Tanana Athabaskans

Fish wheel into the Tanana River (Tthʼituʼ) and Lower Tanana fish camp, 1997

The homeland of the Tanana Athabaskan people can be generally divided into four distinct sections. 1) the Yukon Tanana upland draining to the Tanana River, 2) the Northway-Tanacross Lowlands, 3) the Eastern Alaskan range draining into the Tanana river, and 4) the Northern foothills.[11]

The Goodpaster River, a 91-mile (146 km) tributary of the Tanana River, is considered to be a natural break in the Tanana Athabaskan language area, separating upriver speakers of the Tanacross and Upper Tanana languages from the Lower (and Middle) Tanana speakers living farther downriver.[6][12]

The Tanana Athabaskans have a system of matrilineal kinship.[7] The Athabaskans loosely recognized membership in a larger bilateral group called regional band (or dialect group), but the more important social unit was the local band (or family group or family/hunting units). In the winter, the regional band might split up into smaller units, called local bands, each one made up of perhaps four nuclear families. The regional band might meet again at a predetermined place and time in mid-winter for a gathering ceremony called a potlatch, and then split up again for beaver and muskrat trapping.[10]

At the end of the 19th century there were twelve regional bands living in the Tanana Athabaskan homeland: six downriver bands (four Lower Tanana and two Middle Tanana) and six upriver bands (two Tanacross and four Upper Tanana).

Archaeological sites in Alaska (East Beringia) are where some of the earliest evidence has been found of Paleo-Indians.[18] Alaska Interior or Interior Alaska has been continuously inhabited for the last 14,000[19] ~ 12,000[20] years, and evidence of this continuum of human (ancestors of the Athabaskans) activity is preserved within and around Fort Wainwright's training lands. Interior Alaska's icefree status during the last glacial period provided a corridor connecting the Bering Land Bridge and northeastern Asia (West Beringia/Siberia) to North America. The earliest cultural remains in interior Alaska, as on the coast, are chipped stone blade complexes about 10,000 years old, with close relationships to Siberian materials.[20] In February 2008 a proposal connecting Asiatic Yeniseian languages of central Siberia to American Na-Dené languages (Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit) into a Dené–Yeniseian family was published and well received by a number of linguists.[21] The homeland of the Athabaskan languages is northwestern Canada and southern/eastern Alaska.[22][23]

After initial colonization, archaeologists generally divide Interior Alaska's prehistory into three broad archaeological themes:[24]

Athabascan tradition

The Athabaskan tradition flourished 1,300–800 years ago. Linguistic evidence suggests that the Athabaskan culture may have appeared in the Tanana Valley as early as 2,500 years ago. Through ethnography, oral history, and a broad array of cultural items, much has been learned about Athabaskan culture and history in the region. Artifacts associated the Athabaskan culture are exceptionally diverse and include bone and antler projectile points, fishhooks, beads, buttons, birch bark trays, and bone gaming pieces. In the Upper Tanana region, native copper (from trading with Ahtna people or "Copper Indians") was available and used in addition to the traditional material types to manufacture tools such as knives, projectile points, awls, ornaments, and axes.[19][36] A late prehistoric Athabaskan occupation is recognized at several sites in and around U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Wainwright's training lands.[37] The Athabaskan Tradition includes late prehistoric and proto-historic cultures generally believed to be the ancestors of Athabascan tribes who currently inhabit Interior Alaska. Excavated Athabaskan sites are rare, but the limited body of evidence allows for several generalizations. Athabascan settlement patterns depended greatly on the availability of subsistence resources, and Interior bands lived a nomadic lifestyle.[19]

Tanana chief in 1916

Ernest S. Burch (1980) defined a four-period scheme reflecting the major historical events and their impact on the Alaska Natives (Alaskan Eskimos and Athabaskan peoples):[38]

1. the Early Historic period (1816–1838) is earliest contact with natives can be reckoned from the explorative coastal expedition of James Cook in 1778.
2. the Fragmentation period (1838–1897) is saw far-reaching disruption and change of traditional native subsistence and settlement patterns.
3. the Colonial period (1898–1960) is marked by the abrupt influx of large numbers of non-native peoples during the gold rush era.
4. the Native Claims period (1960–1977) is pre and post Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA).

