Alaska Natives at the Time of the Invasions: A Cultural Profile Project

Draft 3

Do not quote or copy without permission from Mike Gaffney or from Ray Barnhardt at the Alaska Native Knowledge Network, University of Alaska-Fairbanks. Mike Gaffney suggests that one read the Teacher's Manual Preview first to get a good idea about the purpose and design of this secondary school textbook.

Mike Gaffney

Chapter 14
Cultural Products

Technology– hunting/fishing gear, tools, weaponry (and armor?), housing, transportation
Applied Science – specialized knowledge of the ecological zone developed to maintain and improve the group’s quality of life

Note: “quality of life” refers to the health, security, and welfare of the group. It indicates the overall well being of the group and not simply economic, political, or military advantages over other groups.

Artistic Expression – design, decoration, materials, artistic purposes

In Chapter Eight we outlined the six parts of our concept of culture. When you finished reading that chapter you may have said to yourself: “But wait a minute! Something is missing. What about a people’s technology and their science and art — the material things they produce that can actually be seen and touched?” They are missing because we consider these visible and material things the products and reflections of culture, but not basic elements of culture itself. Here is why.

We employ what is called a cognitive definition of culture. [Cognition = The mental process of knowing, of reasoning, of being aware.] The cultural elements of speech community, social organization with its cultural rules, cultural identity, and worldview are carried about in the minds and habits of the group’s members. Culture is not a physical thing. It is a mental thing. Technology does not come into existence by itself. It cannot stand by itself. There first must be recognition by the group that a particular technology is needed or desired before efforts are made to design and develop that technology.¹

Technology. Here we use the term technology to mean those material products developed by a Native group in order to maintain and improve the quality of life within their natural and social environments. Indeed, no other element of your Cultural Profile has such a direct connection to the process of environmental adaptation than does technology. This is because technology furnishes the basic means or instruments of adaptation. Housing, clothing, tools, weaponry, and transport (kayaks, canoes, umiaks, dog sleds) are all things we actually see and touch. As such, they can have considerable impact on how we picture a Native group’s way of life. It is what first gets our attention. Any museum we go to anywhere in the world displays cultural products. In fact this is usually a main purpose of museums. But appearances can be deceiving. We must be very careful not to confuse the material products of a culture with our cognitive concept of culture.

But if technology is not part of our core concept of culture, why include it in the Cultural Profile? Remember that the central purpose of your assignment is to develop a detailed profile of what life was like in traditional times for an Alaska Native group. To draw the most complete picture of a people’s way of life requires going beyond elements of cognitive culture. It also requires description of the natural and social environments to which a Native group had to adapt. And it requires a description of the technology and science they developed to successfully accomplish this environmental adaptation.

Cultural products as reflections of cognitive culture. Although technology and its products do not fit within our cognitive definition of culture, they can reflect core cultural elements. Along with increasing our understanding of how a Native group adapted to their environment, cultural products can also tell us something about their cognitive culture. The Central Yup’ik storyknife is a good example of a cultural product or artifact offering a peek into Yup’ik cognitive culture.

Artfully carved out of ivory either by an uncle or the father, the storyknife became one of a young Yup’ik woman’s most prized possessions. Usually the carvings included decorative symbols and images of birds. The storyknife was used mostly by the young woman’s grandmother as a teaching tool. As she told her granddaughter a story of particular cultural significance for women, she would take the knife and draw on the ground pictures and symbols to reinforce the instructional points she was making.

So knowing about an Yup’ik artifact such as the storyknife offers us a window onto aspects of Yup’ik cognitive culture. We catch a glimpse of several important social relationships in a young Yup’ik woman’s life by knowing who carved her storyknife and who was the “educator” who used it. And secondly, we get some sense of the Yup’ik worldview as reflected in the carved illustrations on the knife and the themes of the stories told.²

Native applied science and a good story. Think of applied science as rigorous thinking and experimentation done to improve the physical and material life of the group. Here is a good story to illustrate the point. Several years ago Alaska magazine had an article entitled “The Ice Man” by the Anchorage writer, Charles Wohlforth. Here is part of the story he tells about the Iñupiaq elder, Mr. Kenny Toovak, who was a longtime employee of the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory in Barrow before it closed in 1980:

One fine summer morning decades ago,John Kelley, a marine scientist and later director at Barrow's Naval Arctic Research Laboratory, went to Kenny Toovak, who managed the lab's boats and equipment, and asked for a ride out to Point Barrow in one of the 18-footers with an outboard motor. As the story goes, Kelley had work to get done and limited time, and wanted to go right away. Toovak looked at the sky and told him, with typical Iñupiaq indirectness, "I'd like for you to wait a bit."

