Anthropology of the North Pacific Rim

Anthropology of the North Pacific. Rim.



635 Q. 5. C 752. EDITED BY WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH. AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS. WASHINGTON AND LONDON.

The. volume were presented. essays in this. at a. symposium held. at the. opening. of the joint Soviet, American, and Canadian exhibition, "Crossroads of. Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska," September 22-23, 1988, at the. National. Museum. of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.. ©. of. former Soviet Union were updated to match current. political units within the. usage as of the time of. Names. these papers.. final revision for. 1994 by the Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved. Editor: Vicky Macintyre. Designer: Linda. McKnight. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. "Crossroads of Continents. (1988. :. National. —. Museum. Cultures of Siberia and Alaska'". Symposium. of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution). Anthropology of the North. Pacific. Rim. /. edited by William. W. Fitzhugh. and Valerie Chaussonrlet. cm.. p-. V. "Proceedings of a symposium held at the opening of the joint Soviet,. American, and Canadian exhibition 'Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska,'. Museum. September 22—23, 1988, National. History, Smithsonian Institution. —. of Natural. T. p. verso.". Includes bibliographical references.. ISBN 1-56098-202-0. (alk.. paper). — Russia — — North America— Alaska— Eskimos — Alaska — and customs — Alaska — — and customs — Fitzhugh, William W, 1943I.. Ethnology. (Federation). Exhibitions.. Siberia (Russia). Social. sonnet, Valerie.. III. Title.. GN635.S5C752. 1988. 3o6'.0957'o74. —dc20. Exhibitions. 4.. 3.. Exhibitions.. life. Exhibitions.. Exhibitions. 2. Indians of. Siberia. 5.. I.. Social II.. life. Chaus-. 92-38689. ISBN 1-56098-202-0 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. Manufactured. in the. available. United States of America. 00 99 98 97 96 95 94. The paper used. is. 54321. in this publication. meets the. minimum. requirements of. the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. Z39.48-1984. Cover: A-a-one, a Chukchi from the Provideniia area,. graph by Albert M. Bailey, courtesy Denver. Museum. summer 1921.. (Photo-. of Natural History). For permission to reproduce illustrations appearing in this book, please corre-. spond directly with the owners of the works, tions.. The Smithsonian. Institution Press does not retain reproduction rights. for these illustrations individually, or. sources.. as listed in the individual cap-. maintain a. file. of addresses for photo.

Contents. xi. Contributors. 1. Introduction. WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. PART. 1». 2^. Research History. and American—Asian Links. 1. 27. Crossroads of Continents: Review. and Prospect. WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH. 2. J53. American—Asian. GALINA. I.. Ties as Reflected in. DZENISKEVICH. Athapaskan Material Culture.

3. 63. The Jesup North. Pacific Expedition:. A. History of. Russian—American Cooperation. LIUDMILA. KUZ'MINA. P.. 4. -](). Collections of the. Peter the Great. ELENA. Native Peoples of the Russian Northeast in the. Museum. of Anthropology. and Ethnography. MIKHAILOVA. A.. 5. 87. The. Paleolithic of Kamchatka. and Chukotka and the Problem. of the Peopling of America. NIKOLAI. N.. DIKOV. 6. 97. New. Dental Anthropological Observations Relevant. Human. to the. Population System of the Greater Beringian Realm. CHRISTY. G.. PART. 2.. loj. Symbol and. TURNER. Object:. II. Complexity in North Pacific Cultures. 7. 709. The Bleeding Coat: The Art of North. Pacific Ritual Clothing. VALERIE CHAUSSONNET AND BERNADETTE DRISCOLL. 8. ^33. Deciphering Aleut/Koniag Iconography. LYDIA. T.. BLACK.

9. 147. Qasqiluteng: Feasting and Ceremonialism among the Traditional Koniag ofKodiak Island, Alaska. RICHARD. H.. JORDAN. 10. 1. 73. Eskimo Masks from Kodiak Island in Peter the Great St.. Museum. the Collections of the. of Anthropology. and Ethnography. Petersburg. ROZA. G.. LIAPUNOVA. 11. 20^. Traditional Choreographic Art of Northeastern Siberia. MARIIA. ZHORNITSKAIA. lA.. 12. 21 J. Koniag Eskimo Poisoned-Dart Whaling. ARON CROWELL. 13. 24^. Watercraft in the North Pacific:. A. Comparative View. JEAN-LOUP ROUSSELOT. 14. 239. Canoes of the Northwest Coast. BILL. HOLM. 13. 263. Social Structure of the Peoples of Northeastern Asia. VLADIMIR. I.. VASIL'EV. in.

16. 2 73. Traditional Culture of the Peoples of the Russian Pacific Coast. CHUNER. M.. TAKSAMI. 17. 281. Beads at the Crossroads of Continents. PETER FRANCIS,. JR.. PART. 3.. 307. Interactions: Trade, War,. and Peace. 18. 309. Interethnic Ties in. il'ia. s.. Far Northeastern. Siberia. gurvich. 19. ^21. Eskimo. War and Peace. ANN FIENUP-RIORDAN. 20. 337. Aleut in the Kurile Islands:. VALERII. O.. 1820— 1 8jo. SHUBIN. 21. 347. Recent Ethnic Processes Pacific Coast. ZOIA. P.. SOKOLOVA. among. the Peoples of the Russian.

22. Historical. Background and Modern Trends. in. Native-. Russian Bilingualism among Siberian Native Peoples. SERGEI. A.. ARUTIUNOV AND VLADIMIR. I.. VASIL'EV. 23. Crossroads?. A. Twentieth-Century History of Contacts across. the Bering Strait. MICHAEL KRAUSS.

This collection of essays. is. dedicated to the. our friend, colleague, and the helping. memory. of Sergei. la.. Serov,. spirit of "Crossroads of. Continents.". The first principle we can learn with nature the. and not. world may have. We are. the. same. is. how. to coexist. destroy the environment.. with nature,. to live together. The second is that. all peoples of. different cultures, but the essence of their culture is. breed.. human.. We are all human.. — SERGEI. lA.. SEROV, 194O-92.

