Memory Eternal
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Memory Eternal

Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries

Sergei Kan

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Memory Eternal

Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries

Sergei Kan

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In Memory Eternal, Sergei Kan combines anthropology and history, anecdote and theory to portray the encounter between the Tlingit Indians and the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska in the late 1700s and to analyze the indigenous Orthodoxy that developed over the next 200 years. As a native speaker of Russian with eighteen years of fieldwork experience among the Tlingit, Kan is uniquely qualified to relate little-known material from the archives of the Russian church in Alaska to Tlingit oral history and his own observations. By weighing the one body of evidence against the other, he has reevaluated this history, arriving at a persuasive new concept of "converged agendas"—the view that the Tlingit and the Russians tended to act in mutually beneficial ways but for entirely different reasons throughout the period of their contact with one another. The Russian-American Company began operations in southeastern Alaska in the 1790s. Against a description of Tlingit culture at the time of the Russians' arrival, Kan examines Russian Orthodox theology, ritual practice, and missionary methods, and the Tlingit response to them. An uneasy symbiosis characterized the early era of the Russian-American Company, when the trading relationship outweighed any spiritual or social rapprochement. A second, major focus of Kan's study is the Tlingit experience with American colonial domination. He attributes a sudden revival of Tlingit interest in Orthodoxy in the 1880s as their attempt to maintain independence in the face of concerted efforts by the newcomers (and especially Presbyterian missionaries) to Americanize them. Memory Eternal shows the colonial encounter to be both a power struggle and a dialogue between different systems of meaning. It portrays Native Alaskans not as helpless victims but as historical agents who attempted to adjust to the changing reality of their social world without abandoning fundamental principles of their precolonial sociocultural order or their strong sense of self-respect.