Kelley didn't insist at first, but paced around impatiently, making it clear he needed to go soon and saw no reason to wait. The weather looked perfect. In 15 minutes, he returned and told Toovak that it was time to go.

Toovak, a skilled storyteller who can draw out every detail in a slow, dignified style, said he told Kelley, "You really want to go out, I'm going to give you a boat and an outboard. You can go. But I'm no going to give you a driver. And I don' think we're going to look for you, even. You really want to go out, go on and go.'

Kelley returned to his office. Shortly, the wind picked up. It was soon howling, with white caps frothing on top of the waves. He returned once again and said, "Kenny, I thank you for not sending me out."

Scientists and the Iñupiaq of Barrow have worked together, on and off, for 150 years; similar incidents may have happened many times as Eskimos kept scientists safe and taught them about the natural history of the Arctic. Toovak's story stands out because hardly anyone has done as much to bring Iñupiaq knowledge to science, and because, in his early 80s, he is still teaching. Changes in the arctic climate have become a topic of scientific urgency and Toovak's memories have attained special value.

Some scientists would like to reverse- engineer the skill of Eskimo elders, hoping that the signs and patterns that elders use would help researchers understand nature as well. But it's not easy to dissect the magic of what an old man feels in his bones.

When asked what he saw that day with John Kelley decades ago, Toovak said, "It was something about the sky, the clouds and south wind, a bit warm. It's always kind of rapid, it always happens in a rapid way. I learned that lesson from my parents and from the elder people. When the wind is kind of blowing from the south you better hold off for a while and see what the weather will do.”

Elders across the Arctic have told researchers that the weather has become erratic and more difficult to predict since the climate started to change in the past two decades. Atmospheric scientists following up on these observations agreed that the weather is more changeable and cyclonic storms have become more frequent in the Arctic, shorting times of stability and perhaps breaking the rhythm of the winds that the elders had learned to anticipate. (pp. 42-43)

How did Mr. Toovak learn to anticipate an immediate change in Arctic weather so precisely? He said he learned this special knowledge from his parents and other elders as he grew up. And, of course, his parents learned to do such weather forecasting from the generation before them. What is clear is that at some point in the distant past — perhaps over many generations — the Iñupiaq carefully studied these weather patterns. Their very survival in Arctic waters and on sea ice depended on reliably forecasting changing weather conditions. In the language of modern science, it depended on developing a special knowledge of meteorology which is the study of the earth’s atmosphere, especially its patterns of climate and weather.

In another section of his story about Mr. Toovak, Mr. Wohlforth tells us that many of today’s scientists now take very seriously Iñupiaq knowledge of changing Arctic weather patterns and seek ways to fit this traditional Native science into their own work. Scientists also have begun to incorporate Iñupiaq traditional knowledge into other aspects of their work on the Arctic ecosystem. In an earlier chapter we saw an example of this when we discussed how traditional Iñupiaq knowledge of Bowhead Whale behavior has changed the way scientists look for and count current whale populations.

Wohlforth also says that “it’s not easy to dissect the magic of what an old man feels in his bones.” Perhaps not. But we would argue that it is not “magic” at all. What Mr. Toovak really “feels in his bones” is a confidence to apply a specialized body of knowledge built upon generations of very careful study of Arctic weather. What seems like magic was Mr. Toovak’s special talent for applying Iñupiaq meteorology so effectively. It has all the elements of what today is called applied science.

Applied science develops in situations where, first, a problematic condition like sudden weather changes has been identified. Then members of the group seek the knowledge and technology necessary to solve the problem. Over time they develop a body of specialized knowledge and learn to directly apply this knowledge to whatever health, security, or welfare issue confronts the group. Let’s stay in the Arctic for another example of applied science.