Russian fur traders (and promyshlenniki [According to American historian and ethnologist Hubert Howe Bancroft, the Cossacks themselves were a light troop, but they were preceded by a still lighter, a flying advance guard, called the promyshleniki, a kind of Russian coureurs des bois.[39]] for North American fur trade and maritime fur trade) of the period of the Russian America (1733–1867) began settling Interior Alaska starting in the 1810s, establishing a trading post at Nulato on the Yukon River (of Koyukon homeland) and one (in the 1819 Copper Fort) at Taral (Russian Тарал, native Ahtna name Taghaelden) on the Copper River (of Ahtna homeland).[19][40] British traders established Fort Yukon (of Gwich'in homeland) in 1847. Trade goods from these posts may have passed to Lower and Upper Tanana Athabaskans through intra-Native trade networks. Direct contact between Tanana Athabaskans and white traders increased after the 1860s. With the U.S. purchase of Alaska in 1867, control of trading stations and the fur trade passed to Americans. Through the 1880s, American traders established several additional posts on the Yukon and Tanana rivers, including locations at Nuklukayet (modern-day Tanana of Koyukon people homeland), Belle Isle (modern-day Eagle of Hän people homeland), and Fort Yukon.[19] The Tanana River area has a documented Euroamerican history of less than 130 years, and like the Tanana Athabaskan history.

The Nucha'la'woy'ya (or anglicized Nuchalawoya lit. 'where the two rivers meet'[41]) or Noochuloghoyet (lit «the point of the big river peninsula»[42] and historically: Nukluroyit, Nuclavyette, Nukluklayet, Nukiukahyet, Nuklukait,, Nuklaciyat, Nuklukyat, Noukelakayet, Tuklukyet (modern-day Tanana) was a traditional trading settlement for Koyukon and Tanana Athabaskans long before European contact.[43]

With the beginning of Euro-American contact in Interior Alaska in the early 19th century, trade influences and influxes of new populations began to change life in the region. Land use patterns shifted from traditional indigenous uses to activities based on Euro-American economic and political systems. As Euro-American traders (merchants), miners, missionaries and explorers moved into the Tanana Valley, the traditional life ways of local Athabaskan groups were disrupted. Access to trade goods and the development of the fur trade not only affected traditional material culture, but also began to dramatically affect subsistence activities and settlement patterns. Similarly, the arrival of missionaries in the Alaskan Interior profoundly influenced traditional social organization. The introduction of mission schools for Native children and the doctrine of new religious beliefs contributed to an erosion of traditional ecological knowledge and other traditional practices.[19][44] After the Alaska Purchase in 1867, most of the Koyukon were converted by either Catholic or Protestant denominations, and by 1900 virtually all Alaskan Athabaskans were Christians at least by name if not entirely by practice.[45] An influenza epidemic in 1920 claimed one-fourth of the Lower Tanana Athabaskan population of Nenana (Toghotili).[7]

Delta River

The homeland of Tanana Athabaskans is the Dfc climate type subarctic boreal forest of Nearctic realm, called Interior Alaska-Yukon lowland taiga. Their lands are located in different two ecoregions:[46]

1. The south of Tanana River, called Tanana-Kuskokwim Lowlands and this ecoregion forms an arch north of the Alaska Range and Lime Hills. Native people of the lowlands are mainly Koyukon, Tanana, and Kuskokwim Athabaskans. Main communities are Fairbanks, North Pole, Tok, and Delta Junction.
2. The north of Tanana River, called Yukon-Tanana Uplands and this ecoregion forms are rounded mountains and hills located between the Yukon and Tanana Rivers and spanning the Alaska-Yukon Territory border. Native people of the uplands are Tanacross, Tanana, and Hän Athabaskans. Main communities are Fox, Ester, and Eagle.

Tanana Athabaskans were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who moved seasonally throughout the year within a reasonably well-defined territory to harvest fish, bird, mammal, berry and other renewable resources.[6][7] The Tanana territories generally is a mosaic of open and closed spruce forests covering the low gradient outwash slope between the Alaska Range and the flats and ridges north of the Tanana River.[7]

The economy of Tanana Athabaskans is a mixed cash-subsistence system, like other modern foraging economies in Alaska. The subsistence economy is main non-monetary economy system. Cash is often a rare commodity in foraging economies, because of lack of employment opportunities or perceived conflicts in the demands of wage employment and subsistence harvesting activities.[7] The primary use of wild resources is domestic. Wild resource use in many Athabaskan villages is overwhelmingly for domestic consumption, since commercial fishing in Alaska is absent.[7] Commercial fishing and trapping patterns are controlled primarily by external factors. The state's limited entry system, operational by 1974 (after ANCSA), limits the number of available fishing permits for commercial salmon (esp. the Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus species for salmon cannery) fishing. In Nenana, about one-third of households have a permit. Most (70%) sample households with a permit used. Those with a permit that did not fish commercially, did fish for subsistence.[7]

