Dena'inaq' Huch'ulyeshi: The Dena'ina Way of Living
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Dena'inaq' Huch'ulyeshi: The Dena'ina Way of Living
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Overview
Lavishly illustrated with more than six hundred photographs, maps, and drawings, Dena’inaq’ Huch’ulyeshi contains 469 entries on Dena’ina objects in European and American collections. It is enriched with examples of traditional Dena’ina narratives, first-person accounts, and interviews. Thirteen essays on the history and culture of the Athabascan people put the pieces into a larger historical context. This catalog is a comprehensive reference that will also accompany a large-scale exhibition running September 2013 through January 2014 at the Anchorage Museum.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781602232075 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Alaska Press |
| Publication date: | 10/15/2013 |
| Pages: | 350 |
| Sales rank: | 775,756 |
| Product dimensions: | 10.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
James Fall is statewide program manager for the Division of Subsistence, Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Aaron Leggett is special exhibitions curator at the Anchorage Museum.
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DENA'INAQ'HUCH'ULYESHI
The Dena'ina Way of Living
By Suzi Jones, James A. Fall, Aaron Leggett
University of Alaska Press
Copyright © 2013 Anchorage Museum AssociationAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60223-207-5
CHAPTER 1
Introduction to Dena'ina Culture and History
James A. Fall
Dena'ina Elnena, the Dena'ina homeland, encompasses about 41,000 square miles of Southcentral Alaska. As the only Northern Athabascan people whose traditional territory bordered on salt water, most Dena'ina had access to the natural resources of marine waters and tidelands, as well as rivers, lakes, forests, and mountains. Their diverse subarctic environment provided seasonal abundance, followed by periods of scarcity. The Dena'ina were probably the most numerous of all Alaska Athabascan peoples, with an aboriginal population of perhaps four thousand to five thousand (Townsend 1981:637).
The Dena'ina are one people traditionally speaking a single language, which can be divided into four mutually intelligible dialects. The most divergent dialect is the upper Cook Inlet dialect, spoken in the Tyonek area, in the lower and middle Susitna River drainage, along Knik Arm and the Matanuska River as far upriver as Chickaloon, and at Point Possession on the northernmost tip of the Kenai Peninsula. The other three dialects are more similar to each other. The Outer Inlet dialect was spoken on the Kenai Peninsula as far south as Seldovia and along a portion of western Cook Inlet around Kustatan and Polly Creek. Speakers of the Iliamna dialect lived along the eastern shores of Iliamna Lake. The Inland dialect was spoken in the drainages of Six Mile Lake and Lake Clark, the upper Mulchatna River, and the Stony River.
Anthropologist Cornelius Osgood noted differences between the Athabascans of the Mackenzie River drainage of northern Canada and those of the Pacific drainages of northwestern Canada and Alaska. The former groups lacked salmon, were generally egalitarian in social organization, were very mobile, and lacked clans and matrilineal organization. In contrast, the richer and more varied ecological setting of the Athabascans of the Pacific drainages appears to have supported more complex cultures, with semisedentary villages, matrilineal kinship and clan organization, formal leadership positions based on an interest in wealth and prestige, and large-scale ceremonial potlatching (Osgood 1936; VanStone 1974:49).
In their rich and diverse but variable natural environment, the Dena'ina built on this northwest Athabascan pattern, developing a "ranked" society based on the accumulation and redistribution of food, furs, and wealth items such as dentalium. Nevertheless, Dena'ina culture also exhibited other key features of the general Northern Athabascan way of life, such as flexibility, individualism, and a worldview that stressed respectful interactions with the nonhuman world (VanStone 1974:23, 59; Townsend 1980; Fall 1987). Unless otherwise noted, this chapter describes the "traditional" Dena'ina way of life at the time of the first interactions with Russian, British, and other European explorers and traders in the mid- to late eighteenth century.
Names
Dena'ina means "the people" and is today the preferred self-designation among all Dena'ina. Based on the Russian spelling "Tnaina" (Wrangell 1980 [1839]:52), Osgood rendered the name as "Tanaina" (1933), and that spelling was standard in English into the 1980s, when the Alaska Native Language Center switched to the now favored "Dena'ina."
