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Tlingit, Eyak, Haida and Tsimshian Native American history - page 2 of 4

The region from the Copper River Delta to the Southeast Panhandle is a temperate rainforest with precipitation ranging from 112 inches per year to almost 200 inches per year. Here the people depended upon the ocean, rivers and forest for their food and travel. This environment produces many tall and massive trees. Wood was the most important commodity for the people; providing their houses, totem poles, daily utensils, storage and cooking boxes, transportation, ceremonial objects, and labrets worn by high status women. All clothes were made of wood and wood products. The tools to make the wood into usable items were adzes, mauls, wedges, digging sticks and in later years, iron. To cut the wood people used chipped rocks, bones, beaver teeth, and shells. For light, the Eyak used a clamshell with seal oil or pitch, and a lump of fat for a wick. Dried ooligan were used as candles, and hollowed sandstone with cotton grass were fashioned into wicks.

Traditionally, clans owned the salmon streams, halibut banks, berry patches, land for hunting, intertidal regions, and egg harvesting areas. As long as the clan used the area, they owned the area. The food was seasonal and therefore had to be preserved for the winter months and for early spring. The food was preserved by smoking in smokehouses or drying in the wind or sun. These subsistence patterns are still a crucial part of Southeast Alaska Native people’s cultural identity.

The water supplied their main food, salmon, steelhead, herring, herring eggs, and ooligans (eulachon). Southeast waters produce an abundance of foods including sea mammals, deepwater fish, sea plants including seaweed, beach asparagus, and goose tongue. Land food sources included plants, berries, shoots, moose, mountain goat, and deer. Fencelike fish weirs and traps were placed in streams for seasonal salmon runs, and holding ponds were built in the inter-tidal region. Dip nets, hooks, harpoons and spears were also used to harvest salmon during the season. A specialized hook, fashioned in a ‘V’ or ‘U’ was used to catch halibut.

Each local group of Eyak, Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian had at least one permanent winter village with various seasonal camps close to food resources. The houses accommodated 20 to 50 people, usually of one clan. Eyak dwelling houses were unmarked. The southern Tlingit built tall totem poles in front of their houses, the northern Tlingit built fewer and shorter frontal totem poles. The people established winter villages along the banks of streams or along saltwater beaches, to provide easy access to fish-producing waters. Winter villages were located so as to allow protection from storms and enemies, and also provide drinking water and a place to launch canoes. Houses were built facing the water with their backs to the mountains or muskeg/swamps, and most villages had a single row of houses.

• Athabascans,
• Yup'ik and Cup'ik,
• Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yupik people,
• Aleut and Alutiiq peoples,
• Eyak, Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people.

Haida, Eyak, Tlingit and Tsimshian Native American history - page 3

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