Contributors. SERGEI. my. A.. ARUTIUNOV. isa corresponding. member. of the Russian Acade-. of Sciences and chairman of the Department of Caucasian Studies, Insti-. tute of Ethnology,. Moscow.. He. tute of Oriental Languages in culture,. its. transitions,. obtained his doctoral degree from the Insti-. Moscow, specializing. and modernization. In the. terested in prehistoric cultural relations in the. since then has. made. sults of his research. several trips to Northeast. in traditional Japanese. late. North. 1950s, he became in-. Pacific. and Northwest. have appeared in numerous monographs. Cultures of the Asiatic Eskimos. (Moscow, 1969) and. Issues in. and Arctic, and Siberia.. —. The. re-. notably Ancient. Ethnic History of the. Bering Sea Region (Moscow, 1975), both coauthored with Dorian Sergeev, and. The Whale Alley (Moscow, 1982), coauthored with Igor Krupnik and Mikhail. Chlenov. LYDIA. —and numerous. T.. Fairbanks.. BLACK. A. is. papers and international presentations.. professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska,. specialist in anthropological theory. and ethnohistory, she has. fo-. cused on Siberia, the North Pacific, and the circumpolar cultural regions. Since 1975 she has worked with native Alaskan communities, particularly. with the Unangan (Aleut). In 1992, she was elected foreign. member. to the. XI.

CONTRIBUTORS. XII. "Crossroads of Continents" Standing,. left to right:. Crowell, James. Rudolf Its. t,. symposium. participants and catalogue authors, September 1988.. Galina Pendill, Richard Jordan. W. VanStone, William W. Fitzhugh,. Vladimir. I.. Vasil'ev, Il'ia S.. Gurvich. f,. f,. Christy G. Turner. Sergei. la.. II,. Edwin. Serov t, Ernest. S.. Nikolai N. Dikov, Chuner. Hall,. Burch,. P.. Center for the Study of Russian America and Russian-American Relations, In-. Academy. of Sciences.. Her. recent publications in-. clude Glory Remembered: Wooden Headgear of Alaska Sea Hunters. Russia's. American. Possession:. Alaska 1J41—186'/,. VALERIE CHAUSSONNET ter at the. is. A. major work,. in preparation.. has been associated with the Arctic Studies Cen-. Smithsonian Institution since 1986.. A member. of the "Crossroads. of Continents" curatorial team, she contributed a chapter on clothing to the exhibition catalogue and translated the Russian chapters into English. She has lectured in the United States and ples of Siberia. She. is. Canada on Arctic clothing and on the peo-. currently curating "Crossroads Alaska," a small travel-. ing version of "Crossroads of Continents," designed for rural venues in Alaska. and. Siberia.. Jr.,. M. Taksami,. Michael Krauss, Valerii A. Tishkov, Stephen B. Young, Margaret Blackman, Liudmila. stitute of History, Russian. Aron.

Contributors. Kuz'mina,. Bill. Holm, George MacDonald, Elena M. Mikhailova, Bernadette DriscoU,. Valerii. O. Shubin, Jean-Loup Rousselot, William C. Sturtevant.. Galina. I.. Zoia. Sokolova, Lydia Black, Rosita Worl. (Photograph by Chip. P.. Xlli. Dzeniskevich,. Ann. Fienup-Riordan, Mariia. I.. Seated: Valerie. Chaussonnet,. Zhornitskaia, Frederica de Laguna, Clark). t Deceased.. ARON CROWELL bition.. was the co-curator of the "Crossroads of Continents" exhi-. His research has focused on the archeology and cultural history of. southern Alaska, where he has directed projects for the Smithsonian Institution, University of California, U.S.. National Park Service, state of Alaska, and. the Kodiak Area Native Association.. He. is. currently finishing dissertation re-. search at the University of California, Berkeley, on the eighteenth-century. Russian fur trade settlement of Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island. In addition to the Crossroads of Continents exhibition catalogue, his publications in-. clude recent journal articles and reports on southern Alaskan ceremonialism,. paleodemography, and settlement patterns in the Gulf of Alaska region.. NIKOLAI. N.. DIKOV. isa corresponding. Sciences and chairman of the. member. of the Russian. Academy of. Department of Archeology and Ethnography,.



CONTRIBUTORS. XII. "Crossroads of Continents" Standing,. left to right:. Crowell, James. Rudolf Its. t,. Contributors. symposium. W. VanStone, William W. Fitzhugh,. Vladimir. I.. September 1988.. participants and catalogue authors,. Galina Pendill, Richard Jordan. Vasil'ev, Il'ia S.. Gurvich. t,. f,. Christy G. Turner. Sergei. la.. Serov. t,. II,. Edwin. Ernest. S.. Nikolai N. Dikov, Chuner. Kuz'mina,. Hall, Aron. Burch,. Jr.,. M. Taksami,. Michael Krauss, Valerii A. Tishkov, Stephen B. Young, Margaret Blackman, Liudmila. Russia's. American. Possession:. Alaska IJ41-186J,. is. A. O. Shubin, Jean-Loup Rousselot, William C. Sturtevant.. Galma. I.. Zoia. Sokolova, Lydia Black, Rosita Worl. (Photograph by. P.. Dzeniskevich,. Ann. Fienup-Riordan, Mariia. ARON CROWELL. Russian Academy of Sciences. Her recent publications in-. clude Glory Remembered: Wooden Headgear of Alaska Sea Hunters.. Holm, George MacDonald, Elena M. Mikhailova, Bernadette DriscoU,. Valerii. Seated: Valerie. Chaussonnet,. Zhornitskaia, Frederica de Laguna, Ciiip Clark). bition.. was the co-curator of the "Crossroads of Continents" exhi-. His research has focused on the archeology and cultural history of. southern Alaska, where he has directed projects for the Smithsonian Institu-. major work,. tion, University of California, U.S. National. in preparation.. the Kodiak Area Native Association.. VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. I.. f Deceased.. P.. Center for the Study of Russian America and Russian-American Relations, Institute of History,. Bill. XIII. He. is. Park Service, state of Alaska, and. currently finishing dissertation re-. has been associated with the Arctic Studies Cen-. search at the University of California, Berkeley, on the eighteenth-century. ter at the. Smithsonian Institution since 1986. A member of the "Crossroads of Continents" curatorial team, she contributed a chapter on clothing to the. Russian fur trade settlement of Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island. In addi-. exhibition catalogue and translated the Russian chapters into English. She has lectured in the United States and Canada on Arctic clothing and on the peoples of Siberia. She is currently curating "Crossroads Alaska," a small traveling version of "Crossroads of Continents," designed for rural venues in Alaska. clude recent journal articles and reports on southern Alaskan ceremonialism,. and. Sciences and chairman of the Department of Archeology and Ethnography,. tion to the Crossroads of Continents exhibition catalogue, his publications in-. paleodemography, and settlement patterns in the Gulf of Alaska region.. NIKOLAI. Siberia.. i. N.. DIKOV. is. a corresponding. member. of the Russian. Academy of.