Upper Nabesna–Chisana annual hunting-gathering cycle (< Guédon 1974)[47]

Resource	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep
Porcupine caribou hunting
Alaska moose hunting
Dall sheep hunting
Snowshoe rabbit hunting
Beaver & Muskrat trapping
Ptarmigan & Grouse hunting
Whitefish catching
Berry gathering
Fur trapping

Hunting was associated with seasonal movements along trails and frozen rivers, particularly as bands moved between rivers and uplands. The primarily hunting animals for Tanana Athabaskans are big animals (caribou, moose, and wild sheep). Most valuable hunting animal is the caribou (subspecies Rangifer tarandus granti, Lower Tanana bedzeyh, Tanacross wudzih, Upper Tanana udzih). The caribou was the most important food animal in the Upper Tanana before the coming of the non-natives and resultant disintegration of the original nomadic patterns.[48] The economic life of the Upper Tanana centers around the caribou. Not only does the animal constitute the source of food for the natives and their dogs, but also it supplies the material for their clothing, shelters, and boats as well as netting for their snowshoes and babiche and sinew for their snares, cords, and lashings.[17][49] The caribou hunt occurred in the early summer and mid-summer. Caribou hunting during the fall migration involved the use of fence, corral, and snare complexes and was a seasonal activity critical to the survival of the Tanana people.[6] Today, most caribou meat is typically used fresh, or is frozen for later use.[17] The moose (subspecies Alces alces gigas, Lower Tanana denigi, Tanacross dendîig, Upper Tanana diniign) was other most important food animal for Tanana Athabaskans. Moose hunting is the most common resource harvesting activity among Lower Tanana Athabaskan bands.[7] Moose hunting is always a popular activity in modern Athabaskan communities because of the meat's economic value and a food preference for large game.[7] Moose hunting in the fall was either an individual pursuit or group activity. Moose meat was eaten fresh or preserved.[6] The Mansfeld-Kechumstuk band of Tanacross employed several methods to hunt Dall sheep (in Alaskan English simply sheep, Lower Tanana deba, Tanacross demee, Upper Tanana dibee) in late summer and early fall in local mountainous areas or as far south as the Mentasta Mountains. Dall sheep were a desired source of food and material for clothing and tools.[6]

Migratory waterfowl (ducks, geese, and swans) and upland game birds (ptarmigans and grouse) were a valued source of fresh meat. Grouse (spruce grouse, sharp-tailed grouse, ruffed grouse Lower Tanana deyh, Tanacross deyh, ch'ehtêeg, tsą́ą' ts'uug, Upper Tanana daih, ch'ahtagn, tsąą'ts'uu) and ptarmigan (willow ptarmigan and rock ptarmigan Lower Tanana k'orrh'eba, ddhełk'ola, Tanacross k'étmah, ddheł k'aal, Upper Tanana k'atbah) were taken opportunistically throughout the year with bow and arrows or with snares and fence-snare arrangements. Ducks and geese were easily captured when molting. Men in birchbark canoes quietly approached waterfowl in bays and coves and shot them with bow and arrows. Women and children then caught the birds and collected eggs from their nests.[6]

Alaska wild berries from the Innoko National Wildlife Refuge, a mixture of true berries (blue Vaccinium uliginosum and red Vaccinium vitis-idaea) and aggregate fruits (red Rubus arcticus)

Fishing (creek and river) was done near the village sites, and the fish were stored in large subsurface caches and is domestic and most common. The main economical fish (Tanacross łuug, Upper Tanana łuugn, łuuk) species are mostly whitefish (humpback whitefish, round whitefish Tanacross xełtįį') and Pacific salmon (king (chinook) Upper Tanana gath, Tanacross łuug chox, red (sockeye) Upper Tanana łuugn delt'al, Tanacross łuug delt'el). Other fish species are pike (Upper Tanana ch'ulju̱u̱dn, Tanacross uljaaddh), grayling (Lower Tanana srajela, Upper Tanana seejiil, Tanacross seejel), lingcod (Upper Tanana and Tanacross ts'aan) and sucker (Upper Tanana taats'adn, Tanacross tats'aht'ôl). Fishing at Mansfield Lake and Fish Creek for whitefish, pike, and grayling began in the late spring and continued until mid-July and was a major harvest activity; whitefish was an especially important and perennially reliable food source. All band members except the very young children assisted in harvesting and processing the catch. The spring fish harvest provided a welcome dietary change after a long winter of eating mostly dried fish and meat. Fish not eaten fresh were processed and dried on drying racks for later consumption. Both fresh and dried fish were cooked in boiling water, produced by placing heated stones into a birch bark basket.[6]