The Alutiit of Kodiak Island called the Dena'ina Kenaiyut, from which the Russians derived Kinaiuts (Wrangell 1980 [1839]:52) or "Kenaitze," their name for the Dena'ina (Townsend 1981:638). This name survives in the official name of the Kenaitze Tribe of the Kenai Peninsula, but it is not used by other Dena'ina For the Ahtna, Athabascan neighbors of the Dena'ina to the northeast, the Dena'ina are the Dastnaey, "the people out ahead."
Origins
Although the Dena'ina were firmly established along the shores of Cook Inlet when Euro-American explorers arrived in the late eighteenth century, the origins of the Dena'ina and the approximate date of their arrival in the Cook Inlet area have long been of scholarly interest. The Dena'ina are the only Northern Athabascans whose territory borders salt water; all other Northern Athabascans live inland along rivers and in mountainous terrain. Ethnographic and linguistic evidence thus points to an interior origin for the Dena'ina. For example, writing in the 1830s, Ferdinand Wrangell suggested that
It is probable that the Kenay [Dena'ina] came to the place they now occupy from across the mountains. These migrant mountain people ultimately became coastal and semisettled; they formerly used birch bark canoes on lakes and rivers, and these have remained with them even now, but they also use baidarkas and baidaras covered with laftak (the tanned hides of sea mammals), probably adopted from the Kadyaks or Chugach. They cannot compete with the latter in skill and courage of navigation. Their favorite occupation remains the hunting of animals in the forests beyond the mountains. (1970 [1839]:12)
Likewise, applying linguistic and ethnographic evidence, James Kari concluded that
The ancient Dena'ina were a mountain people. The area west of the Alaska Range in the Inland dialect area is probably the oldest Dena'ina homeland. Some bands of Dena'ina may have been participating in coastal activities on Cook Inlet for as long as 1,500 years. In the middle and upper Cook Inlet, the Dena'ina developed well-established routes for sharing in the labor and the products of both upland and coastal areas. By maintaining control of the key passes and transportation corridors in the Alaska Range and an aggressive posture, Dena'ina bands gradually annexed areas east and south—Lake Clark and Iliamna Lake and Cook Inlet basin—some of the finest resource areas in Alaska. (1988:336)
Kari suggested that the Dena'ina reached Cook Inlet in two migrations. The first, through either Rainy Pass or Ptarmigan Pass, brought the upper Inlet people into the Susitna River country, from where they occupied the coastal area around Tyonek as well as Knik Arm and its tributaries. In a second, later movement, the Dena'ina reached the middle inlet from Iliamna Lake, establishing the Outer Inlet dialect on the Kenai Peninsula (1996b; see also Boraas 2007). Because of the large differences between the upper Inlet dialect and the other three dialects, the upper Inlet regional bands likely had been separated from the others for a substantial period of time. Additional evidence of the considerable length of Dena'ina occupation of the upper inlet is the diffusion of linguistic and cultural traits, including those of several matrilineal clans, to the upper Inlet people from the Ahtna Athabascans of the Copper River drainage to the northeast (Kari 1977).
The Dena'ina themselves acknowledge an origin outside the Cook Inlet country. Their oral traditions tell of battles with the Alutiit (ulchena), perhaps for control of the Cook Inlet basin. One Dena'ina tradition of their arrival in Cook Inlet is provided by Alberta Stephan of Eklutna:
Many years before the influx of the Russian fur traders and Russian settlements in Cook Inlet, there were wars with other Natives that had settled along the coastal regions of Alaska. The Athabascan Natives lived in the central mountain regions. They had winter homes where there was drinking water, meat and fur-bearing animals. Every spring there was a migration to their summer fish camps. Each family had their own fish camp along the coast of Knik Arm and Cook Inlet. You will note that the Athabascan place names are a description of the area. We don't know how long after the last war with the other Natives that the Athabascans started settling along Knik Arm and Cook Inlet. (1994:85; see also Stephan 1996a:147)
Also of note is that the Dena'ina name for the upper Stony River/Mulchatna River plateau, Htsaynenq', may be translated as "First Land," thus suggesting this area as the original homeland of all Dena'ina groups (Kari 1996a).
Social Organization: Clans and Moieties
In addition to age and gender, three organizational principles grounded a person in Dena'ina society: kinship, residence, and rank.