CONTRIBUTORS. XIV. Northeastern Pluridisciplinary Research Institute, Magadan, Siberia. In the. mid-1950s he became the director of Siberia,. museum. a. in. Anadyr, in Northeast. where he pioneered extensive archeologicai surveys. both coastal. in. and continental parts of the Chukchi Peninsula and Kolyma 1960s he was a leading figure. interior. the. in regional archeology, following his discovery. of numerous Paleolithic and prehistoric. and. By. area.. sites in. Chukchi Peninsula, among other. Kamchatka, Wrangell. locations.. Island,. His publications. in-. clude The Chini Graveyard (Novosibirsk, 1974), Ancient Cultures of Northeast. Asia (Moscow, 1977), Ancient. with numerous papers.. He. cultures of Northeast. Asia (Moscow, 1979), along. also edited the reference regional. handbook. History. ofChukotka{iCf-J4,iC)^<^).. BERNADETTE DRISCOLL, doctoral candidate in the. a Specialist in Inuit art. Department of Anthropology. University. Since the late 1970s she has. museum. collections. worked on. and ethnography, at the. is. a. Johns Hopkins. historical Inuit clothing in. and through her fieldwork with seamstresses. in the. Cana-. dian Arctic. As former curator of Inuit art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, she. organized more than 30 exhibitions. Her catalogue publications include The Inuit Amautik: I Like Inuit Myths,. Tradition". and "Pretending in. (1987). She. My Hood. is. The. Be Full (1980),. to. to. Spirit Sings:. Legends,. and. Be Caribou: The Inuit Parka Artistic. Traditions. Songs (1982), as. an Artistic. of Canada's First Peoples. currently guest curator for the exhibition "Northern Light:. Inuit Textile Art of the Canadian Arctic," organized by the Baltimore. um. Muse-. of Art.. GALINA stitute of. I.. DZENISKEVICH. is. North American curator. Anthropology and Ethnography. at the. Museum/In-. in St. Petersburg. She. is. a recog-. nized expert in traditional cultures of the Athapaskan Indians of Central and. Southern Alaska and of 1. museum. collections brought by the Russians in the. 800s from their colonies in North America. She has published a monograph,. "The Alaskan Athapaskans: Essays. in Material. and Spiritual Culture" (Lenin-. grad, 1987), and several papers on those subjects.. ANN FIENUP-RIORDAN tural anthropology.. Her work. She has. is. an independent scholar with a doctorate in cul-. lived,. worked, and taught in Alaska since 1973.. has focused on the history and oral traditions of the Yup'ik Eskimos. of western Alaska.. Her books include The. Nelson Island Eskimo (1983),. When.

XV. Contributors. Our Bad Season Comes (1986), Eskimo Essays (1990), The Real Children of Thunder (1991), and Passages: Rule. and Ritual. People. and. in Central Yup'ik. the. Oral. Tradition (in press).. WILLIAM w. FITZHUGH. is. director of the Arctic Studies Center at the. Smithsonian Institution, where he has served. A. of Anthropology.. as. chairman of the Department. speciaHst in archeology and anthropology of Arctic re-. gions, he has conducted fieldwork in Labrador, Baffin Island, and other north-. ern areas. Special interests include prehistory and environmental archeology,. circumpolar maritime adaptations, and culture contacts. eral special exhibitions,. He. has produced sev-. most recently "Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of. Alaska and Siberia," which was a joint. effort. with American, Canadian, and. Russian scholars. Recent books include Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of. Alaska and Siberia and Archeology of the Frobisher Voyages.. PETER FRANCIS, Lake Placid, stitutions. New. JR.,. is. the director of the Center for Bead Research in. York, and a consultant to. museums and. other research in-. around the world, including the Smithsonian and the University of. Alaska in Fairbanks. His research involves the manufacture, trade, and use of all. types of beads.. He. has written 20. monographs and nearly 300. articles,. published in a dozen countries.. il'ia. S.. GURVICH, who. died in 1992, was a leading figure in the studies of. native peoples of Soviet Siberia throughout the 1970s and 1980s. His initial. fieldwork was done. was. later. the Yakuts in northwestern Arctic Yakutia and. it. expanded to include several other native nations of Northeast. Siberia. Dr.. mer. among. Gurvich headed the Department of Northern Peoples of the. Institute of. Ethnography. in. Moscow. for. 20. years,. for-. and he personally su-. pervised several long-term projects in ethnic history, the study of traditional cultures,. and Soviet-inspired modernization of the Siberian. natives.. He pub-. lished several books, notably Ethnic History of Northeastern Siberia (Moscow,. 1966), and The Culture of the Northern Yakuts (Moscow, 1975), and about. 200. papers.. BILL. HOLM. is. Curator emeritus of Northwest Coast Indian Art at the. Thomas Burke Memorial Washington ton, in Seattle.. State. Museum,. University of Washing-. His major publications include Northwest Coast Indian Art:. An.

CONTRIBUTORS. XVI. Analysis of Form, Smoky-Top: The Art Ancestor:. A. and Times of Willie. Seaweed, and Spirit. and. Century of Northwest Coast Indian Art at the Burke Museum.. RICHARD. H.. JORDAN, who. died in. 1. 99 1, was chairman of the Department. of Anthropology at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. During his tragically short life,. he established an international reputation. can Arctic archeologist whose. as a. North Ameri-. ranged from Labrador and Green-. field research. land to Alaska. His major contributions were in Labrador prehistory and paleoecology, Labrador Inuit historical archeology, the theory of Arctic culture. change and climatology, and the archeology of Kodiak Island, Alaska. Jordan. was an avid participant as a. in the Crossroads project.. He. will also be. remembered. superb teacher and as an early convert to community-relevant research in. the North.. MICHAEL KRAUSS. is. Native Language Center cialist in ter's. a professor of linguistics at the University of. and director of the Alaska. Alaska in Fairbanks and a spe-. Athapaskan-Eyak and Eskimo-Aleut languages since i960. The cen-. responsibilities. include. the. documentation and study of. Alaskan languages, and also their cultivation and promotion ations in Alaska, as well as. been active in. on an international. efforts to reestablish relations. ka and the former Soviet Chukotka separated by political barriers for. LIUDMILA in. P.. kuz'mina. 40. al beliefs.. in. native. for future gener-. Krauss has accordingly. between Yupik Eskimos of Alas-. speak the same language but were. years.. isa senior researcher at the Institute of Ethnology. Moscow. Her fieldwork was done. and Old-Believers. who. scale.. all. in the. 1960s among the Russian peasants. Southern Siberia, mainly on their folklore and tradition-. In the 1980s, Dr. Kuz'mina returned to the study of the Siberian. Old-Believers, and began comparative studies on. them and other Russian. Old-Believers settled in Alaska, Oregon, and elsewhere in North America.. ROZA. G.. LIAPUNOVA, who. died in 1992, was curator of North America at. the Museum/Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography in. She was widely recognized. as a leading expert in. Russian. St.. museum. Petersburg. collections. from the Aleutian Islands and Southern Alaska dating to the 1700s and 1. 800s. In the late 1970s, she became involved in various. the. Commander. field projects. among. Island Aleuts of the Russian Far East with a view to record-.

