Athabaskan people

“ Curiously enough, some of the tribes at one time considered lowest in point of general intellectual equipment have shown not a little of this ability, and there is a marked difference in this respect between tribes belonging to one and the same stock. The Athabaskan stock e.g. shows such variations, or rather perhaps this stock in general exhibits a tendency to adopt the culture of other peoples, thus some of the Athabaskan tribes in Alaska have acquired elements of culture from the Eskimo ”

“ There are outliers of the stock as far south as the southern parts of Oregon. More than this, there are Athabaskans in California, New Mexico, and Sonora.
Few discoveries respecting the distribution of languages are more interesting than one made by Mr. Hale, to the effect that the Umkwa, Kwaliokwa, and Tlatskanai dialects of a district so far south as the River Columbia, and the upper portion of the Umkwa river (further south still) were outlying members of the Athabaskan stock, a stock preeminently northern—not to say Arctic—in its main area. ”

“ The Atna at the mouth of the Copper River, the Koltshani higher up the stream, and the Ugalents, are all held by the present writer to be Athabaskan—not, indeed, so decidedly as the Beaver Indians, the Dog-ribs, or the Proper Chepewyans, but still Athabaskan. They are not Eskimo, though they have Eskimo affinities. They are not Kolush, though they have Kolush affinities. They are by no means isolated, and as little are they to be made into a class by themselves. ”

“ One of the most numerous branches of Athabascan stock are the Apaches, a fierce, nomadic nation, roaming over the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona, and Sonora and Chihuahua. Always a scourge and a terror to settlers, they have held in check for many years the civilization of the country covered by their depredations. ”

“ In Russian America, the Eskimo, Sitkan, and Athabaskan tongues graduate into each other. In the same parts the Athabaskan forms of speech differ most from each other. On the other hand, to the east of the Rocky Mountains, the Dog-ribs, the Hares, and the [Pg 337] Chepewyans are cut off by lines equally trenchant from the Eskimos to the north, and from the Algonkins to the south. I infer from this that the diffusion of the language over those parts is comparatively recent; in other words, that the Athabaskan family has moved from west to east rather than from east to west. ”

“ Sir John Richardson, from vocabularies procured by him during his last expedition, the value of which is greatly enhanced by his ethnological chapter on the characteristics of the populations which supplied them, has shown, what was before but suspected, that the Loucheux Indians of Mackenzie River are Athabaskan; a most important addition to our knowledge. ”

“ There is a tribe of Athabasca that go by the name of Beaver Indians. From the tenets of their religion, I am told that, when laying under any malediction, bewichisms, or conceive themselves so, they make a vow that the first animal they shall kill they will do so. They do not fail, but immediately proceed in quest of another which, by this diabolical action, they think they will soon find and kill. They do not touch the animal afterwards, as those beasts among the Crees and Sauteux do, but leave it lay as a sacrifice. ”

“ They were the admiration of his own tribe, the wonder of others, the envy of many chiefs. It was said that Athabasca wore them creditably, and was no more immobile and grand-mannered than became a chief thus honoured above his kind.
But the years went, and there came a man to Fort Pentecost who knew not Athabasca. He was young, and tall and strong, had a hot temper, knew naught of human nature, was possessed by a pride more masterful than his wisdom, and a courage stronger than his tact. ”

“ Of those spoken inland, the distribution is very different. It is, at first, over large areas.
THE ATHABASKANS.
The geographical distribution of the Athabaskans should be studied along with that of the Eskimo; since, like this last, it has an east-and-west, or (if the expression may be allowed) a horizontal extension. It has, however, an extension from north to south, or what may be called a vertical one as well. As a general rule, the southern limit of the Eskimo is the northern limit of the Athabaskan area.
ATHABASKANS.
Area.—Discontinuous. ”

“ They are relative newcomers in the area and it is only within recent years that they have stirred the interest of many archaeologists, although the Navajos have been literally haunted by ethnologists for a long time.
Both Navajos and Apaches speak dialects of the Athapaskan language which is spoken by many groups in northwestern Canada. At some time in the relatively recent past, groups of Athapaskan-speaking people left their northern homeland and drifted southward, some going along the coast and others wandering farther east. ”

