The Tlingit Indians
- PUBLISHED: October 1991
- SUBJECT LISTING: Native American and Indigenous Studies, Anthropology
- BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION: 530 Pages, 8.5 x 11 in, 65 line drawings, 127 photos
- ISBN: 9780295970080
- Publisher: University of Washington Press
Description
Lieutenant George Thornton Emmons, U.S.N., was station in Alaska during the 1880s and 1890s, a time when the Navy was largely responsible for law and stability in the Territory. His duties brought him into close contact with the Tlingit Indians, whose respect he won and from whom he gained an understanding of and respect for their culture. He became a friend of many Tlingit leaders, visited their homes, traveled in their canoes when on leave, purchased native artifacts, and recorded native traditions. In addition to an interest in native manufacturing and in the more spectacular aspects of native life - such as bear hunting, Chilkat blankets, feuds, and the potlatch - Emmons showed the ethnographer’s devotion to recording all aspects of the culture together with the Tlingit terms, and came to understand Tlingit beliefs and values better than did any of his nonnative contemporaries. He was widely recognized for his extensive collections of Tlingit artifacts and art, and for the detailed notes that accompanied them.
At the request of Morris K. Jesup, president of the American Museum of Natural History (which had purchased Emmons’s first two Tlingit collections), and on the recommendation of Franz Boas, Emmons began to organize his notes and prepare a manuscript on the Tlingit. During his retirement, he published several articles and monographs and continued to study and work on his comprehensive book. But when he died in 1945, the book was still unfinished, and he left several drafts in the museum and also in the provincial archives of British Columbia in Victoria, where he had been writing during the last decades of his life.
Frederica de Laguna, eminent ethnologist and archaeologist with long personal experience with the Tlingit, was asked by the museum to edit The Tlingit Indians for publication. Over the past thirty years she has worked to organize Emmons’s materials, scrupulously following his plan of including extracts from the earliest historical sources. She also has made significant additions from contemporary or more recent authors, and from works unknown ton Emmons or unavailable to him, and has given the ethnography greater historical depth by presenting this information in chronological order. She has also added relevant commentary of her own based on her encyclopedic information about past and present Tlingit culture.
With the help of Jeff Leer of the Alaskan Native Language Center, an expert on Tlingit, she has provided modern phonetic transcriptions of Tlingit words whenever Emmons has given native terms in his own idiosyncratic and inconsistent versions of Tlingit.
This major contribution to the ethnography of the Northwest Coast also includes a meticulously researched biography of Lieutenant Emmons by Jean Low, an extensive bibliography, and thirty-seven tables in which de Laguna draws together and tightens Emmons’s materials on topics such as census data, names of clans and houses, species of plants and their uses, native calendars, and names of gambling sticks. Illustrations include numerous photographs and sketches made and annotated by Emmons.
This volume will be invaluable to anthropologists, historians, and the general public - including the Tlingit Indians themselves, to whom it is dedicated.
Frederica de Laguna , professor emeritus of anthropology at Bryn Mawr College, is the author of the three-volume Under Mount Saint Elias (on the Tlingit of Yakutat) and numerous other works on Alaska archaeology and ethnography.
Authors & Contributors
Frederica de Laguna , professor emeritus of anthropology at Bryn Mawr College, is the author of the three-volume Under Mount Saint Elias (on the Tlingit of Yakutat) and numerous other works on Alaska archaeology and ethnography.
Contents
Abbreviations
Preface: Editing The Tlingit Indians
Transliteration of Tlingit
Acknowledgments
Editor’s Introduction: George Thornton Emmons as Ethnographer
A Biography by Jean Low: Lieutenant George Thornton Emmons, USN, 1852-1945
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE
Physical Features of Tlingit Territory
Climate
Flora and Fauna
The Tlingit
Name
Origin of the Tlingit
Physical Appearance
Character
Health and Disease
Population
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
Introduction
Tlingit Tribes
Phratry or Moiety
Clan
House and Household
Kinship
Crests
Display of the Crest
Painting of the Face
Names
Social Classes
Chiefs
Authority of Chiefs
Slaves
Law
Trade
VILLAGES, HOUSES, FORTS, AND OTHER WORKS
Villages
Houses
Domestic Life
Other Houses and Shelters
Forts
Petroglyphs
Stone Cairns
TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION
Canoes
Manufacture and Repair of Canoes
Appurtenances of the Canoe
Handling the Canoe
Snowshoes
Bags, Packs, Boxes and Sleds
FISHING AND HUNTING
Introduction
Religious Aspects of the Food Quest
Salmon Fishing
Halibut Fishing
Herring Fishing
Eulachon Fishing
Trout Fishing
Other Fish and Marine Invertebrates
Seal Hunting
Porpoise, Sea Lion, and Whale
Sea Otter Hunting
Land Animal Hunting: Aboriginal Weapons
Firearms
Land Animal Hunting: Traps and Snares
Bird Hunting
Hunting Dogs
FOOD AND ITS PREPARATION
Introduction
Salmon
Halibut
Herring and Eulachon
Other Fish and Shellfish
Land Animals
Sea Mammals
Birds
Berries and Other Plant Foods
Tobacco
Drink
Fire Making
Domestic Utensils
ARTS AND INDUSTRIES: MEN’S WORKS
Division of Labor
Work in Stone
“Jade”
Men’s Tools
Work in Horn, Ivory, Shell, and Inlays
Work in Copper
Copper Neck Rings
“Coppers”
Work in Iron
Work in Silver and Gold
Work in Wood
Measurements
Totem Poles
Painting
Art
ARTS AND INDUSTRIES: WOMEN’S WORK
Skin Dressing
Sinew and Intestines
Basketry
Spruce Root Hats
Basketry Designs
Spruce Root Mats
Cedar Bark Weaving
The Chilkat Blanket
DRESS AND DECORATION
Personal Cleanliness
Clothing
Hair Dressing
Ear and Nose Ornaments
Labrets
Bracelets and Necklaces
Face Painting
Tattooing
THE LIFE CYCLE
Birth
Infancy and Childhood
Naming
Girl’s Puberty
Marriage
Death
Cremation
Ceremonies after the Funeral
Shaman’s Graves
Various Other Forms of Disposal of the Dead
Recent Graveyards
Inheritance of Property
Afterlife, Spirits, Souls, Reincarnation
CEREMONIES
Music and Dance
Tlingit Ceremonialism in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
House-Building Ceremonies
Dedication of the House and Raising a Totem Pole
Dick Sa-tan’s Potlatch, 1891
A Major Potlatch
Ceremony for the Children
The Berry Potlatch Dance
WAR AND PEACE
Early Encounters with Europeans
Interclan Warfare
Encounters with Americans
Aboriginal Warfare
Aboriginal Arms and Armor
Arms, Armor, and Tactics, Described by the Early Explorers
Making Peace
Early Accounts of Peace Ceremonies
Peace Ceremonies in 1891 and 1877
ILLNESS AND MEDICINE
Diagnosis of Illness
Cures for External Ailments
Medicines for internal Use
Other “Medicines”
Omens and Amulets
SHAMANISM
Spirits
The Shaman
Becoming a Shaman
The Shaman’s Outfit
The Shaman’s practice
Stories about Shamans
Death of a Shaman
WITCHCRAFT
The Origin of Witches
Shaman and Witch
Witches, Shamans, and the Authorities
GAMES AND GAMBLING
The Stick Game
The Toggle (or Hand) Game
The Dice Game
Spinner
Gambling in the Russian Era
TIME, TIDES, AND WINDS
Count
Time: Seasons and Days
“Moons” of the Year
Tides
Winds
Tables
Bibliography
Index