— xvil. Contributors. ing their cultural history and reestablishing their folk art and craft traditions.. She published two books. Essays in Ethnography of the Aleuts (Leningrad,. 1975) and The Aleuts: Essays. in Ethnic History (Leningrad,. 1987). —and. several. papers.. ELENA. A.. MICKHAILOVA. is. Anthropology and Ethnography. a research fellow at the. Her Ph.D.. in St. Petersburg.. cused on cultural change and modernization. Institute/Museum of. among. dissertation fo-. the Asiatic. Eskimo. in the. 1970s, and her later research shifted to traditional culture, rituals, and beliefs of the Siberian native people, as well as the Siberian and Alaskan Yupik Eski-. mo.. JEAN-LOUP ROUSSELOT is curator of Arctic and North American ethnography at the Staatliche Museum fiir Volkerkunde in Munich. His long-term research interests include the ethnology, ethnic art, and traditional technologies of the. work. Western Arctic and the Caribbean, where he has conducted His recent publications include Masques Ekimo. since 1973.. (1991), Kanuitpit?. Due. Aspetti. delle. Pr^s^'m. VALERll. d'Alaska. Culture Eschimesi (Galleria Gottardo,. Lugano, 1992), and a book on the Munich ^/(?r. field-. Museum. Plains collection, Indianer. (Munich/Neuwied, 1993).. O.. SHUBIN. is. a deputy director of the Sakhalin Regional. in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk,. on Sakhalin. Island.. with the Neolithic history of Sakhalin Island and ancestral to historic Ainu.. Her. its local. During the 1980s, Dr. Shubin. early. Museum. work. dealt. Neolithic cultures, started a long-term. archeological survey of the post-contact sites on the Kurile Islands, mainly of. the remains of the local outposts built by the Russian-American the late 1700s and early 1800s. several papers. and. reports.. He. is. Some. Company. of the findings have been published in. currently involved in several Russian-Ameri-. can archeological projects on the Kurile Islands and Kodiak Island, and director. on the Russian side. in. is. the. for the small traveling version of the "Crossroads. of Continents" exhibition.. ZOIA. P.. SOKOLOVA. Siberia at the. Moscow. is. chairperson of the Department of the Peoples of. Institute of Ethnology.. Her. early fieldwork in the. mid-. 1950s concentrated on the Khanty and Mansi people of Western Siberia,. pri-. marily on their dwelling and settlement patterns, traditional beliefs, social.

CONTRIBUTORS. XVIII. Structure,. and ethnohistory. Results of her extended research have been pub-. lished in several. Mami. monographs, including. during the i8th. and. Social Organization of. (Moscow, 1983) and Endogamous Area. ic^th Centuries. and Ethnic Group (Moscow, 1990). She has. also published. and several books: The Land Yugoria (Moscow, 1976), In (Moscow,. 1. 981), and The Trip. to. Khanty and. Yugra (Moscow. numerous papers. the Expanses of Siberia. 1982). Recently, Dr. Sokolo-. ,. va has become involved in issues pertaining to native Siberian social and cultural. development, self-determination, and modernization.. CHUNER. M. TAKSAMI, chairperson, Siberian Department, Museum/Insti-. tute of Anthropology. and Ethnography,. St.. Petersburg, devoted his academic. career to the study of his native people, the. and of Sakhalin. Island.. Amur. River. His doctoral research focused on the traditional. dwelling and residential pattern of the his. Nivkhs of the lower. Amur. River Nivkhs, and the results of. extended research have appeared in several papers and monographs, no-. tably The Nivkhs: Their Culture, Modern Economy,. grad, 1967) and in Issues in Ethnography. 1975).. He. is. tive people,. Life (Lenin-. History of the Nivkhs (Leningrad,. currently active in supporting political claims of the Siberian na-. who. are seeking the restoration of their. tence patterns, and cultural. CHRISTY. and. and Every -Day. G.. TURNER. II. hunting grounds, subsis-. life.. is. Regents' Professor in the Department of An-. thropology, Arizona State University, Tempe. His Arctic physical anthropo-. and archeological research has been conducted in Alaska and in the. logical. former Soviet Union. His bioarcheological studies on the peopling of the. World have appeared Research. and. VLADIMIR. Scientific. I.. New. in various publications, including National Geographic. American.. vasil'ev. Moscow. He began. is. a Senior research fellow at the Institute of Ethnol-. his field work. among. the Yenisei Nenets of the Cen-. ogy. in. tral. Siberian Arctic in the early 1960s, and he dedicated several decades to the. study of the Samoyed peoples of northern Siberia.. mous Russian came. He was. a student of the fa-. Siberian ethnohistorian Boris O. Dolgikh and under. interested in ethnohistory, late prehistory,. him. and the cultural dynamics of. natives societies. His major publications include an ethnohistorical. graph.. Issues in History. be-. mono-. of the Northern Samoyed Peoples (Moscow, 1979), several.

Contributors. number of contributions. papers, and a. to. xix. volumes on the culture and history. of the Siberian native peoples.. MARIIA. lA.. ZHORNITSKAIA,. of the. Moscow. her career as a professional ballet dancer musicologist.. With. Institute of Ethnology,. who became an. began. enthusiastic ethno-. her original experience in native dancing and music ac-. quired in Yakutia, in Central Siberia, in the 1970s, she expanded her research to other native peoples of northeastern Siberia, mainly the Chukchi, Koryak,. Siberian Eskimo, and Yukaghir. She has published two books: The Dances of. Yakutia (Moscow, eastern Siberia. tional dances,. 1. 966) and Choreographic Art of the Indigenous. Peoples of North-. (Moscow, 1983). She has also written several papers on. music. festivals,. games of the aboriginal. Siberians,. tradi-. and their. transformation under contacts, innovations, and governmental cultural policies.. note: The. editors are grateful to Igor. I.. Krupnik. for his conscientious. proofreading of this volume and for his assistance with the contributors'. list..



