ARE: THE KASKA AND SLAVE ABORIGINAL? An Ecological and Ethnohistorical Study B.A., Simon F'raser University, 1973 A THESIS SUEPDmD IN PARTIAL FLJLFIUTIENT OF THE REQUI-S FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology FRANS ANTON LAMERS 1974 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Ikcember 1974 All rights, reserved. This thesis nay not be reproduced in whDle or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permissLon of the author. / APPROVAL ,+ Name: Frans Anton Lamers Degree: Master of Arts 1 Title of Thesis: Are The lraska and slave Aboriginal? An Ecological and Ethnohistorical Study s, hamining Comittee : PARTIAL COPYRIGIIT LICENSE 1 t i I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis or dissertation (the title of which is shown below),to.users I , of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or Single t copies only for such users or in respQnse to a request from the ,library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. I futther agree that permission for f multiple copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be . granted. by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies.. It is understood that copying I or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed ' 8 without my written permission. This study of aboriginal Kaska and Slave societies introduces additional and new information regarding the northern Athabascan Indians of the arctic drainage system of Canada. With the aid of ethnohistorical and ecological data, the socio-econanic adaptive strategies of those people am examined. Starting in 1670, the data that the Hudson1s Bay Ccarrpany started to aperate frwn its posts on the shores of Hudson Bay, the population movements and nature of developmts are follawed, to determine the early and subsequent influences on the Athabascan speaking people. Julian Steward, Elman Service and June Helm have all attempted to postulate the early social structure of the Dene, by a variety of nethods and theories. Other anthropologists, Diamond Jenness . and Cornelius Osgood proposed certain tribal divisions (in the 19301s). Mever, few ethnographic field studies had been done and precise historical studies were lacking. king and since the Second World War an increasing munt of direct information became available. Although it has been widely accepted that the Athabascan people went through a destructive period during the indirect and direct fur trade, the precise dynamics have not been investigated. This situation led some anthropologists to same mistaken assumptions. The history of the two mups, today ham as the Kaska and Slave people, provides us with some examples of such. mistakes. Aboriginal Athabascan hunters, fishers and gatherers were people of iii the transition zones rather than the boreal forest proper. Chapter two discusses the habitat and specific behavior of the animal populations of the north, especially in relation to the region where the Kaska and Slave Indians live today: the Cassiar and Upper Mackenzie River mas. This examination compares the historical and contempomry numbers of species, their specific habitat and total interrelationships. The conclusion was reached that the area is predcnninantly an area inhabited by solitary woodland species and fur bearers. Only the extrme eastern region, the Horn buntains, was seasonally frequented by the bmen ground caribou, an important herd species. The area contains very few good fishing lakes and provides a limited munt of vegetation for human consumption. Thus, the a.is characterized by a widely dispersed anhl population, on which the hmpopulation was highly dependent for their livelihood. In Chapter three it is sham that the nm"Slave" is incorrectly used to denaninate a -up of people in the Upper Mackenzie district. The name 5laveW,was given by the Cree Indians to many other Indian populations, including Athabascan speakers, who were pushed north and northwestward during the Cree expansion as middleman in the fur trade. The displaced Athabascans mved into a variety of ecological zones and adopted new cultural and social forms in their adaptation to these envimnmnts. Denominations like Sekani, Sarcee and Beaver, therefore can be taken as cultural ecological distinctions although these people had their cultural and social mots in a conwn ancestor. The wrongly named llSlavev however should be considered Beaver Indians. All early fuz. traders indicated this to be the case, but anthropologists disregarded their statements or, without explanation, declared this to be wrong. The expansion of the fur trade, in particular by the aggressive mthods of the North-West Company, which entered the northern interior in the late 1700ts, caused a rapid depletion of woodland game species