Arctic warming. Since the early 1970s, scientists working in the high Arctic detected significant increases in a variety of toxic contaminants usually found in badly polluted industrial regions of the world. Carried to the Arctic by prevailing wind conditions, this Arctic haze apparently comes from places far from the Alaskan north and contains contaminants from fossil fuel emissions, pesticides used in agriculture, and chemicals emitted by industries. Taken together, these are known as greenhouse gases. [toxic contaminants = poisonous substances capable of causing serious harm or death.]

The Arctic haze findings were particularly worrisome because reduced sunlight, extensive ice cover and the cold temperatures of the Arctic means these contaminants break down much more slowly than in warmer climates. Therefore their toxic life span is significantly lengthened which, over time, results in much higher concentrations of these contaminants within the Arctic ecosystem, including the fish and game which live and feed in the Arctic.

As we begin the 21st century, however, the concern over Arctic haze has grown into a much larger concern over Arctic warming. Research now shows that the Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the planet, with some parts of the Russian and Alaskan Far North warming even more rapidly. The result is a faster than expected retreat of sea ice, melting of ice caps, and thawing of permafrost.

In response to this global threat, the United States and other governments fund scientific research programs for the specific purpose of better understanding the ecological impact of Arctic warming. One example is the eight-nation report on Arctic warming produced by the Arctic Council in 20004. It is important to note that unlike the not-so-distant past, this scientific report included contributions from representatives of northern indigenous groups as well as by scientists from eight northern nations.

Part of the Report was a statement by Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Canadian Inuit and chairperson of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. She said, “The Arctic is the world’s health barometer, and the Inuit are the mercury in that barometer.” The main point to keep in mind is that reports like this are calling for the direct application of science to a phenomenon posing a potential threat to the health and welfare of the group. This is applied science at the highest level.⁴

Because it is concerned with solving immediate problems, applied science has a purpose different from basic science. Basic (or pure or theoretical) science does not seek a solution to an urgent problem. Its purpose is to study a particular phenomenon because it exists and greater understanding of it would advance scientific knowledge generally. In formulating his universal law of gravitation, for example, Sir Isaac Newton only wished to understand why objects fell to the earth at accelerated rates and why the moon and other heavenly bodies maintained their positions in space. His purpose was not to meet an immediate need or desire of English society.

Eventually the theories and findings of basic science may contribute to solving immediate problems, but that is not the original intention. All the basic science done over many years on the chemistry of gases, for example, contributes to understanding and hopefully reducing green house gases, including their impact on the Arctic. But we can be certain that the scientists who developed the first theories of gases such as Robert Boyle in 1662 and Joseph Gay-Lussac in 1802 did not have greenhouse gases and Arctic warming in mind.

Specialized knowledge. We have made the point that Mr. Toovak had a unique talent for applying a specialized body of Iñupiaq knowledge to predicting Arctic weather patterns. So what is meant by the term, “specialized knowledge”? The first thing we need to do is separate specialized knowledge from common knowledge.

In order to live successfully within their natural and social environments, all members of a traditional Native group had to know a body of common knowledge and be able to apply it to their daily life. At a minimum, this common knowledge included obtaining and preparing subsistence foods, having and raising children, coping with illness, and knowing how to deal with surrounding dangers. Also it included knowing how to maintain in good working condition such cultural products as tools, housing, clothing, modes of transportation, and hunting and fishing gear. Of course most of this list can be applied to life generally because it covers the timeless and essential requirements for living in the world. After all, doesn’t everyone down through time need food, clothing, shelter, health care, child-rearing skills?

So the question becomes: Beyond common knowledge, was there knowledge needed or valued by the group which required special talents and special methods of study to develop? In the above paragraph where we listed some cultural products, we were careful to avoid the verbs “to construct” or “to build.” We only used the verb “to maintain.” In fact we highlighted the word maintain in italics. We said that common knowledge was required to maintain various cultural products. Why? Because many times the design and construction of essential products was not done by just any man or woman. They were done instead by individuals who became specialists in a particular art or craft.

Figure 19

This drawing from Captain Cook’s 1778 voyage to Alaska shows Aleuts in double and
single hole kayaks. The men are wearing traditional waterproof skins. The man in the
single man kayak is also wearing the distinctive Aleut sea visor with feathers. [From:
Alaska Digital Archives.]

