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The Athapaskan Effect

Forgive if a bit crude, written under a tight deadline

A close study of the geography of the Northwestern coast of the New World lends many clues to the ultimate factors behind the linguistic distribution of its prehistoric Native inhabitants. Their linguistic distribution can be explained through the patterns of arrival, cultural practices and movement throughout the western North American coast. The Northwestern tribes lived in one of the most abundant areas of the New World; their cultural arrangement and social stratification built upon the foundations of the abundant animal life, temperate rain forests and rich costal marine resources. The Athapaskan, Penutian and Salish language groups were the three largest populations to inhabit the "Northwestern Cultural Area," which, for reasons of this essay is defined to span about one hundred miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, stretching between 54 degrees latitude from the Southern tip of Alaska by the Stikine and Iksut rivers to 35 degrees latitude, the northern boundary of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. It will be seen that technological innovation of the Haida would shape the linguistic distribution of the northwestern costal area.

By the end of the Pleistocene, the average rainfall of the Northwest coast would range anywhere from 80-400 inches per year, very similar to today's averages. The coast line is dotted with various islands and inlets, and in winter months the temperate rain forests receive about 8-7 hours of sunlight. Social structure of the Northwestern tribes was centered around hunting and gathering, and due to high amounts of rainfall and moderate seasons, populations could remain stationary. The Natives relied on marine life as well as the rich inland flora and fauna.This type of complex hunting and gathering is unique to the northwestern coastal region.
The Tlingit and Haida tribes are part of the Na-Dene or Athapaskan language group; inhabiting a large range of the Alaskan and Canadian interior, as well as long stretches of coastline. The clan based social structure prevented linguistic meshing with southern neighbors, and innovation in maritime technology caused population movements in later centuries. The Tlingit and Haida were the first of the migration wave, as demonstrated by the linguistic variations along the Northwestern coast. It is thought that this population traveled southward from the Bering Strait land bridge, possibly following seal and other mammals along the coastal waters of Alaska. (Diamond 1999:43-44)
Patterns of dialects seem chaotic and jumbled but can be accounted for using geography. Around 10,000 B.C. large glacial mountain range divided the prehistoric migration into two parts.
One segment of the population traveled along the coastal region while the other segment took an interior route through northwestern Canada. This glacial mountain range would divide the ancestral population long enough (based on rates of expansion) to cause such changes in language that the two would form separate dialects, if not becoming mutually unintelligible.