“ Then one of them rose to his feet and addressed the assemblage.
“The strangers are all condemned to death,” said he, quietly. “The laws of our fathers, the founders of the Vale and City of Tcha, must be obeyed. Once we pardoned an atkayma of the Itzaex and sent him back to his people, that through fear and in self-protection he might preserve us from further molestation or intrusion. That was deemed a wise action at the time, but it is not necessary for us to spare the atkayma’s son, who stands before us. ”

“ The Wailaki, the southernmost group of Athabascans on the Eel River, are as little chronicled as most of the Athabascan groups. As far as geography and language are concerned we have very good information (Goddard, 1923a; 1923b) , but there is very little general ethnography. Kroeber was able to devote to them only a little more than three pages in the Handbook (1925, pp. 151-154) , and we know scarcely more today. ”

“ Here the tipi and the camp-circle figure largely in material culture; innumerable ceremonies and religious practices (e.g. the “sun-dance”) occur and many societies and ceremonial organizations exist. The buffalo and later the horse have profoundly influenced the culture of this area, in which Athabaskan (Sarcee) , Kitunahan, Algonkian, Siouan, Shoshonian, Kiowan tribes have shared. ”

“ If the Indians do as they are asked we shall certainly keep all our promises. We are glad to know that you have got on without any one's help, but you must know times are hard, and furs scarcer than they used to be. Indians are fond of a free life, and we do not wish to interfere with it. When reserves are offered you there is no intention to make you live on them if you do not want to, but, in years to come, you may change your minds, and want these lands to live on. The half-breeds of Athabasca are being more liberally dealt with than in any other part of Canada. ”

“ At Blue Lake they had a large village called Kaw-cho ́-sish-tin-tang.
South of the 'Hoch-tin ́-net are the Mā ́-we-nok [Mad R. Whilkut] , a related Athapaskan tribe inhabiting the valley of Mad River from the junction of North Fork near Korbel, southerly (upstream) to the Algrehn Ranch on Bug Creek—a distance in a straight line of about 21 miles. The 'Hoch-tin ́-net and the Mā ́-we-nok say that their languages are so similar that either can understand most of the words of the other. ”

“ For why should heat of climate addict a people to magic more than cold? or, why should ignorance enlarge a man's powers, so that, overleaping the bounds of common intelligence, it should extend his faculty of conversing with a new set of beings in another world? The Ethiopians, who nearly surround Abyssinia, are blacker than those of Gingiro, their country hotter, and are, like them, an indigenous people that have been, from the beginning, in the same part where they now inhabit. ”

“ Cherokee and Iroquois.
IV. The Athabaskan group.—I find that the affinity between the Loucheux and the Kenay languages is given by Prichard, who, at the same time, separates both from the Athabaskan. "Mr. Gallatin says that the similarity of languages amongst all these" (i. e. the Athabaskan) "tribes is well-established. The Loucheux are excepted. This language does not appear to have any distinctly marked affinities except with that of the Kenay."—Vol. ”

“ Six months later William Rufus Holly, a deacon in holy orders, journeyed to Athabasca in the Far North. On his long journey there was plenty of time to think. He was embarked on a career which must for ever keep him in the wilds; for very seldom indeed does a missionary of the North ever return to the crowded cities or take a permanent part in civilised life.
What the loneliness of it would be he began to feel, as for hours and hours he saw no human being on the plains; in the thrilling stillness of the night ”

“ In fact, the Indians and half-breeds of Athabasca Lake did not seem to differ in any way from those of the Middle and Upper Peace River, save that the former were all hunters and fishermen, pure and simple, there being little or no agriculture. It was impossible to study the manners and customs of the aborigines, since we had no time to observe them closely. They have their legends and traditions and remnants of ceremonies, much of which is upon record, and they cherish, especially, some very curious beliefs. ”