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1

LingĂ­t KusteeyĂ­

Tlingit Economy, Society, and Religion at the Time of Contact
To explain the Tlingit reaction to the Russian and other Western newcomers, one needs to have some sense of the Tlingit culture of the contact era. While much of the detailed ethnographic data on this subject was collected in the latter part of the nineteenth century, there is enough evidence to support my argument that no substantial changes had occurred in the Tlingit social organization and ideology throughout the last century (Kan 1989a:21; see also Wike 1951; de Laguna 1983, 1990). This allows me to offer this reconstructive ethnography by combining information from the pre-1867 Russian descriptions of the LingĂ­t kusteeyĂ­ (Khlebnikov [1817–32] 1976, 1985; Veniaminov [1840] 1984) with that collected by later visitors to southeastern Alaska as well as professional ethnographers (Krause [1885] 1956; Kamenskii [1906] 1985; Emmons [1920–45] 1991; Swanton 1908; Olson 1967; de Laguna 1960, 1972). As far as the Tlingit ceremonial life, and particularly the memorial potlatch or koo.Ă©ex’, are concerned, even my own ethnographic data (Kan 1989a) could be utilized here.1
Environment, Economy, and the Sociopolitical Order
The land of the Tlingit people (LingĂ­t aanĂ­) occupies an area, known today as the Alaska Panhandle, between the Icy Bay in the north to Portland Inlet (see map). The earliest signs of human habitation in this region date back to about 10,000 B.P.2 By 5,000 B.P. the development of recognized Northwest Coast cultural traditions begins, and by about 500 B.P. the classic Tlingit material culture is in place, characterized by a variety of tools similar to those of the contact year. Tlingit oral traditions emphasize the migration of the ancestors of the nineteenth-century clans from the interior of Alaska and British Columbia onto the coast some time (several centuries?) prior to the European arrival (de Laguna 1990:203).
Estimates of the early-nineteenth-century Tlingit population are far from accurate and vary from somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000. The climate of the Lingít aaní is relatively mild. The rugged coast is fringed with numerous islands, and almost everywhere mountains rise sharply from the water’s edge. There is heavy rainfall throughout the year and particularly during the winter. This dense forest and rugged terrain made land travel quite difficult, but the water provided easy communication. The sea and the rivers were the main sources of food for the Tlingit, with salmon and other species of fish being the main staple. In addition, seaweed, shellfish, berries, and other edible plants were gathered, and various sea and land mammals hunted.
The annual subsistence cycle was roughly divided into the summer and winter phases. The former began in April when herring spawn was gathered. Throughout the summer and early fall the Tlingit devoted themselves to catching and curing salmon, hunting sea mammals, and picking berries. The summer months were also the time for trading expeditions to the interior as well as up and down the coast. Wars and slave raids, made on distant Tlingit tribes or other coastal peoples to the north and especially the south, also occurred during the summer. After a relatively short fall hunting season, most families settled in their winter villages. November and December, with the winter supplies in, were devoted to ritual activities, centered on the big koo.Ă©ex’, as well as to the making of various practical and ceremonial artifacts.
As a people the Tlingit shared a common language and cultural heritage and a self-designation, “Lingit” (translated as both “Tlingit” and “person”). The eighteen to twenty local groups constituting the Tlingit nation were not political units but have often been called “tribes” for convenience. The Tlingit refer to them as kwaan (sing.), “inhabitants of such-and-such a place,” for example, Sheet’ká kwaan, “the inhabitants of Sitka,” or “the people of Sitka.” The kwaans were distinguished from each other by subdialectical and minor cultural differences; in other words, they were “local communities made up of representatives of several clans, united by propinquity, intermarriage, and love for their common homeland” (de Laguna 1990:203).
In each kwaan there was at least one main village, occupied in the winter but usually deserted by most families in the summer when they scattered to their fishing and hunting camps. New settlements might be established within the kwaan’s territory, if an immigrant group was allowed to settle there or if an old village was being abandoned as a result of warfare, disputes, or disease. Villages were usually located on a sheltered bay from which there was a view of the approaches. A nice sandy beach for landing canoes and convenient access to salmon streams, hunting areas, berry patches, fresh water, timber, and other special resources were also important. By the end of the eighteenth century these villages or towns (aan) consisted of a row of large houses facing the water.
The basic unit of Tlingit society was the exogamous, matrilineal descent group, the clan (naa). It owned territory, which included rights to various natural resources, ownership of which meant that clan members were the first ones to enjoy the first products of the season, frequently shared at a feast. If these resources were abundant, the area where they were located was then “opened” to other kinship groups. In fact, under normal circumstances, once the season was open, any person could hunt, fish, pick berries, and collect shellfish anywhere, as long as he or she appealed to the leaders of the owning clan.3
Many clans were restricted to a single tribe or village. However, some of the most important and largest clans were represented in several kwaans. Despite strong clan solidarity, such subclans were rather independent of each other and were the de facto property-holding and political units. De Laguna (1983:72) suggests that some sixty to seventy clans existed at the time of the European arrival; this number, however, tended to fluctuate, as independent clans developed out of some subclans, while other clans died out.
