Tlingit

My sidewalk friend told me he is Tlingit an Alaskan Indian and was severely abused fetal alcohol child. I ran home and read about the Tlingit. The next time I saw him on my walk I told him about my reading. He was overjoyed.

Alaska Native Communities on Harriman's Route
Excerpted from The Native People of Alaska by Steve J. Langdon, published by Greatland Graphics, Anchorage, 1978. Used with permission

In 1899, the Harriman party encountered Eskimos in Bering Sea communities of both Alaska and Siberia. Grinnell's descriptions of these communities reveal how closely the Eskimo communities were bound to the sea in every aspect of their lives. Food, clothing, fuel, materials for their homes and boats were all derived from the creatures they hunted in the sea. They made their hunting weapons from whalebone and walrus ivory, and carried their entire stock of possessions from summer to winter villages in sealskin bags.

Grinnell predicted that the Eskimos' immediate future was "gloomy." He knew that, with fur seals in serious decline, with commercial whaling and gold mining on the rise, these Eskimo communities could not long maintain their traditional way of life.
The Tlingit/Haida

Occupying the islands and mainland of southeast Alaska are the northernmost groups of the Northwest Coast cultures; the Tlingit and Haida Indians. They are well-known for their distinctive art represented in totem poles and other elegantly carved objects.

The Tlingit and Haida are more similar to Indians along the coast of present day British Columbia than to other Alaskan groups. The Tlingit occupied the vast majority of the area from Yakutat Bay to Portland Canal while the Kaigani Haida, whose Haida relatives occupied the Queen Charlotte Island off the north coast of British Columbia, controlled the southern half of the Prince of Wales archipelago. The two groups share similar social and cultural patterns; however, their languages are unrelated and they have distinct ethnic identities.

The Tlingit were divided into 13 units, sometimes erroneously labelled "tribes" (they were not tribes because there was no political unity at this level) to which the suffix kwan was applied. This terminology defines a group of people who lived in a region, shared residence in several communities, intermarried, and were at peace. The total Tlingit population was about 15,000 at the time of contact. The most numerous groups were those living on the Stikine and Chilkat rivers. The Kaigani Haida population was about 1,800 people at the time of European contact.

The Tlingit and Haida had similar settlement patterns which included relatively permanent winter villages occupied from October or November to March. From these villages, small groups of people dispersed to seasonal camps during the spring, summer and early fall.

Grinnell described the Tlingits as "a hardy race. Living on the shore, bold mariners and sea hunters, they are also mountaineers, familiar with the towering peaks, the dreadful cliffs, and the mighty glaciers of the iron-bound coast. In their frail canoes they venture far to sea in pursuit of the fur-seal, the sea-otter, and the whale." Harriman himself must have recognized the value of such skill. At Yakutat, he invited a Tlingit named James to accompany them as a guide for the rest of the expedition.

Material from The Native People of Alaska, by Steve J. Langdon, c. Greatland Graphics, used with permission.