“ Her mother being an Arab of the tribe of Jehaina, her complexion was a dark brown. Such was the beautiful Aiscach, daughter of the eldest of the ladies that I was then attending.
Neither sickness nor medicine could prevent those who were present from discovering plainly how exceedingly I was disconcerted. Adelan's daughter said to me, You will think nothing of the women in Atbara, after so long a stay in Abyssinia; but the women in Europe, they say, are so white, that they are the handsomest of all. ”

“ But if surprise could have changed the countenances of Indians, these Athabascas would not have known one another when the missionary stepped out upon the shore. They had looked to see a grey-bearded man like the chief factor who quarrelled and prayed; but they found instead a round- faced, clean-shaven youth, with big, good-natured eyes, yellow hair, and a roundness of body like that of a month-old bear's cub. ”

“ The enslavement of this heathen people, who are often barbarously hunted down for sport, is defended upon the grounds that so fierce, swarthy, and bestial a race, existing in the rudest possible form of savage state, must be the accursed of mankind, and entirely beyond the pale of natural rights. But the Christians of Western and Northern Abyssinia condemn this opinion of their brethren in the south and east ”

“ The Athapascans stood low in the scale of civilization. Most of them lived in a prairie country where a luxuriant soil, not encumbered with trees, would have responded to the slightest labour. But the Athapascans, in Canada at least, knew nothing of agriculture. With alternations of starvation and rude plenty, they lived upon the unaided bounty of tribes of the far north, degraded by want and indolence, were often addicted to cannibalism. ”

“ Merriam gives the following brief note about these people.
Nek ́-an-ni ́ ... Athapaskan coast tribe formerly inhabiting Cape Mendocino and adjacent region from Bear River Hills southward to Mattole River, and reaching inland (easterly) to the headwaters of the Bear River. [Nek ́-an-ni ́ was] their own name for themselves.
TRIBELETS
All evidence would seem to indicate that the Bear River people constitute a single tribelet as well as a single dialect group. Even the village on Oil Creek (village no. 7) was evidently in the same political division ”

“ Their stern uncompromising sectarian spirit has been highly beneficial in excluding from their community that licentious profligacy in which all the other inhabitants of Ethiopia riot; and it is generally admitted that Falasha men and women seldom, if ever, stray from the path of virtue, or transgress the solemn law of the decalogue.” [188]
Various accounts, of which two have already been mentioned, are given of the origin of the Jewish colony in Abyssinia. It is commonly believed among the people that a large retinue returned with Maqueda, Queen of Sheba, from her visit to King Solomon. ”

“ Mitawawa gave a little cry of impatience: she had held her peace so long that even her slow Indian nature could endure no more. "What will my father Athabasca do?" she asked. "With idleness the flesh grows soft, and the iron melts from the arm." ”

“ Throughout this extensive district, all crimes, differences, and disputes, of however important or trifling a nature, are ultimately referred to his determination, all rights of inheritage are decided according to his will, and most wars are carried on by himself in person. To rule a savage people of so many different dispositions, manners, and usages as the Abyssinians, requires a firmness of mind, and a vigour of constitution, rarely united in the same individual at his advanced age ”

“ As the criticism respecting the general characteristics, has its bearing upon the relations of the American aborigines to those of the world at large, so that of the sectional ones determines our views as to their unity or non-unity among themselves. It is the same in both cases. It is an easy matter to say that the Athabaskans (for instance) burn their dead to ashes, whilst the Peruvians desiccate them into mummies; that the Nehannis treat their women with respect, whilst servitude, on the part of the female, is the rule elsewhere ”

“ Among the Northern Athabascans “none but a successful hunter need aspire to the hand of a chief’s daughter”21. Among the Attakapas, if a young man aspired to the hand of a girl, her father asked him whether he was a brave warrior and a good hunter and well acquainted with the art of making harpoons22. Even among the pastoral Colonial Hottentots those who had killed a savage animal were highly respected by their countrymen23. Personal qualities, among such tribes, are the only cause of social differentiation. Wealth does not yet exist24 ”