Most clans or subclans were divided into several matrilineages identified with a house group and, hence, called “houses” (sing. hít) by the Tlingit. The house was the smallest unit of society, possessing its own head (hít s’aatí, “owner” or “master of the house”), territory within or subordinate to the larger plots owned by the clan as a whole, heraldic crests in addition to, or as variants of, the crest of its clan, personal names and ceremonial prerogatives (at.óow), and history. It was often by establishing a house in a new kwaan that the clan to which this house belonged acquired a place in that kwaan. Some lineages were probably remnants of once-important clans that had joined stronger clan groups for protection or had been incorporated into them. Others must have been formed by subdivisions of a clan, just as a house might grow and develop offshoots, referred to as “daughter houses.” Some lineages or house groups became so large and powerful that they spread from one kwaan to another, effectively becoming clans, like the famous Kaagwaantaan, a powerful clan among the North and Gulf Coast Tlingit which figured prominently in Russian-Tlingit relations (de Laguna 1990:213).
Because of the prevalence of virilocal postmarital residence, the women and most of the children living in the house tended not to belong to the matrilineage that owned it. Avunculocal residence for at least some of the boys after the age of eight to ten ensured the continuity the house ownership and the sacred lore owned by the matrilineage. Residents of the house were the basic unit of production and consumption, although individual and family subsistence activities were also undertaken.
The entire Tlingit nation was also divided into two matrilineal exogamous moieties known as Ravens and Eagles (Wolves). They had no leaders and owned no property but were central to the Tlingit world view and social life, because they regulated marriage and exchange of ritual services at life crises, death being the most important one. The relationship between clan relatives (consanguines) was juxtaposed to that between “opposites” (affines), where balanced, rather than generalized, reciprocity characterized the exchange of gifts and services. No immediate return was expected from one’s matrikin, although a person who only received but gave nothing back was not respected. One of the key terms used to characterize the relationship between matrilineal relatives was “love” (kusaxán), and the most common idiom to describe this sentiment was the mother’s affectionate care for and nourishment of her child. Any good deed performed by a clan or a lineage member reflected favorably on his or her entire group; any shameful act an individual performed was said to “blacken the face” of that group.
Taken as a whole, the main material and immaterial attributes of the individual’s social persona were believed to be derived from and shared with his or her matrikin and constituted his or her clan’s shagóon or shuká, best translated as “origin/destiny,” established in the past by its matrilineal ancestors and continuing to order its members’ lives, generation after generation (de Laguna 1972:813–14; Kan 1989a:68–69; Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1994:19–20).4 The clan’s totemic animal(s), the crest(s) representing them, as well as all of the other representations and manifestations of these crests (e.g., dances, songs, ceremonial clothing, lands owned by the clan, etc.) collectively constituted its shagóon. Because of the constant recycling of the names and spirits (reincarnation) as well as the material and non-material possessions (at.óow) of the clan’s deceased members by their descendants, the living and the dead matrikin were intimately linked to each other; in theory, clans were immortal, their membership consisting of all of their deceased as well as the living (and the yet unborn) members. The sacredness of the crest was illustrated by its extremely reverential treatment by its owners. When a crest-bearing object deteriorated beyond repair, its name was usually transfered to a new object depicting the same crest. Thus the crest, like the clan, remained immortal, surviving its temporary representations, just as a human being’s essential spiritual attributes survived the body after death. Clan crests were depicted or almost “carved into” the surface of its members’ bodies, for example, tattooed on their hands and painted on their faces.5
Similarly, an individual’s birth names (which implied an ancestor’s reincarnation) and especially the “heavy” ceremonial names or titles, another key attribute of his or her social person, were derived from a stock owned by the matrilineal group. Although new birth and ceremonial names were periodically coined, the most valuable ones were those inherited from ancestors. Since each matrilineal group owned a limited stock of such names and recycled them every few generations, one could say that the names themselves (esp. the ceremonial/potlatch titles) were its true members. As long as there were appropriate individuals to give these names to, the matrilineal group remained alive and, if there were not enough people to carry them, members of related houses and clans were adopted and given the names. Each “big” or “heavy” name had its own value based on the previous owner’s prestige and status and especially on the number and scale of potlatches he or she had been actively engaged in (see below). The new owner inherited the name’s value but could raise or lower it, depending on his or her conduct.
Marriage was one of the central institutions of the Tlingit social order and a powerful mechanism for establishing and perpetuating cooperation and reciprocity between matrilineal groups belonging to the opposite moieties. The preferred form of marriage was with the members of one’s father’s clan or house. Marriage of a man with his real or classificatory father’s sister or of a woman with her real or classificatory father’s brother was the preferred union, insuring that the spouses were of equal rank. Ideally, the two houses from the opposite moieties were continually linked through marriage. However, marriage ties with several clans were often established to create politically advantageous alliances with several groups in different villages and even kwaans.
