
On the other hand, a family sometimes accepted payment in goods for
the death of a relative, the amount of payment depending on the
status of the dead per-son. People were more likely to accept payment
from a close friend or relative than from strangers or members of an
enemy group.
Another important concept for
understanding wars and feuds is the insider-outsider dichotomy which
was part of the pre-contact Athabascan world view. Language and
kinship relationships served to define who was a member of the
in-group to some extent, but even more, the people to whom one was
closely related and with whom one came into contact day after day
(the local band members) were considered part of one's group. The
less well one knew another person and the other person's customs, the
less one identified with him, and the less his death affected one
personally.
Since the extended family (which made up
the membership of a local band) was the most important social unit to
an individual, it is not surprising that feuds were basically family
or sib affairs, not regional band affairs. It was the family's
responsibility to avenge the death of one of its mem-bers, although
other band members who were not members of the same sib sometimes
went along if the war leader were charis-matic enough to persuade
them. Since kin relationships extended beyond the band, however, it
was often also true that a member of the band might warn a relative
in the enemy band that an attack was imminent. This seems to have
happened as often as did cooperation among different families within
the band. The individualistic nature of Athabascan society is
highlighted in this aspect of their culture as with others: a person
could choose whether or not he wished to take part in a raid.
Trade
Another type of contact with outsiders
took the form of trade relationships. As was stated above, men often
established trade partnerships with a member of a neighboring
Athabascan band or Eskimo community, so that they could conduct trade
on a person-to-person level and be assured of safe travel in strange
territory.
Extensive trade routes were well
established between Athabascan groups and their neighbors before
white men came to Alaska. In pre-contact days, the commodities the
Athabascans obtained from neighboring Native groups had sometimes
origin-ated in Europe and had filtered through the trade routes until
they finally reached interior Alaska (usually the end of the route
for trade goods) from the east or west. But there were
also Native goods which were traded from
area to area. No one part of the north was abundant in all resources,
and inland peoples traded with seashore peoples to their mutual
advantage.
V: SPRING AGAIN
Late in winter, from March until May, was a time of long days and
often good travel conditions. Snow obtained a crust which made
hunting on snowshoes easy, but which was not sturdy enough to hold
moose. Hence moose hunting was good at this time of year. Other
hunting and trapping activities in-creased, as described in Chapter
IV of Tetlin As I Knew It. Local bands began their travels once
again, leaving the semi--permanent winter houses behind and hauling
skin tents to good hunting and trapping locales.
The lengthening of the days
signaled the time for another activity, at least for the Koyukon
Indians: it was the time to pose riddles. Father Jette' noted,
As the story telling
occupies the long winter evenings and entertains the Ten'a
(Koyukon) during the time that precedes the winter sol-stice, so
also the proposing of riddles is the time-honored recreation for
the latter half of the winter, when the days wax long, and the
chilled hearts, under the sun's increasing brightness and warmth,
begin to cheer, and fill with glowing anticipation of the
exuberant summer life.* (*Father Julius Jette', "Riddles of
the Ten'a Indians" in Anthropos 1913, p. 181.)
The pattern of hunting and trapping
subsistence activities by day, often followed by riddle telling at
night, continued until just before break-up. Break-up was perhaps the
roughest time of year for pre-contact Athabascans. Caches were almost
empty and animals were thin from a long, cold winter. Fish hadn't
started to run yet, birds hadn't returned to the north, ice was
dangerous to travel on, but the water wasn't open, so travel by canoe
was impossible.
Once break-up finally came, though,
spring, and soon afterward summer, had finally arrived. Shoots from
new plants were gathered, fishing started again, and the busy summer
and fall activities were under way.
Athabascans
of Interior Alaska