Every Dena'ina person was a member of one of about fifteen matrilineal clans, which were organized into two "sides" or "moieties" (table 1.1). In matrilineal clans, descent is traced through the female line, with the children belonging to their mother's clan. Dena'ina clans and moieties were exogamous, meaning that people had to marry someone outside their own descent group and in a clan of the opposite side, or moiety. For example, not only could a Nulchina man not marry a Nulchina woman, he also could not marry a Tulchina woman, because Nulchina and Tulchina were in the same moiety. Rather, he had to marry a woman of the K'kalayi, Chishyi, Ggahyi, or other clan of the opposite side. Hence, while children were of the same clan as their mother and siblings, their father belonged to an opposite clan. Most Dena'ina clans have equivalents among other Athabascan groups. Thus, clan membership extended the web of an individual's kin to other villages and other territories, although not every Dena'ina clan had members in all parts of Dena'ina territory (Fall 1981:409–427, 1987:39–40; de Laguna 1975).
Traditional stories explain the origins of clans (e.g., Kalifornsky 1991:205). Shem Pete's Nulchina clan origin story (see p. 99) tells how his Nulchina clan descended from the sky during a conflict between the allied Tulchina clan and the clans of the opposite moiety. Upper Inlet traditions trace the origins of the Chishyi, K'kalayi, and Ggahyi clans to three sisters who traveled down the Matanuska River and took their names from objects they found along the way. Katherine Nicolie explained the origin of her Tulchina clan as follows:
Those Tulchina girls were pretty and they came out of the water, naked. They lived in the water. A K'kalayi man saw them every day, playing, and at sunset they disappeared. Once he crept up to them but they smelled him and they took off. He figured out a way to get one of them. He dug a hole in the ground to where they come out of the water. The next morning a bunch of Tulchina women from the bottom of the water came out. He snuck up and when one girl got close, he jumped up and grabbed her. He was really chewed up but he held her until the sun went down. She bit and scratched and it was getting cold as the sun went down. She said, 'Won't you let me go?' 'No. I want you for my wife.' 'Alright,' she said. 'Spit in my mouth.' He did. She turned around with her back towards him and said, 'Pee on my back all over.' He did. And finally she turned into human. That's how Tulchina come from, from the bottom of the water. (Fall 1981:419)
Clan membership was expressed through colors, for example, white or blue for Nulchina, blue for Tulchina, and red for Chishyi. Osgood (1937:131) described distinctive patterns of face painting linked to clan membership.
Social Organization: Regional Bands and Villages
The second principle of Dena'ina social organization is residence. Every Dena'ina person was affiliated with a named regional band. Regional band names generally consisted of the name of a place or area and the suffix ht'ana, which means "people of [a place or area]." Each regional band had its own territory where its members followed their seasonal round of subsistence activities. Kari (2007:73–76) lists twenty Dena'ina regional bands. Examples for upper Cook Inlet include the Tubughna (Beach People) of the Tyonek area on the northwest shore of Cook Inlet, the Susitnuht'ana (Sand River People) of the lower and middle Susitna River drainage, and the K'enaht'ana (exact meaning unknown) of the Knik Arm and Matanuska River drainage. Examples for the outer inlet area include the Kahtnuht'ana of the Kenai River, the Tsaht'ana of the Kenai Mountains, and the She'unh Ht'ana or Kachemak Bay Dena'ina. The Dena'ina of Iliamna Lake were the Nila Vena Ht'ana. Inland Dena'ina regional bands included, among others, the Htsaynenht'ana of the upper Stony River and Telaquana Lake, the Va?ts'atnaht'an of the Mulchatna River, and the Qizhjeht'an of Lake Clark.
With population losses following outbreaks of epidemic diseases in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the number of regional bands likely diminished as people aggregated at fewer winter villages (Fall 1987:29–31). For example, before population decline, the people of the lower Susitna River, concentrated around the village of Tuqenkaq' (at the mouth of Alexander Creek), were probably distinct from the middle Susitna and Yentna River regional bands.
Within each regional band were named villages (qayeh), the sites of one or more multifamily dwellings called nichil, made of logs and birch bark (Figure 5.1a b c). Occupying each village and house were extended families related through matrilineal kinship. The village is the Dena'ina equivalent to the "local band" among less sedentary Athabascan groups.