Members of the elite occasionally married aristocrats from neighboring non-Tlingit nations if such a marriage could bring significant political, economic, or social gains. High-ranking men often had more than one wife. On the death of his wife, a man was entitled to replace her with her younger sister or other close female relative. A widow was expected to marry her husband’s brother or maternal nephew, although there were only a few women of high rank who had several husbands simultaneously. Divorce did occur sometimes, although the two lineages and clans exerted pressure on a couple to remain together.
The father-child link and the link through marriage were considered symbolically the same or equivalent, even when in reality they were not; they furnished the basic pattern upon which all inter-moiety relationships were built. While membership in a moiety, clan, and house was central to the person’s identity, he or she was also proud of being referred to, informally and especially on ceremonial occasions, as the “child of such-and-such a clan.” Generally speaking, kinship in this society did serve as the idiom of social relations. This notion was so central to Tlingit culture that immigrant Native American groups were transformed, regardless of their internal structure, into Tlingit-style clans, while trading partners were given quasi-kinship status mirrored on clan lines.
A strict division of labor along gender lines existed, with the men being engaged in fishing and hunting and the women in gathering berries and “beach food” as well as processing fish, meat, skins, etc.6 It was probably the crucial tasks of cutting, drying, smoking, and bailing the salmon that gave the women (and especially the head women in the households) control over this staple food and, as a result of that, their high status (de Laguna 1990:210).
A strong fear of offending and scaring away fish and game prevented women, especially menstruants and parturients, from handling men’s fishing and hunting gear and approaching fish streams. The power possessed by the menstruating young woman, particularly during her first menses, was seen as both very dangerous to men, animals, and the entire universe and life-giving. This explains the elaborate nature of the first puberty confinement, marked by various taboos and ritual exercises aimed at increasing the girl’s physical strength, purity, and knowledge as well as with a major feast at the time of its completion. Similar confinement, but on a smaller scale, occurred during the woman’s subsequent menstrual periods and childbirth. While the power and influence of the Tlingit women in social life were clearly related to matrilineal descent, virilocal residence resulted in the married woman’s being a stranger in her husband’s house. Consequently, the woman was simultaneously highly valued as a major link between two matrilineal groups (hers and her husband’s) and suspected of being more loyal to the former than the latter.7
This ambiguity of the woman’s status is further illustrated by a discrepancy between a somewhat subordinate role of women in public and especially ceremonial life (koo.Ă©ex’ being the prime example) and a much greater role played by them in the more informal daily economic and domestic political activities.8 Contact-era Tlingit women, according to European observers, had a strong influence on their husbands, especially in matters of trade (e.g., Vancouver 1801, vol. 4:254–55). Ultimately, however, it was rank rather than gender that served as the main mode of social differentiation in Tlingit society, with women strongly identifying with their families of birth and marriage and the rank of those families and having a much higher status than men of lower rank (see Kan 1989a:156–62, 1996).
Tlingit society was ranked, but there were no formal grades—ranking was inexact and subject to dispute and reevaluation. The heads of houses and other high-ranking members of these matrilineal groups as well as their immediate matrikin constituted the aristocracy or nobility (sing. aankáawu or aanyádi; pl. aanyátx’i). Its members’ status was defined by aristocratic birth, inherited and acquired wealth, personal accomplishments, ritual knowledge, and character, with age and accumulated wisdom adding to their prestige. The “commoners” were simply the aristocrats’ junior matrikin. On the bottom of this rather fluid social hierarchy was a small group of illegitimate children, outcasts abandoned by their kin, and the so-called “dried-fish slaves” who depended on the charity of others. Real slaves, captured or bought from distant Tlingit kwaans and more often from coastal nations to the north and the south, were located completely outside the social universe, not being granted full personhood. House groups within the clan and clans within the moiety and the kwaan, as well as between moieties, were also ranked, but on no exact scale. High-ranking clans had large membership, owned more crests and wealth, and were aggressive and successful in war, trade, and ceremonial activities.
Access to and knowledge of the matrilineal group’s shagĂłon was unequally distributed among its members. Older persons had more knowledge of and were more closely identified with it. In certain important ceremonial contexts, men had greater access to their group’s at.Ăłow, even though the women’s knowledge of the subject was probably equal to if not superior to theirs. Subsistence activities, as well as trade, warfare, informal redistribution of food to poor matrikin, and the more significant formal redistribution of surplus food and wealth (and even slaves) in the koo.Ă©ex’ were supervised by the (usually) male heads of matrilineal groups, who also acted as guardians and trustees of their material and spiritual property. Most aristocrats, including heads of matrilineal groups, seem to have...

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