The traditional Aleut kayak, for example, is still considered by master boat builders around the world as having the ultimate design for speed and maneuverability of a one and two man ocean-going paddle craft. Just imagine what special knowledge was required to design a kayak that would withstand the often furious currents and winds of the North Pacific Ocean along the Aleutian Chain of islands. These ancient Aleut builders even designed a bilge pump allowing the kayaker to suck out sea water that sloshed into the kayak. Although the Kayak ( or baidarka in Russian) was an essential Aleut cultural product operated and maintained by many, only some had the special talent and training for its design and construction. Another example is the intricately carved totem or house poles of the Tlingit and Haida. Again, a needed and valued cultural product requiring special talents in art and woodworking possessed only by some.⁵

Specialized knowledge becomes common knowledge. Over time aspects of specialized knowledge can become common knowledge. The internal combustion engine, for example, is a scientific invention of the mid 1800s that has become part of our everyday life. Among other things, it powers the various vehicles we use daily — autos, trucks, ships, boats, airplanes, and snow machines. If it requires fuel to run, it is an internal combustion engine. If you wish to be a well trained mechanic, you would likely take courses in such areas as “engine thermodynamics,” “heat transfer in engines,” and “fluid mechanics.”

Obviously this is all very specialized knowledge acquired by relatively few people after serious training. But because the internal combustion engine is so essential to our daily modern life, many of us know enough about it to perform basic maintenance and repair operations. We may not know the meaning of engine thermodynamics, but we do know about carburetors, pistons, spark plugs, fan belts, engine blocks, and the need to change the oil according to the season. And probably we know the difference between 2 stroke and 4 stroke engines. We need to know these things if we are to keep the motor of our fishing boat in good working order as well as the engine of the snow machine we use for hunting and trapping. All of this has become common knowledge necessary for living as a modern subsistence hunter, trapper, and fisherman in rural Alaska.

One measure of how much an area of specialized knowledge has become common knowledge is the extent to which it is part of our everyday language. The elements of the internal combustion engine we mentioned above are good examples. We even use some of them as metaphors — she is the “spark plug” of the high school basketball team. This vocabulary did not exist before the invention of the internal combustion engine. It had to be invented along with the engine itself. Even as you read this chapter, you can bet that somewhere vocabulary is being invented to keep up with the rapidly expanding information technology of computers and the internet. Not too long ago, nobody heard of “spamming” or “blogger.”

Likewise, in the course of developing specialized knowledge, traditional Native societies had to invent specialized vocabularies. And over time these new words became common knowledge and part of the language of everyday life. An excellent example is the set of thirty-one Inuit words establishing a detailed classification system for various conditions of snow. [As used here, “Inuit” refers to the language family that includes the Iñupiaq language of Alaska, the Inuktitut language of Arctic Canada, and the Greenlandic language of Kalaallisut.]⁶ Here are some of those Inuit words:

Notice how just one Inuit word highlights a condition of snow requiring several English words. Like the English words used to capture the functions and features of the internal combustion engine, this Inuit classification of snow conditions is clear indication of specialized knowledge becoming very useful common knowledge.

The scientific method. So far we have talked about science as a body of specialized knowledge. We focused on the idea of applied science as specialized knowledge specifically developed to advance the health, security, and welfare of the group. Hopefully we have made the important point that it is not a question of whether traditional Native societies did “science.” It is, rather, a question of what kind of science did they do. What kind of science did they develop in order to maintain and improve the group’s quality of life.

Along with specialized knowledge, a definition of science must include the process by which science gets done. This process is called the scientific method. The key idea here is contained in the verb “to do.” If people anywhere at any time follow a series of well defined steps to understand some aspect of the physical or social world, they are doing science. They are using the scientific method. The ancient Inupiat who established the metrological knowledge Mr. Kenny Toovak relied upon that fateful day used the scientific method.

The scientific method is ordinarily thought of as consisting of two parts. The first part is attitude. Is the attitude of the investigator working on a scientific problem such as Arctic warming dedicated to rational thinking? That is, does he use logic and reason rather than emotional, magical, or spiritual thinking when making his observations and drawing his conclusions? Is the attitude of the investigator objective? Is he willing to go wherever the facts take him although it may contradict strongly held beliefs or preconceptions? Is he open to new evidence and ideas that might prove his most recent theory wrong?