Introduction. WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. SOMETIMES. HAPPENS THAT AN. IT. event, a discovery, or an undertak-. ing, or a photograph, a snatch of poetry, or a slogan captures the. dynamic of a. time and in so doing comes to symbolize or represent these events to generations. So. States—Soviet. seems to have happened in the case of the. it. Union—Canadian. nents: Cultures of Siberia. exhibition program,. and Alaska.". What began. later. United. joint. "Crossroads of Conti-. as a scholarly project ex-. ploring cultural, historical, and scientific exchange across a politically sensitive border at first disaster; self. but. as. it. seemed. likely to invite censure. moved toward. at. political or financial. realization, the Crossroads. swept along in a tide of perestroika and. exchange and openness. and. glasnost,. and. its. program found. theme of. it-. cultural. Bering Strait found broader reverberations in the. evolving international arena.. Even during the. life. opments occurred, such at. of the project. itself,. previously unthinkable devel-. as the transformation of the previously hostile. Bering Strait into a zone of free travel and cultural exchange. ples.. border. for native. peo-. This fortunate coincidence of timing underlines the central theme of the. Crossroads project. —. the need for a greater understanding of. North. Pacific. peoples and cultures, their relationships and histories, and the dynamics that. I.

WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. 2. shaped their development across this geographical. None. frontier.. of these sub-. jects. can be studied or understood without reference to Asian—American con-. tacts. and. history. It. The. is. to this subject that the current. volume. is. dedicated.. essays presented here were prepared as contributions to a two-day. symposium convened. at the. opening of the. joint. Soviet-American exhibition. "Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska" at the Smithsonian Institution's. Museum. 18-19, 1988. of Natural History in Washington, D.C., September. (see figure i).^. This volume complements and expands on. companion volume, the exhibition catalogue, which bears the same. its. title as. the show. Together, both volumes provide a regional overview of the anthropology, history, and art of the North Pacific region from a comparative, trans-. Beringian perspective. This viewpoint, pioneered by Franz Boas with the. Morris Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1898— 1903), was the driving force of integrative Asian— American anthropological studies of the early twentieth. But the. century.. fore. imposed. in the ensuing years severed tradi-. between native peoples and strangled. tional contacts. North. political barriers. Pacific anthropological, linguistic,. and. a flourishing school of. There-. folkloristic scholarship.. subsequent work was forced into more politically and geographically con-. fined modes.. While. these midcentury years brought a better understanding of. cultural diversity. and dynamics within Siberia and Northwestern North. America. Handbook of North American Indians,. (see, e.g.,. and Potapov 1961, 1964), the tegrative. North. political barriers. Pacific studies.. ian language training declined,. vols. 5, 6, 7;. had a devastating. and Levin. effect. on. in-. Fieldwork exchanges were terminated, Russ-. and anthropologists and. elsewhere for research opportunities; even topographic. folklorists. turned. maps portraying the. Soviet Far East and Alaska on a single sheet ceased to be available.. From. its. inception, "Crossroads" was conceived as. Soviet— American—Canadian exhibition;. its. larger goal. was. more than to. become. a joint. a vehicle. not only for increasing public understanding of the little-known cultures of the North Pacific and Beringian region, but also for building scholarly contacts. and future collaborative and research programs. At the time that the ex-. hibit concept. was formulated, from 1977 to 1983, these larger aspirations. took the form of dreams rather than of objective years,. when our work was. official. In these difficult. contact had ceased. —. af-. 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and the 1983 downing of the Korean. ter the. —. jetliner cess.. interrupted because. reality.. On. the participants were less than sanguine about the prospects of suc-. more than one occasion we wondered. if. there. would ever be an exhi-.

Introduction. FIGURE Museum. I. King. .. 3. Island Dancers at "Crossroads of Continents" opening, National. of Natural History /National. Museum. of Man, Washington, D.C., September. 1988. (Photograph by Jeff Tinsley). bition and. if. perhaps the major contribution of the project might not be of a. more personal and educational nature. —. that. it. would. consist of developing. scholarly contacts, learning about trans-Beringian cultures,. ternational and institutional. ties.. At. that time. it. was. and initiating. difficult. in-. enough. to. arrange a single scholarly visit without tempting fate with larger plans. Yet, as. our work progressed and the outlines of the exhibition emerged,. we became. bold enough to expand the framework of the traditional exhibition into a. and scholarly event and to think more seriously not only of. larger public. Beringian history but also of a significantly different political reality and the. new meaning. of this continental "crossroads" today.. This volume. which. is. only one of the. many. "faces" of the Crossroads. also includes the central exhibition; film presentations;. curators and. museum. tradition-bearers;. Even museum. specialists;. and smaller. activities are. performances by native. local exhibitions. (still. beginning to establish their. pily for scholarship, one of these. is. program,. exchanges of. artists, dancers,. and. under development).. own. traditions; hap-. the inaugural symposium. In our case, this. important event provided a mechanism to bring together a group of North Pacific. and Beringian scholars, some of. whom. rectly in the preparation of the exhibition. were not able to take part di-. but whose work was directly perti-. nent to the subject matter. The symposium was convened under the auspices.

WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. 4. of the Smithsonian Institution, the Institute of Ethnography of the then. USSR Academy. of Sciences, and the International Research and Exchanges. Board (IREX). Sponsorship. program, which was held adjacent to the. for the. Museum of Natural History's Evans Gallery, Museum of Natural History/Museum of Man, the. "Crossroads" exhibition in the. came from the National. museum's Department of Anthropology and. newly created Arctic Studies. its. Center, the Office of Conference Services, the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies,. the Office of International Relations, and the Office of Fellowships and. Grants. Without this assistance and the help of. many. other organizations,. such as the conference translations services of the Organization for American Soviet Exchanges (OASES), the. symposium could never have been. The purpose of the symposium was American and Soviet. held.. to provide an opportunity for. scholars to present original scholarly papers. North. on research. within the subject area of the exhibition, which included the Chukchi and. Bering Sea coasts and the North Pacific/Beringian rim from the to the southern. number of. Amur. River. Northwest Coast. This geographic region was selected. reasons. —some. cultural. and. historical; others related to. for a. pragmatic. matters of institutional relationships and capabilities, the availability of collections,. and project protocol agreements.. This region of the North Pacific has long been considered for investigating the cultural. and linguistic. ties. fertile. ground. and cross-links between East-. ern Siberia/the Russian Far East and Northwestern North America (Alaska/. Northwest Coast) in prehistoric and. some extent geographic and biological,. and. historical times.. Although the. ties are to. ecological in nature, they have a deep cultural,. historical foundation. Far. from being. fastness at the ends of the "civilized" world, the. lost in. North. an. icy,. fog-bound. Pacific— Beringian re-. gion can be more appropriately considered an "Arctic Mediterranean," a. re-. gion rich in natural resources and cultural diversity where the movements of peoples, materials, and ideas across a major geographic divide have given rise to a distinct heritage. and several. common. bonds, ranging from similar subsis-. tence strategies and technologies to comparable art forms, rituals, and. gious. reli-. beliefs.. These. ties. appear especially strong. when. divide are viewed with a comparative lens.. the groups on either side of the. One. of the surprising discoveries. of the Jesup expedition was that widely separated fishing and seal-hunting cultures of the. show. Northwest Coast and the. Amur. River/Sea of Okhotsk region. striking degrees of similarity in salmon and bear ceremonialism (Boas.