The white spruce (Picea glauca) and black spruce (Picea mariana) are the dominant tree, with its maximum tree line being held at around 4,000 feet. Above this limit only stunted willows and alders are found. In the lowlands, several ferns such as the ostrich, wood, beech and oak fern are found.[11] Beginning in late spring and continuing throughout the summer and early fall months, both adults and children gathered a variety of plants and vegetative materials. Fruit and berries (Lower Tanana jega, deneyh, nekotl, Tanacross jêg, ntl'ét, nit-sįį', Upper Tanana jjign, nt'lat, niitsil), edible roots (esp. Indian potato or wild carrot Hedysarum alpinum Lower Tanana troth[50]), and assorted plants (esp. wild rhubarb Polygonum alaskanum) were eaten fresh, preserved for later consumption, or used for medicinal purposes. Birch bark of paper birch (Lower Tanana k'iyh, Tanacross and Upper Tanana k'įį) and spruce roots (Tanacross xeyh) were needed to make baskets, cooking vessels, tools, cradleboards, and canoes.[6] The Upper Tanana use lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) as a food source. They boil the berries with sugar and flour to thicken, eat the raw berries, either plain or mixing them with sugar, grease or the combination of the two, fry them in grease with sugar or dried fish eggs, and make them into pies, jam, and jelly. They also preserve the berries alone or in grease and store them in a birchbark basket in an underground cache, or freeze them.[51] They also use them in their traditional medicine, eating the berries or using the juice of the berries for colds, coughs, and sore throats.[51]

The Tanana kinship is based on what is formally known as an Iroquois kinship and reflects the matrilineal clan system and the importance of cross cousin marriage. Individuals in the Tanana society are born into their mother's clan. Their society was and still is composed of eight or nine matrilineal clans that are arranged in exogamous moieties named Raven (or Crow) and Sea Gull (or Wolf). Marriage was supposed to take place between a man and woman who are from opposite clan.[6]

Historically and traditionally, the transportation of Alaskan Athabaskans is pedestrian transportation and they are traveling on foot (in winter also birchbark snowshoes). Caribou were also pursued individually on snowshoes during winter by hunters using bow and arrow.[49] Athabascan women regularly carry their children with the help of a baby belt.[20] Dog (Lower Tanana łiga, Tanacross łii) use in many Athabaskan villages is overwhelmingly for hunting and as pack animals. Dog sleds (Lower Tanana xwtl, Tanacross xědl) are an ancient and widespread means of transportation for Eskimo peoples (western central Alaskan Yup'ik people and northern and northwestern Alaskan Inupiat people), but when non-Native fur traders and explorers first traveled the Yukon River and other interior regions in the mid-19th century, they observed that only a few Athabascan groups, including the Koyukon, Deg Hit'an and Holikachuk, used dogs in this way. Both of these peoples had probably learned the technique from their Iñupiat or Yup'ik Eskimo neighbors. The Gwich'in, Tanana, Ahtna and others pulled their sleds and toboggans by hand, using dogs solely for hunting and as pack animals.[66] Dogs sometimes were used to drive the moose into the fence and snares.[6]

Historically, the Tanana Athabaskan people did not think of themselves as living in "tribes," a relatively recent term connected with political recognition by the U.S. government.[6]

Lower Tanana language:

• Kari, James 1991. Lower Tanana Athabaskan listening and writing exercises. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center

Tanacross language:

• Arnold, I. S., G. Holton, and R. Thoman 2009.Tanacross Learnersʼ Dictionary.

Upper Tanana language:

• Milanowski, Paul G. & John, Alfred. 1979. Nee'aaneegn'/Upper Tanana (Tetlin) Junior Dictionary. Anchorage: National Bilingual Materials Development Center.

• Terry L. Haynes and William E. Simeone (2007). Upper Tanana ethnographic overview and assessment, Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence. Technical Paper Number 325. [This overview of Alaska Native history and culture in the upper Tanana region in eastern interior Alaska focuses on the predominantly Northern Athabascan Indian villages of Dot Lake, Healy Lake, Northway, Tanacross, and Tetlin.]. Only included Upriver Tanana (Tanacross and Upper Tanana) bands, excluded Downriver Tanana (Lower and Middle Tanana) bands.