and fur bearers. Starting mund 1800, reports of starvation started to increase. Although birth and death cycles, natural catastrophes and severe local climatic conditions reduced anhd populations locally for myhundreds of years, it was the "611 season - clean sweep1' hunting wthods of the fur trade ccanpanies, regardless of the natural cycles, under which the andpopulations failed to regenerate. The Indian population of the Fort Simpson and Fort Nelson area found themsleves in a destroyed envimnme.nt following the collapse of the North-West Ccorrpany in 1821. Chapter four follows the Hudson's Bay Company's search for new fur areas, folladng their take-over of the North-West Company. Several attempts were made to establish new hunting areas in the mountainous area of northern British Columbia and southerk Yukon, to no avail. They fmd an extremly bmcountry, especially in winter, starvation was bsta certainty. Som small groups of Indians seasonally exploited sore of the muntain valleys, but no Indian population was observed to exist that could have formed the direct ancestor to tlx present day Kaska Indians. In spite of the fact that mre investigations had been mde than on the llSlavell Indians, anthmpdlogists failed to unscramble the customary Athabascan way of naming other pups. The &ern Kaska pups are shown to be directly descended hm people who moved into the area during the Cassiar gold rush in 1873, whichprovided anumber of wage-labour opportunities. Part-time fur trapping and occasional wage-labour kept some people concentmted in the Cassiar region and subsequent intermarriage occum?ed. As the people came fmmy different ms,mdern Cassiar society shows a variety of social and cultural traits. Contemporary field-data presented by June Helm, indicates that the founding of Jean Marie, a comnunity south of Fort Simpson, had similar underlaying dynamics: wage-labour,and later in time, self-owned mchinery, provided a stabilization base. The Stu-ljr concludes that the patterns uncovered for the two societies may hold for mre northern cdties. Rather than internal (sociological features of social organization, the external physical and economic circumstances - the lack of sufficient wild animal food sources which necessitate the attachment to wage opportunities - provided the basic structural foundations of Athabascan comnunities. To: Gemit en Hendrik vii The writer wuld like to express his appreciation to Professor Ian Whitaker for having provided him with the opportunity to study under him and for supervising the writing of this thesis. I would like to thank Professors Harold Hickerson and Steve Sharp for their suggestims, discussians and criticisms regarding this study. Many people - colleagues, friends, former teachers and even family - have influenced my thinking and interests. This study gives credit to all of them. I would like to thank Ms. Susan Blair, Miss Sylvia Hadwen and Miss Estela Racasa, the staff of the Sociology and Anthropology lkpamnent, for the typing of this thesis. Ms. Swanhilde Tonkens, made sure that everything "loopt lekker". viii . - TITLE: PAGE .................................................... i APPROVAL ...................................................... ii A~STRACI' ..................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES LIST OF MAPS CHAPTER ONE: Introduction Methodology ................................... 1 The Northern Athabascans ...................... 4 Historical Documentation ...................... 6 CHAPTER 'IXO : The ~vironment Topography and Clhte ........................ 11 Vegetation .................................... 17 Fauna ......................................... 19 Fish .......................................... 41 CHAPTER THREE: The Aboriginal "Slaveu Indians The Westward expansion of the Fur Trade ....... 47 Early Athabascan Displacement ................. 57 The Direct Contact =a: The Expansion of the North Nest Company .......................... 68 QiAPTER FOUR: Aboriginal Kaska Indims Early 'lkavels in Kaska Territory .............. 79 No Aboriginal IQska Indians .................. 93 The Bi~of Kaska Society ................... 96 Summary. ...................................... 109 WPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION 113 TABLES TABLE I' Break-up and heze-up dates 14 hation of Daylight 15 Reported Kills of Game Anhls, Fort Simpson Area. 2 8 Reported Kills of Garne Animals, Fort Liard 2 9 v Age of Kaska Informants 103 VI T~talKaska Population March 31, 1944 104 VII Kaska Population 1875-1944 105 The Liard and Upper Mackenzie Drainage Systw Range of I.lammals Vegetation Zones Tribal Pbvement t. 1650 I! " k 1750 11 " f 1800 Ridchardson's 1851 map Samuel Black ' s Voyage Trading Posts Osgood ' s subdivision xii 1 CHAPTER