Introduction. 1903, 1905; MacDonald 1983); likewise, some Siberian groups. Koryak and Chukchi. common Raven. —have many. folkloristic. Whether. But. as. Strait, Siberian. ties is a. in. in their. or not these similarities result. from similar adaptations, similar resources and subsistence haps from deeply rooted historical. as the. and mythological features. with Alaskan and Northwest Coast groups, most prominent. cycle stories (see chapter 2).. region.. —such. 5. strategies, or per-. complex research problem of the. one follows the trend of coastal cultures north toward Bering. and Alaskan groups increasingly shared a similar geographical. and ecological region and employed technologies and economies that emphasized sea. mammal. hunting; and their cultural, biological, and linguistic. tionships can be explained. more. readily. by a. common. rela-. origin and historical. contact.. North. Pacific. and Bering/Chukchi Sea cultures. also share a history of. contact and historical exchanges following the arrival of Europeans,. came. to Siberia shortly after. Vitus Bering's is. more. first. who. first. 1600 and whose numbers increased following. voyage in 1728. Anthropological knowledge of this region. specifically tied to the history of research. on Siberian—American ex-. changes that began with two projects having this geographic focus: the Morris. Jesup Expedition of the American. Museum. of Natural History, led by. Franz Boas, which studied the ethnology, physical anthropology, folklore, guistics,. lin-. and ethnomusicology of the region; and Leroi-Gourhan's Archeologie. du Pacifique Nord (1946), which attempted the. first. archeological synthesis of. the region.. The. results of the. Jesup expedition and analyses of other early ethno-. graphic collections had a great impact on the later development of anthropological theory in the Beringian region. Perhaps. most important was the legacy. of the "Americanoid" and "Eskimo wedge" theories developed by the Jochelson, Bogoras,. and Boas team, which built on previous work by Sternberg and. others (see chapter. i).. Both theories. are still entrenched in current interpreta-. tions of Beringian culture history; both need to be revised. and reappraised.. After the Jesup expedition. North Pacific scholarship became eclipsed by. developments in circumpolar culture theory (Bogoras 1924, 1929; Gjessing 1944). Then, with the onset of Stalinism, fieldwork and international contacts declined.. Though. folklorists. publish comparative studies social anthropologists. and material culture (e.g.,. specialists. continued to. Hatt 1969 [19 14}, 1949), linguists and. became disenchanted with the broad generalizations. derived from the Jesup expedition and turned away from comparative North.

WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. 6. Pacific themes. Archeologists, however, continued to explore the possibility of. prehistoric contacts with distributional and stratigraphic techniques (Leroi-. Gourhan 1946; Quimby 1947; Collins 1937; de Laguna 1934, 1940). Throughout the twentieth century, studies of Asian-American contact and culture history have been the subject of a number of symposia,. first at. in-. ternational meetings such as the Twenty-First Congress of Americanists (1925). and the Fifth. Pacific Science. Congress (1933). After a long hiatus, these meet-. ings began again recently with the convening of special conferences, such as the U.S. -USSR. Symposium on. New World. the Peopling of the. held in. Wash-. ington, D.C., in 1977, published in part in Arctic Anthropology 16(1), 1979.. As the. title. suggests,. ethnological. most of the contributions were archeological, with. presentations:. "conspicuously missing from this symposium. [were] linguistic studies" (Michael 1979:1). what corrected by Michael Krauss in. in. at the. —. a. weakness that was to be some-. next conference, held two years later. Moscow. The most recent international conference. of interest was a meeting in. Russian under the. a few. Moscow. in 1979,. to reflect this crescendo. on the same theme, published. title Traditsionnye Kul'tury Severnoi Sibiri i Severnoi. Ameriki. (Traditional cultures of Northern Siberia and Northern [North] America,. Gurvich. 1. tures of the. 981), and distributed in the English translation under the. title. Cul-. Bering Sea Region (Michael and VanStone n.d. [1983]). Also in 1983. a collection of Soviet papers appeared:. Na. styke. Chukotki. i. Aliaski (Crossroads. of Chukotka and Alaska, Alekseev 1983), consisting of ethnohistorical, demographic, ethnological, physical anthropological, and archeological studies.. That volume was followed. in. 1986 by another, focusing primarily on physical. anthropological data (Velikanova and Zolotareva 1986). tral role in. supporting these later efforts through. its. IREX. played a cen-. Commission on History. and Anthropology, whose sponsorship of scholarly exchanges beginning. 1978. led directly to the "Crossroads" exhibition. The. in. and research project.. latest contribution in this series is the catalogue Crossroads of Conti-. nents: Cultures of Siberia. and Alaska (Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988a). Planned. more than an ordinary exhibition catalogue, summarize the. its. prehistory, history, anthropology,. 360 pages of and. as. illustrated text. art of the. North. Pacific. region from Paleolithic times to the present, with emphasis on- the material culture and societies of the nineteenth century.^. multiauthored book. (it. A. number of. reviews of this. has 37 chapters) have appeared (see, for example.. Gamble 1989; Krech 1989; Dyson 1989; Ray 1990;. Steelquist 1990).. A.