The second part has to do with method — the actual process of doing science. Is the information (the data) gathered by the investigator accomplished through a series of careful, deliberate, and well organized observations of the phenomenon under study? A fundamental rule of the scientific method is that theories must be constructed so that their propositions or conclusions can be further tested by others. Scientific propositions, moreover, must be organized and stated in such a way that they can be proven right or, equally important, proven wrong.

Usually scientific proof is based on empirical evidence. By empirical evidence we mean scientific data obtained through rigorous observations of phenomena which other investigators can test for themselves under the same conditions using the same methods. These observations also come from conducting experiments. Interior Athabaskans, for example, developed a method for hunting caribou by which they chased the animals into large corrals where they were “speared, snared, and shot with arrows.”¹ It is easy to imagine how different “chase methods” were tested before finding the most effective one. Or the testing of different materials used for constructing the corral before finding one that was easiest to work with but strong enough to hold frightened caribou. In modern terms, this process of testing and rigorously observing test results is called experimentation.

By “rigorous observations” we mean extremely precise and exacting observations, whether of Arctic weather or of caribou herd migration patterns. Indeed, many consider the scientific method and its empirical approach to be the major difference between matters of science and matters of faith. Tenets of faith such as belief in a supernatural world inhabited by gods, angels, and demons cannot be empirically tested and proven right or wrong. But this does not mean a reasonable person schooled in the scientific method cannot also conclude that a well ordered universe with no middle or edges points to the existence of a Supreme Being, a Creator, an Almighty God. Albert Einstein, the scientist best known for his theories on the nature of the universe and how it works, believed exactly this. Responding to the question of whether he believed in God, Einstein said, "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings." One of Einstein’s most famous quotes is “God does not play dice with the Universe.”² [Benedict De Spinosa was a controversial 17th Century European philosopher best known for his view that rigorous thinking based on empirical evidence leads to the conclusion that God and nature are one and the same. God does not rule the universe. He is the universe.]

Einstein devoted his entire adult life to advancing our knowledge of what the interaction of time, space, matter, and energy tells us about the nature of the universe. From this extensive empirical work, he personally came to believe in the existence of God — at least as he defined God. Most important, however, he never claimed that his scientific work proved or disproved the existence of God. Certainly Einstein would be the first to say that the scientific method was never meant to answer questions of faith and how it imagines a supernatural world. That world must be thought about and approached in other ways.

Mr. Kenny Toovak’s story gives us some idea of how the Iñupiaq employed elements of the scientific method to the study of weather in much the same way Albert Einstein studied the universe. Here is another example of Native science, this time reported by Alan Dick who has taught mathematics and science for many years in Lime Village. He tells this little story:

Last spring, my father-in-law asked me, "Have you seen the morning star lately?" I admitted that I missed it. For months he had looked out the window early in the morning before sunrise, looking for the morning star without success. He was so concerned that he looked with binoculars. Finally it appeared again. He was relieved. I thought, "He and I live on the same planet, but not in the same world." It was a great concern to him and I hadn't given it a thought. I always thought of him as a good hunter and traveler, never as an astronomer. [Emphasis added.]

And on the traditional Tanaina Athabaskan applied science of meteorology he witnessed in Lime Village, Alan Dick says:

Many weather concerns are obvious. Willow grouse, high in the willows at dusk, fly away quickly when we approach unless a storm is coming and they know they won't eat until the storm passes. If they aren't wild, we know bad weather is coming. Most people in this part of Alaska know that. Yet I wonder, how do sun dogs indicate that cold weather is coming? When the loon calls loud and long on the lake in the summer, a strong wind is soon to follow. How do the loons know this? What are the answers to these weather questions?³

Ancient Alaska Native societies did not have written scientific journals to record and organize their research. Their oral traditions served this function. Certainly they did not have the scientific instruments available to Albert Einstein and other modern scientists. Even so, they could not have accomplished such extraordinary adaptations to the unique challenges of their environments without applying what today we call the scientific method.

