1 known location can be tried.
1 known location can be tried.
Tlingit geographic knowledge is organized along two principal axes: social structure and subsistence production. Using the place-name inventory of an 83-year-old Tlingit elder, this essay analyzes how geographic names form an essential part of Tlingit social being and integrate physical and sociological landscapes in practical ways. As potent, mnemonic symbols, Tlingit toponyms reference important social and environmental knowledge and, when strategically deployed in rituals and other communicative acts, function distinguish and unite social groups in myriad ways. (Tlingit, place names, space, cognition, social identity, ecology) For the individual in Tlingit society, geographic knowledge is organized along two fundamental axes: social structure and subsistence production. The key role of social structure in the formation of Tlingit geographic knowledge was first alluded by de Laguna (1960:17-18), who speculated upon the strong force that the matrilineal sib (or clan) exerts over a Tlingit individual's of history and De Laguna also recognized that Tlingit territory at the most fundamental level was conceptualized not in terms of large swaths of land, but rather as constellations of points or locales, typically the sites of productive activities such as fishing and gathering, or historical and navigational landmarks (cf. Malinowski 1922). This article describes the construction of Tlingit geographic knowledge by considering the place-name inventory of a particular Tlingit man, 83-year-old Herman Kitra, Sr. (a lifelong resident of Sitka, Alaska), with whom I have been studying Tlingit geography for the past three years. Working together we have documented more than 200 Tlingit place names known Mr. Kitka. The geographic range of named sites extends from Grenville Inlet (Xoots Geeyi)(2) in Northern British Columbia Prince William Sound (Chagugeeyi, Greatest Bay) in the land of the Pacific Eskimo some 1,000 miles north as Raven flies. The distribution of these place names is neither uniform nor random. On the contrary, as for most Tlingits, the patterns of names on the land in Mr. Kitka's toponymic repertoire are predictably co-ordinated along social structural lines and subsistence pathways. These axes constrain not only what Tlingit place names an individual knows but serve as twin foundations for interpreting places.(3) SOCIOGEOGRAPHIC TIES TO PLACE To be born Tlingit means be placed in a particular sociogeographic web of relation indexed by geographic names. Tlingit social organization has six major which can be nested from broadest narrowest as follows: 1) nation, 2) moiety, 3) kwaan (a Tlingit term from the verb to dwell), 4) clan, 5) house group, 6) personal name/title (see Table 1). At each of these levels linkages between the sociological and physical landscapes are expressed through place names. Although not a nation in the political sense of having a single leader or government, Tlingits recognize their distinct language, culture, and geography. Tlingits as a group occupied a circumscribed space which at one time extended from Cape Fox, on Alaska's southern border with British Columbia, Katalla in the Gulf of Alaska. They conceived of their collective territory as a place and referred it as Lingit Aani (Tlingit Country) (de Laguna 1972:58 ff.). Table 1: Tlingit Social Organization, with a Profile of Mr. Kitka Level Social Unit Herman Kitka, Sr. 1 Nation Tlingit 2 Moiety Eagle/Wolf 3 Kwaan Sheetk' a Kwaan 4 Clan Kaagwaantaan (L'uknax.adi Yadi) 5 House Kook Hit 6 Name(s) S'aaxw Shan (Naawu Laandaa) The exogamous, matrilineal clan is the most basic unit of Tlingit social structure and the foundation of both individual and group identity. In Tlingit you are your mother's clan, a child of your father's clan, and a grandchild of several other clans. …
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