Circumpolar Lives and Livelihood: A Comparative Ethnoarchaeology of Gender and Subsistence

2. Chipewyan Society and Gender Relations

BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page 24 / / Circumpolar Lives / Jarvenpa and Brumbach 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 [First Page] [24], (1) Lines: 0 to 43 ——— 3.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Eject [24], (1) 2. Chipewyan Society and Gender Relations Hetty Jo Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa Origins and Cultural Context The Kesyehot’ine, or Poplar House People, are descendants of Dene or Athapaskan -speaking Chipewyan Indians who moved southward into the Upper Churchill River drainage of north-central Canada during the late 18th century to participate in the expanding Euro-Canadian fur market economy (Gillespie 1975:368–374; Smith 1975:43). Over the next 150 years these southern Chipewyan became particularly adept boreal forest hunters and the primary producers of furs for the English-controlled Hudson’s Bay Company (hbc) and for rival firms. Despite the emergence of new kinds of interethnic relations and economic behaviors based on market exchange, the Chipewyan production strategy of subsistence hunting and fishing in seasonally nomadic family bands remained rather stable throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Chipewyan are one of about 26 regional Dene or northern Athapaskanspeaking groups that occupy the vast region extending from Hudson Bay in north-central Canada westward into interior Alaska. According to some interpretations , the ancestors of the Athapaskans ultimately may be traced back to peoples who migrated from eastern Siberia into interior Alaska between 10,000 and 11,000 years ago during the terminal Pleistocene. Those early migrants are often associated with archaeological residues of the Paleo-Arctic microblade tradition (Clark 1991; Greenberg et al. 1986; Turner 1988), yet the diversification of the various Athapaskan languages and speakers occurred much more recently. They probably diverged from a common origin in the Upper Yukon River area within the past 2,000 years and then spread into the farthest reaches of the western Subarctic (Fowler 1977; Krauss 1973, 1988). While widely spaced Chipewyan communities share a common language, there are some regional dialectical variations. Upper Churchill Chipewyan speech closely resembles the dialects at Cold Lake, Fort Chipewyan, and other western locales as opposed to the dialects at Brochet and points eastward. BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page 25 / / Circumpolar Lives / Jarvenpa and Brumbach 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 [25], (2) Lines: 43 to 51 ——— 2.23401pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [25], (2) 2.1. Southern Chipewyan territory in central subarctic Canada. The Kesyehot’ine have ranged widely in the territory between longitude 105° W and 110° W and between latitude 55°50'N and 58°50'N in what is now northwestern Saskatchewan (Map 2.1). This 141,000-square-kilometer region embraces the headwaters of the Churchill River to the south and a height of chipewyan society and gender relations 25 BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page 26 / / Circumpolar Lives / Jarvenpa and Brumbach 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 [26], (3) Lines: 51 to 57 ——— 0.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [26], (3) land containing Arctic-drained waters to the north and is part of the transcontinental subarctic boreal forest biome. While we emphasize the“Upper Churchill River drainage” in this study, the territory under consideration includes portions of two major drainage basins separated by a continental divide a few kilometers south of Cree Lake. Waters to the south of this divide flow toward Hudson Bay by way of the Churchill River system. Cree Lake and other waters to the north of the divide drain into Lake Athabasca and form part of the immense watershed that finds an outlet in the Arctic Ocean by way of the Mackenzie River. As diversified hunters and fishers the Kesyehot’ine share a general environmental orientation with other full boreal forest dwellers, including northern Athapaskan groups like the Slavey (Asch 1981:339–341; Helm 1961:31–36, 2000:30–55; Honigmann 1946:19–36; Janes 1983:14–18) as...