Medical science. We must not forget that traditional Native cultures also used the scientific method to develop specialized medical knowledge. Aleut cultural products, for example, included a significant body of medical knowledge only achieved through rigorous empirical study. We know they performed autopsies to further their understanding of human autonomy and causes of death. They also developed an inventory of herbal cures — in modern terms, a pharmacy — derived from the precise mixing of substances taken from various plant life found within the Aleutian ecological zone. This body of Aleut medical knowledge also allowed development of a special feature of their worldview found on several Aleutian islands — the practice of mummification to memorialize the spirit of a deceased person of high social standing or for extraordinary accomplishments in life.⁴

In discussing traditional medicine among the Yup’ik, Oscar Kawagley makes a direct connection between the development of traditional medical knowledge and use of the scientific method. After describing several complex and lengthy traditional treatments for arthritis, he says:

The experimental process leading to the development of a treatment such as this [for arthritis] had to occur over a very long period of time before its medicinal value was recognized. This required experimentation, using the rational ability of the human being, establishing a process for refining a natural substance, using very practical means at hand, observing and committing to memory the process of change in the solution [for treating arthritis], and noting the effects on the human body for determination of its effectiveness.⁵

Your Cultural Profile, moreover, should describe the health care responsibilities of shamans to the community. Often shamans performed the dual role of spiritual leader and healer of both physical and mental health problems. In fact, many traditional Native worldviews did not clearly separate spiritual issues from health issues. Why? Because sickness was viewed not only as a physical ailment, but also as a sign of possible spiritual disharmony within the community or within the individual who is sick. And some shamans were viewed as having the power to create this disharmony and make people physically or mentally ill. But no matter how this dual role played out in a specific Native culture, shamans and other prominent healers used elements of the scientific method to advance their medical knowledge.

Artistic Expression – what is Art? Part of any society’s cultural production is its Art. Indeed, a peoples’ values, traditions, and aspirations – their worldview – can be reflected through art. Many times we can find artistic expression of a people’s image of themselves and what they believe to be sacred and divine. The Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in Rome, Italy is an excellent example of how art is used to visualize a deep religious tradition. Its interior is covered with paintings of biblical stories done by famous Italian artists, including the ceiling painted by the renowned Michelangelo, a section of which is shown in figure 18 below. Indeed, the Sistine Chapel contains powerful imagery of an religious tradition — in this instance, the Catholic Christian tradition.

Figure 20
Michelangelo’s ceiling at the Sistine chapel⁶

Today we have museums throughout the world holding priceless pieces of art created during different historical periods. We even have museums devoted exclusively to art as, for example, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. But traditional Native societies did not create pieces of art to stand alone. Does this mean they had no art? That they had no artistic traditions? No, absolutely not. But we do have to think about their art differently and look for it in different places.

Consider our earlier discussion of the Central Yup’ik storyknife. One thing we said about it was that the imagery carved on the ivory handle was an example of how a Yup’ik artifact can give us a glimpse of Yup’ik cognitive culture. But at the same time it is equally an artistic product. Of all the elements that make up any society’s cultural production, it is art which most clearly reflects aspects of that society’s cognitive culture. Like all art, the images carved into the storyknife handle were meant to represent an idea, or even a series of ideas. The father or uncle who did the carving was perhaps expressing a significant thought for the young girl to keep in mind as she anticipated female adult responsibilities.

Where do we find traditional Native Art? The storyknife gives us a major clue to finding and describing traditional Native art. Unlike art collections found in modern museums run by trained staff, in traditional times we would not find separate structures housing pieces of Native art to be admired and pondered. What we would find is artistic expression displayed in the decoration and design of material objects having other functions. Remember that the Yup’ik storyknife was crafted to serve an educational function.