The Dena'ina settlement pattern can be described as one with a "complex of seasonal settlements with permanent bases" (Fall 1987:28–29). The permanent, or perhaps more precisely semi-permanent, bases were the villages that were occupied in late fall, winter, and into early spring. Here, supplies of dried fish, meat, oil, and other staples were stored for winter subsistence, trade, and potlatching. Villages also served as bases for hunting, trapping, and fishing activities of relatively short duration. Dena'ina elders stated that in precontact times, they were "village people, not nomads." By this they mean that while the Dena'ina moved extensively within their territories, and often established seasonal fishing, hunting, and trapping camps, they were based out of, and identified with, particular villages to which they returned year after year. It should also be noted that the most important Dena'ina ceremony, the memorial potlatch, took place in winter at villages (Osgood 1937:149–160; Fall 1987:63–65).
Dena'ina tradition bearers stress that both environmental and sociopolitical criteria figured in the choice of winter village sites. Of particular importance was proximity to good fishing locations. An adequate supply of wood for building, crafts, fuel, and preparing smoked fish and meat was essential, as was a good water supply. Elders state that all villages were eventually abandoned when wood supplies were exhausted. People then moved to other appropriate, familiar places. New villages also were founded when individuals achieved qeshqa status, built a new nichil, and attracted follower kin from other locations (Fall 1987). In this sense, village sites were "recycled," probably over the course of several decades.
Another important factor in the selection of village sites was ease of defense. Along Cook Inlet, for example, villages were usually situated on high bluffs or near hills or "knobs" so that water routes could be carefully surveyed for the approach of enemy war parties. In addition, each village usually had one or more hidden camps to which its inhabitants could retreat when under attack (Fall 1987:29).
Social Organization: Leaders and Followers
The third principle of Dena'ina social organization is rank. Osgood (1937:131–133) reported that Dena'ina society was composed of three "social classes" based on wealth: the "aristocracy," "commoners," and "slaves." However, because virtually all individuals had access to basic resources and had choices about where to live, it is more instructive to view the Dena'ina social system as one based on ranked kinship and the culturally prescribed utilization of wealth, rather than on socioeconomic classes. Essentially, Dena'ina communities were composed of highly ranked leaders and their followers (Townsend 1980; Fall 1987:40).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from DENA'INAQ'HUCH'ULYESHI by Suzi Jones, James A. Fall, Aaron Leggett. Copyright © 2013 Anchorage Museum Association. Excerpted by permission of University of Alaska Press.
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Table of Contents
Yagheli Du!Foreword
Elders, Advisers, and Lenders to the Exhibition
Introduction and Acknowledgments
1 Introduction to Dena’ina Culture and History, by James A. Fall
2 Quyushi Uqu Che’el’ani: Beluga Hunting, by Shem Pete
3 An Overview of Research on Dena’ina Culture, History, and Language, by James A. Fall
4 Dena’ina Archaeology, by Douglas Reger
5 Dena’ina Qeshqa: Leaders and Political Organization, by James A. Fall
6 The Nulchina Clan Origin Story of the Upper Inlet Dena’ina, told by Shem Pete with assistance from Billy Pete; transcription and commentary by James A. Fall
7 “What Is Good, What Is No Good”: The Traditional Dena’ina Worldview, by Alan Boraas
8 Ye’uh Qach’dalts’iyi: “What We Live On from the Outdoors”, by Karen Evanoff and Michelle Ravenmoon
9 Dach’hdi lu t’qidyuq… “and that’s the way it happened”: The Tradition of Dena’ina Storytelling, by Joan M. Tenenbaum
10 Gunhti Stsukdu’a: Ki Nch’uk’a “Tanaina” Ghayele’ This is My Story: “Tanaina” No More, by Aaron Leggett
11 An Inland Dena’ina Material Culture Anthology, by James Kari
12 Photo Essay: Making a Whitefish Trap
13 “Dressed as a Rich Person”: Dena’ina Clothing in the Nineteenth Century, by Judy Thompson
14 Silent Messaging: Quill and Bead Ornament on Nineteenth-Century Dena’ina Clothing, by Kate C. Duncan
15 Dena’ina Collections in the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), by Sergei Korsun
16 Adrian Jacobsen’s Dena’ina Collection in the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, by Viola König
17 Catalog of Discovery: Dena’ina Material Culture in Museum Collections
The Dena’ina Sound System and Orthography, by James Kari
About the Authors
Bibliography
Index