This initial division due to geography would be the ultimate cause that turned the Athapaskan phylum into the Salish language family. The Tlingit and Haida tribes progressed down the coast more quickly than their sister Salish. In fact, the Salish did not turn westward until mid-Montana where a break in the glacial mountain ranges allowed a westward expansion. Calculating the approximate rate of expansion, the two populations reestablished contact after about 600 years of isolation. (Krantz 1977:9-18)
The last population to reach the Northwestern Coastal area were the Penutian, who continued southward from the ancestral Salish population, but turned west on the Snake River Plain. Both Salish and Penutian encountered the Cascade Mountain range, a geographical barrier that due to elevation, can only be surpassed on either end. It was beyond this mountain range that the Athapaskan were already inhabiting the coast of present-day Washington and Oregon. The reason for the early Athapaskan early arrival was due to their choice of migration down the coast, having been split so early on. The Athapaskan were not interested in moving inland, and remained on the coast where their sea-faring culture thrived. Once the Salish and Penutian arrived, they did not push the Athapaskan out of their multiple residences along the coast, but filled in the deeply inset coastal regions that the Athapaskan overlooked. Despite their presumably larger population, this phenomena is best explained by Krantz's rules of population migration from his paper, "The Populating of Western North America" from 1977. He asserts, "the first group into an area tends to occupy that area indefinitely," (Krantz 1977:4). His reasoning states that a group with no technological advantage will be unsuccessful in taking the land from a previously inhabiting group; the original population has the home field advantage of knowing the land and its resources, lending them the only upper hand available in battle (Krantz 1977:4-5) . This first-man in hypothesis lends a solid explanation to the complex tribal arrangement.
Culture, as much as geography lends itself to the manipulation of linguistic barriers. The Northwestern Cultural Area, as previously stated, is based on a complex hunting and gather society. This unique form of social structure has many original characteristics, including a tribe/clan/house arrangement and a social stratification of elders,commoners and slaves. Because there are no significant geographical barriers to prevent linguistic homogeny, the social arrangement due to environmental abundance is the key. The population pattern of the coastal region was the first step of linguistic diversity. There is no reason for a tribe to change its custom or to become absorbed by a larger invading population, frankly due to Krantz's "first population in" hypothesis. If there is no superior technology, warfare is kept to a minimum, as loss of life is not desired or even necessary. The environmental capacity is so high, the Natives had no reason to fight for resources: they were literally flowing into their doorstep with each tide change or rain shower.
The Northwestern Native Americans were unilineal and exogamous with a the exception of the Kwakiutl who were not unilineal and were not necessarily exogamous. Every clan had at least two phratries, or divisions, with each phratry taking on a representative crest. In the north, the Tlingit and Haida tribes had very distinct clan lines, were matrilineal and marriage only occurred with the opposite sex in a sister phratry. For example, the two main phratries of the Tlingit were the Wolf and the Raven. A Raven woman could only marry a Wolf man or vice a versa. (McFeat 1966:43).This practice's ultimate cause, as similar to all unilineal societies was to prevent inbreeding but was justified by the complex distribution of honors and clan power. As stated earlier, northwestern societies were stratified into three layers: elder/honored, commoners and slaves. Intermarriage with slaves was not tolerated. A Northwestern Native American gained prestige or honor through the cultural practice of the potlatch. This was a type of redistribution ceremony that was tabulated by individual. In short, the monetary unit of measure is the blanket. The entire redistribution process of the potlatch centers around a distribution of blankets. The higher the number of blankets, the higher the prestige. Even an individual's name centered around this trade of woven blankets. The copper, originating from southeastern Alaska (presumably Tlingit territory) is the highest form of monetary exchange, with a dugout canoe being at the secondary level, but all were calculated by number of blankets (McFeat 1966:72-80).
The Kwakiutl were a part of the Salish language group, residing near the Puget Sound. The Salish were dotted amongst the coast, and their pattern of distribution directly correlates with the British Columbia and the Cascade mountain ranges, both of which had only five passable points: all of which are rivers. Water navigation was especially important for all Northwestern tribes, though some relied more upon sea-faring vessels than others. The Salish and Penutian did not travel in the Pacific as much as the Tlingit or Haida. The Haida tribe is located on a island, making sea-faring an essential part of tribal life. Around 11,000 B.P., the populations of Athapaskan that inhabited the smallest river valleys were linguistically absorbed, simply due to an overwhelming invading population moving into the land. Only the medium to large river valleys were inhabited by a large enough population of Costal Athapaskan to resist inland migration (Krantz 1977:27).
The method used for making a dugout canoe was highly praised by G. M. Sproat who traveled to the Northwest Coast around the turn of the century. In an excerpt from Tom McFeat's Indians of the North Pacific Coast, Sproat recounts the high level of craftsmanship that went into the making of the canoe, "The most skilful canoemakers among the tribes are the Nitinahts and the Klah-oh quahts. They make canoes for sale to other tribes. Many of these canoes are of the most accurate workmanship and perfect design - so much so that I have heard persons fond of such speculations say that the Indians must have acquired the art of making these beautiful vessels in some earlier civilized existence," (McFeat 1966:19). The method used to create the dugout was a hand-held chisel and steam: stones were heated until red-hot, and then placed into the a small amount of water inside of the canoe. The steam then allowed the Natives to pull apart the sides of the hollowed out trunk and brace them.
Following Krantz' theory of population migration, any given population would settle continuously in any uninhabited area. If this theory is correct, the Costal Athapaskan would have stretched North to South along the North Pacific coast area. As Krantz's figure 7 suggests by way of the dotted line, the population in some areas was sparse and would have been absorbed like the smaller river valleys if the population was not substantial enough to remain linguistically and culturally distinct (Krantz 1977:19). This being said, the technique of dugout canoe most likely came from the Athapaskan tradition, as they were originally sea-faring peoples. It is highly unlikely that diffusion of the canoe method came from inland to coast, simply due to its uselessness to inland populations.
It is generally agreed that the populating of the new world came from a migration from across the Pacific. How these ancestral peoples arrived on the shores of the New World is debatable. Whether or not they traveled by foot through the glacial passes, shore-hopped following the marine mammals up through the arctic or sailed directly from China/Japan is still open to question. Pan-Pacific similarities are clues to these Native people's origins. We know the original population was divided by the glacial mountains. The Athapaskan costal route is delineated by linguistic similarities all the way from Alaska into Northern California. This relatively quick migration was only possible through sea-faring technology, and when compared with boat building methods in China and Japan, the Costal Athapaskan method is most similar to China. Where the peoples of Japan use only fire (Brooks 2001) to mold the wood, it is Chinese tradition to use steam. In fact, in November of 2002, Chinese archaeologists uncovered China's oldest dugout canoe, having a radio carbon date back 7,500 Y.B.P.(English 2002). Another similarity is Tlingit armor, similar in style to the Feudal Japanese armor(Waldman 1985:72).
A major southern language shift is evident through the divided linguistic affiliations of the Northwestern rivers. Closer to the mouths of the four rivers: the Columbia River, the Snoqualmie Pass, The Fraser River the Homathko River and the Dean River, linguistic affiliations are more similar to the northern Athapaskan than the southern Salish or Penutian groups. The cause of this mysterious southward shift points directly at the Haida. The Haida resided on present-day Queen Charlotte Island off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Being the only population that did not shift southward, and that the closest tribes of the Tlingit and Tsimshian shifted the smallest amount, one can infer that some advancement in technology would have given the Haida an upper hand to overtake these rich costal resources. Once relatively isolated, the Haida developed a sea-faring dugout canoe, able to carry up to 60 armed men for costal invasions. With this new innovation, neighboring tribes were pressed to develop similar technology and until their ability to match the new Haida innovation, continued to lose land to the usurpers (Krantz 1977:38-39).
It was technological advancement that allowed the Athapaskan to not only arrive first along this costal region, but to dominate neighboring groups later on. The linguistic distribution of the costal region is adequately explained by Grover Krantz's theories of population migration. The later arriving inland peoples, although larger in number, were not able to push the original Athapaskan population out of their established communities. Smaller encampments did become linguistically absorbed by the influx of Salish and Penutian, but in all, the costal expansion of the Na-Dene language group played a dominant role in shaping the linguistics of the Northwestern Cultural area.
Further speculation can be made as to the North Pacific coastal linguistic affiliations with the Far East. Some questions that could not be answered in the breadth of this essay was the glottochronologic evidence for the origins of these Native Americans. The technological similarities are most likely not coincidental, but require continued research to be a certainty.

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