Also within the Central Yup’ik artistic tradition is expression of their supernatural world through the design and decoration of ceremonial masks. Just as the art of the Sistine Chapel vividly displayed elements of the Catholic Christian spiritual tradition, the art of ceremonial masks vividly displayed those of the ancient Yup’ik spiritual tradition. We know that along with shamanism, this “masking” tradition was largely suppressed by early missionaries and government agents. But as discussed earlier, there has developed in recent times serious scholarship on the variety of these ceremonial masks and their spiritual meanings.⁷

We even find art in decorative designs fastened or sewn onto clothing. For interior Athabaskans whose life was almost constant movement, their cultural products had to be easily transported on foot or in bags carried on the backs of dogs. Of course these cultural products also had to be easy to assemble and disassemble. One scholar of Native art, William Fitzhugh, says of Athabaskan clothing that “ most outstanding was their skin work, which employed dyed porcupine quill and moose hair embroidery in its early stages and, later, glass beads, dentalium shell, and other trade goods.”⁸ [Dentalium shell = seashells that are usually white and hollow inside, and cone shaped like a tusk. They were so highly valued by California and Northwest Coast Indians that the shell became a medium of exchange much as we use dollar bills and coins today. See photo of a Tlingit shaman on page 158 .]

Here we should underscore what we said earlier about the importance of commerce in traditional Native economies. Because traditional commercial networks reached beyond Alaskan borders, many of the beads and shells used by interior Athabaskans before their actual encounters with Europeans originated elsewhere.

Figure 21
Albert Maggie with beaded coat. Nenana, Ak., c. 1913)

What we learn from Native art. We have said that art serves as a window through which we can view elements of people’s worldview. We have already noted this social function of art with the Yup’ik storyknife example. But we can also use art to help us understand differing worldviews. William Fitzhugh has observed that Central Yup’ik art “was more diverse, abstract, and symbolic than that of the Iñupiaq peoples.” The exquisite and celebrated Iñupiaq art of ivory carving portrayed life in its natural form. An outsider knows at once that it is a carving of a polar bear or a whale or a seal. On the other hand, making sense of the more abstract and symbolic Central Yup’ik decorative art requires knowledge of their worldview, particularly aspects of their traditional spirituality.⁹

Figure 22
Little Diomede Iñupiaq ivory carver, c. 1928

We also learn that some Native art had few territorial boundaries. One of the best known and most studied of all Native American art forms is the Northwest Coast Indian tradition. This very distinctive Native art stretches 1,200 miles along the Pacific Coast from Oregon in the south to the Tlingit and Haida homelands of Alaska in the north. Although speaking different languages, these Northwest Coast tribes had in common a heavily wooded temperate maritime environment, a clan-based hierarchical social organization, and a totemic worldview with Raven at the center of their creation mythologies.

The Tlingit writer, Andrew Hope III, refers to this entire Northwest culture area as the “Raven Creator Bioregion.” Perhaps one of the most knowledgeable experts on Northwest Coast Indian art is University of Washington Professor Emeritus, Bill Holm. For his distinguished work, he was honored in 2001 with a certificate of appreciation from the Sealaska Heritage Institute, an organization which seeks to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultural knowledge. Holm characterizes Tlingit and other Northwest Coast Indian art as a well organized design system of ovid-shaped form lines depicting totemic creatures central to the mythological histories of clans and of house groups within clans. Some examples are raven, beaver, killer whale, frog, salmon, and eagle.

A detailed artistic depiction of a totemic creature along with other clan or clan house symbolism is called a crest. And here is another good example of art teaching us something about the society in which it is found. In this case we learn about the connection between Tlingit social organization and Tlingit art as found on totem poles and clan crests. Again we go to Andrew Hope III for helpful instruction:

To appreciate Tlingit pole art, one must understand Tlingit social organization: what Frederica de Laguna refers to as .” . . the fundamental principles of . . . clan organization, . . . the values on which Native societies are based," that is, the names and histories of the respective Tlingit tribes, clans, and clan houses.

The seventy-plus Tlingit clans are separated into moieties or two equal sides-the Wolf and the Raven. Tlingit custom provides for matrilineal descent (one follows the clan of the mother) and requires one to marry one of the opposite moiety. The clans are further subdivided into some 250 clan houses.

To underscore the duality of Tlingit law, Wolf moiety clans generally claim predator crests, whereas Raven moiety clans generally claim non-predator crests. For example, the Kaagwaantaan, a Wolf moiety clan, claim Brown Bear, the Killer Whale, the Shark and the Wolf as crests. The Kiks.áàdi, a Raven moiety clan, claim the Frog, the Sculpin, the Dog Salmon and the Raven as crests. Tlingit totem art is utilitarian as opposed to decorative art. Tlingit pole art depicts clan crests and histories. [utilitarian : something primarily designed for practical use rather than for beauty.]

The figures seen on a totem pole are the principle subjects taken from traditional treating of the family’s rise to prominence or of the heroic exploits of one of its members. From such subjects crests are derived. In some houses, in the rear between the two carved posts, a screen is fitted, forming a kind of partition which is always carved and painted. Behind this screen is the chief’s sleeping place.¹⁰

According to strict Tlingit property laws, moreover, a clan or clan house has clear ownership of their crest and it can be used only by their members. Elements of the crest ornamented other cultural products such as house poles, screens, war canoes, headgear, boxes and chests, and even parts of hunting and fishing equipment. In some ways a European noble family’s coat-of-arms is comparable to the Tlingit clan and house group crests because it also exhibits symbolism of the family’s honored history and mythological beginnings.

As shown in Figure 23 on the next page, a prized part of Tlingit ceremonial regalia is the Chllkat blanket or robe emblazoned with clan and clan house crests and symbols. This illustration of a Chilkat blanket clearly shows the ovid-shaped form lines described by Bill Holm. The central panel of this blanket features the traditionally stylized representation of the killer whale, with the head at the bottom and the tail at the top.

According to George Emmons, a United States Navel officer who carefully observed Tlingit life in the late 1800s, ceremonial blanket weaving originated with the Canadian Tsimshian and later spread north to the Tlingits through commerce and marriage. (Don’t forget that before the Alaska Tsimshian moved to Annette Island in 1887, their homeland was in British Columbia, Canada, where about 7,500 Tsimshian still live.) From their native soil near the present day town of Haines, Alaska, the Chilkat tribe of Tlingits developed their own design style and became the best weavers, producing numerous blankets for clans and clan houses of other Tlingit groups. The Chilkat Blanket was highly sought by Indian nobility up and down the Northwest Coast long before the first explorers came to this region.¹¹

Figure 23
Chilkat Blanket

(From V. Chaussonnet, “Needles and Animals:Women’s
Magic” in Crossroads of Continents, p.217)

Not only did the ovid-shaped form lines of Northwest Coast Indian art extend 1,200 miles south to Oregon, but it also influenced the artistic expression of other Alaska Native groups along the North Pacific Rim. We know that hostilities often existed between the Tlingit and other Pacific Rim peoples. Yet studies by Bill Holm show that the Chugach of Prince William Sound and the Koniag of Kodiak Island adopted some elements of the Northwest Coast artistic tradition to decorate their basketry, headdress, storage chests, and eating utensils. So the spread of the unique Northwest Coast Indian art form offers yet another example of Native people traveling great distances to exchange both goods and ideas.¹²

An interesting artistic comparison. According to historical records, it took Michelangelo about four years to complete his ceiling at the Sistine Chapel. In all, Michelangelo’s work covers 5,000 square feet. (A NBA basketball court measures 4700 sq. feet.) By comparison, in 1998 Clarissa Hudson, a master Chilkat blanket weaver, began weaving a blanket for a Canadian Native chief. As she says, “Between caring for my family, finishing my other commissions, and moving (twice!) I finished the blanket in just over two years.”¹³ Let’s assume Clarissa spent a quarter of her time on the chief’s blanket while attending to other parts of her crowded life. If this is a reasonable assumption, it means that if she were able to work full time on her blankets, she could perhaps weave four 25 sq. foot Chilkat blankets in the time it took Michelangelo to complete his 5000 sq. foot painting. That is, she could only complete 100 sq. feet of Chilkat blanket in the time it took Michelangelo to do his 5000 sq. foot Sistine Chapel painting.

What we should be thinking about – key study questions.

Why don’t we include cultural products as one of the basic parts of our concept of culture as discussed in Chapter Eight?

Why do we say it is not a question of whether Alaska Natives did science, but a question of what kind of science did they do?

Can you explain the difference between applied science and basic science and why we place traditional Native specialized knowledge in the applied science category?

Can you explain the scientific method, and why we say it is not just a modern practice but has been used down through time by all peoples?

Why must we think differently about traditional Native art and look for it in different places ?

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