Introduction. 7. Yale-Smithsonian seminar held in the spring of 1989 provided an additional opportunity to discuss Crossroads themes (Hoover et Like the exhibition. itself,. al.. 1990).. symposium contributions presented here. the. address issues pertaining to cultural adaptation, the history and relationships. of traditional cultures, archeological relationships and origins, material culture studies, art, physical. and cultural anthropology, and. history.. The. contri-. butions have been organized thematically rather than culturally, geographically,. chronologically, or by nationality of author. This arrangement better. reflects the orientation. of the exhibition and the original comparative motives. of the organizers. Rather than emphasize differences in scholarly traditions, research topics, the degree of regional or topical knowledge,. volume. to. new. intend this. promote greater understanding of the broader anthropological and. historical issues late. we. surrounding the study of North Pacific peoples and to stimu-. research across these long-sealed borders.. The. of these themes, treated in Part. first. I, is. the reinvestigation of the. long-standing questions concerning the links between Asian and American culture originally studied by the Jesup expedition and central to the exhibition. Part II focuses. specific culture,. on particular symbolic,. Siberia. itself.. and complex North. peaceful and not so peaceful al contacts,. of a. developing this subject in greater detail than was possible in. the catalogue or in the exhibition culturally rich. ritualistic, or stylistic aspects. way. in. The. essays in both parts point to a. Pacific region.. Part III deals with the. which exchanges, communication, cultur-. and contemporary "ethnic processes"^ occurred. and Alaska from prehistoric times to the. late. at the crossroads of. 1980s and with the. long-awaited reopening of the border.. RESEARCH HISTORY AND ASIAN-AMERICAN LINKS PART. Few. i:. subjects have been of such long-standing interest to anthropologists as. the origin of. The. first. New World. peoples and their relationships to the. scholar to propose affinities between. ples of Asia. Old World.. American Indians and the peo-. was Jose de Acosta (1598). In the sixteenth to seventeenth cen-. turies, speculation. on Indian and Eskimo origins concentrated on. Western or Northern Europe, but. in. ties. with. due course, knowledge of the peoples..

WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. 8. and languages of Asia and western North America gained through. culture,. the observations of explorers like Krasheninnikov (1735-41, in Kamchatka),. and Cook (1778,. Steller (1741, in Alaska),. in Alaska) led. them and. others to. ponder seriously the prescient views of de Acosta. In the mid-nineteenth cen-. and paleontologists came. tury, geologists. had existed across Bering. human. perhaps. World. Yet. it. Strait. to the conclusion that a land link. during the. last ice. age and that animal and. migrations had used this route to enter (or leave) the. was not until Franz Boas arrived. at the. New. American Museum of. Natural History that these hypotheses were put to the. test in a. fashion. Boas's organization of the Morris Jesup Expedition. systematic. was the. first seri-. ous investigation capable of confirming the extent and nature of these trans-. Beringian logistical. ties,. and. program was a. his multidisciplinary, five-year research. and intellectual tour-de-force without. rival in. subsequent anthropo-. logical studies of large-scale regional relationships. Unfortunately for posterity.. Boas,. who oversaw. the completion of a 12 -volume series of descriptive. monographs, grew increasingly skeptical of porting the theories of Asian— American er. completed. his. own promised. ties. synthesis.. his early. pronouncements sup-. and, perhaps for this reason, nev-. The. Crossroads of Continents cata-. logue and symposium volume have been designed in part to. and. this void. fill. to serve as a starting point for reassessing this long-standing problem.. This history and the theories of Asian— American contacts are discussed in chapters 1—4,. which present the. sues that have motivated. North. intellectual foundations. and. Pacific anthropological studies.. historical is-. Chapter. gues for a maritime North Pacific— Beringian entry route into the for Early cific,. Man. and supports the idea of a North. Pacific, rather. i. ar-. New World. than a trans-V2i-. contact diffusion zone, with a predominantly west-to-east flow, as a con-. tinuing force in cultural relations since the entry of. man. into the. New World. about 14,000 years ago. These subjects, together with a discussion of the goals and results of the Jesup expedition, amplify introductory materials pre-. sented in the Crossroads catalogue (Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988b).. by Dzeniskevich,. who. Pacific cultures to be well established. and. These themes are developed further considers the "unity" of. weighs. North. in chapter 2,. issues of convergences against diffusion as explanations for. of Athapaskan peoples. —. Asian. ties. the latter usually considered the latest of the "Indi-. an" groups to arrive in the. New World. (Turner 1988). Elements of Athapas-. can material culture (such as quill work techniques) and mythological themes.

Introduction. 9. appear to support a trans-Beringian cultural linkage, Dzeniskevich argues.. Her conclusions on mythology expand. the results of the Jesup team and other. mythology. studies pointing out Alaskan-Siberian links, especially in raven. (Bogoras 1902; Boas 1903, 1905; lokhel'son {Jochelson} 1904; Meletinskii. 1979; Gurvich 1979, n.d. [1983}; Liapunova 1987). As Dzeniskevich points out, however, "although not one of the facts. mentioned contradicts the hy-. pothesis about the possible migration of the NaDene-speaking tribes from. Northeastern Asia, none of these result that the debate. .. .. .. serves as indisputable proof," with the. wages on.. Chapter 3 examines the history of the Jesup expedition from both the Russian and American perspective. Kuz'mina amplifies Boas's description (1903, 1905) and explains the roles played by the wives of Bogoras and Jochelson in the. field research.. Next, chapter 4 provides a summary of fieldwork and. ethnographic collections from the Russian Northeast in the thropology and Ethnography lections, see. (MAE). in St. Petersburg (on. Museum. MAE. of An-. American. col-. Kinzhalov n.d. [1983}). Mikhailova notes important advances in. Her. techniques pioneered by Bogoras and Sternberg.. field collecting. complements the chapters on museum and. essay. collection history in the Crossroads. catalogue.. Chapters. 5. and 6 present archeological and biological evidence (from. dental morphology) on Asian-American culture and population history that reaches back to the appearance of late Pleistocene. and the peopling of the. New. World. In chapter. man 5,. in northeastern Siberia. Dikov reviews important. findings from the lower levels of the stratified site of Ushki on the River. Tools, dwellings, art,. 12,000—15,000 from early. B.p.. and other materials from. and bracket the. sites in the. earliest sites. Kamchatka. this site date to ca.. found in Alaska.. New. finds. intervening regions of Chukotka are also discussed. In. chapter 6, Turner updates his contribution (1988) in the Crossroads catalogue. on prehistoric population relationships with. results. from 700 additional indi-. viduals from European and Asiatic skeletal populations.. He. defines a "Greater. Beringian" geopopulation center of distinct and long-standing tenure "whose. people are distinct, yet resemble. much more. other northeast Asian Sinodonts. than European Russians, Mesolithic-Neolithic Ukrainians or hybrid West Siberians.. These data strongly dispute the notion that the Greater Beringian. Realm inhabitants and other Native Americans had Europe.". roots in late Pleistocene.

WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. lO. SYMBOL AND O B J E C T — C O M P L E X NORTH PACIFIC CULTURES PART. Part. II. II:. moves. and 13. T Y IN. off in another direction, departing from the broad geographic,. cross-cultural approach of Part ters 7. I. —. I.. The. essays here. —. except for those in chap-. treat the details of discrete cultural traditions that are. up with another theme: the high degree of sociocultural complexity. bound. in the an-. thropology of the North Pacific region. Until a few years ago, most anthropologists saw. potential for. little. com-. plex forms of culture in the northern groups, which instead were considered to be. examples of extreme adaptations or analogs or. relics. of earlier (Paleolith-. ic/Mesolithic) stages of evolutionary development. However, recent studies. have shown that northern maritime peoples els. may. achieve remarkably high lev-. of cultural achievement (Fitzhugh 1975; Yesner 1980; Fitzhugh and Ka-. plan 1982; gions, the. Nash 1983; Jordan and Knecht 1988) and that of all northern reNorth Pacific and Bering/Chukchi seas have higher population. densities. In effect, the social,. are. comparable. to,. economic, and. or even surpass, those of. achievements of this area. many simple chiefdoms and. more temperate regions. small-scale agriculturalists or. Brown. artistic. (see, e.g.,. Price and. 1985).. Two. chapters focus. more. particularly. on the meaning and symbolism of. material culture: chapter 7 on North Pacific clothing styles and chapter 8 on. Aleut/Koniag iconography. The extraordinary aesthetic quality of the. artifacts. displayed in the exhibition, noted by critics and reviewers alike, compels researchers to try to "decipher," as Black writes in chapter 8,. the spiritual and the ritualistic. tack at least on two fronts: tion. is. where tive. first,. The study of symbolism. its. is. association with. easily. prone to. at-. the line between interpretation and specula-. often a thin one in areas where little oral tradition has survived and historical sources. must be viewed with caution; second, any compara-. approach to style and symbolism. similarity. raises the. thorny issues of degrees of. and questions of origin and function. Also, any significant. variations within one cultural. group. in the. local. meaning, the myth, or the rules. associated with a certain practice or stylistic feature. might seem. to question. the validity of one or another explanation, such as the variation in local inter-. meaning of "gusset" patterns (wedge-shaped. pretation of the chest, chapter 7). fur insets. on the. on the male Alaskan Eskimo parka. But these variations may. only testify to the rich spiritual, symbolic, and aesthetic. life. of the native in-.

1. Introduction. habitants of the. North. Pacific area, as variation in. mythology does. 1. also. In-. spired by Hatt's classic study of circumpolar clothing (1969 [1914}) tracing relationships. between Arctic and Subarctic. from Scandinavia to Green-. styles. land (but diverging from his stress on a search for origins and clothing-based culture areas), Chaussonnet and DriscoU in chapter 7 analyze garments from. the Crossroads of Continents catalogue (see also Chaussonnet 1988), as well as. from various. museum. collections.. They view clothing. group's sense of identity and beauty, but also,. mology. Clothing. more. as a carrier of the. significantly, of its cos-. like a second skin that betrays a group's fears of. is. powerful. through the display of equally powerful protective symbols. spiritual forces. employed on garments. In the. socially stratified. Northwest Coast. cultures,. these symbols are also, in an unclear combination of the secular and the spiri-. symbols of power over man. Similarly, Black explores iconographic. tual,. tions. and symbolism of the whaler's costume, especially the. bentwood hunting ject the. whose. hat,. signification or rank. tradi-. richly elaborated. and prestige make. this ob-. "Chilkat blanket" of the North Pacific Aleut tradition. These two. chapters, following a path opened by Victor Turner (1967) and both provok-. ing considerable conference debate, converge in characterizing North Pacific (or specifically. Koniag/Aleut in the case of Black) clothing, headgear, and. adornment. means. as a. to seeking special. power. or protection by appearing as. a transformed creature or animal spirit (a whale, in the Koniag/Aleut case; see also Ivanov 1930). This. theme was echoed. in Fitzhugh's discussion of the. portance of animal iconography in chapter. Fitzhugh and Kaplan 1982) and. and. is. i. (see also. im-. Fitzhugh 1984, 1988;. further developed in chapters 9, 10, 11,. 16.. Closely linked to the theme of animal metamorphosis and hunting ritual is. the subject of dance and dance costume. These subjects are addressed from. different perspectives. and traditions in chapters. 7, 10,. and Driscoll (chapter 7) analyze the symbolic and clothing, especially. the decoration of. among. shaman. 1840s by. Ilia. Chaussonnet. ritual aspects of. dance. the Koryak, and propose an astronomical theme in. MAE. collections obtained during a festival season. Voznesenskii, two of which appear in the Crossroads cata-. logue (Fitzhugh and Crowell i988a:fig. 50. [MAE. 11.. clothing. Liapunova (chapter 10) discusses a group. of Koniag masks from the in the. and. [MAE. 571-6}; cover and. fig.. 368. 571-12}). Liapunova presents a substantial part of Voznesenkii's de-. tailed notes describing the. Koniag. "six-act mystery" in print for the first. time. Zhornitskaia (chapter 11) examines the choreography. among Northeast-.

WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. 12. ern Siberian groups and describes the pantomimic character of Eskimo, Itel-. men, Koryak, and Chukchi dances. She. relates. sions and the reenactment of a successful. hunt. tation of familiar animals. Dance, like. images or animal representations,. is. choreography to. festive occa-. (especially whaling), or to imi-. masks and costumes bearing powerful. an integral part of the rich cycle of cere-. monials characteristic of North Pacific maritime cultures in particular. The. importance of dance. is. also exemplified. by two remarkable occurrences report-. ed in chapters 19 and 23, where dance was used. as a political strategy. and a. manifestation of joy after a long painful political situation.. Complexity. in northern. contributions in Part. II.. maritime cultures. is. expressed in. Rousselot (in chapter 13) and. Holm. many. other. (in chapter 14). describe stylistic, functional, and distributional aspects of the region's watercraft,. which demonstrate the remarkable ingenuity used. terials to sels. in applying local. ma-. the creation of highly sophisticated, yet beautifully constructed, ves-. (Sauer 1802:274;. Dyson 1986).. In addition, Vasil'ev (in chapter 15). discusses the social system of the cultures of. Chukotka and Kamchatka, not-. ing, in particular, the apparent lack of clan organization. among. the Chukchi,. Koryak, Eskimo, and Itelmen. This issue was theoretically and historically important in Soviet anthropology because classic. it. was related to the definition of. Marxist stages of cultural evolution. In chapter 16, Taksami describes. features of the cultures of the coastal Pacific Siberian cultures, "cultures of. fishermen and sea-mammal hunters," focusing on those. common. ideological and cosmological, as well as material, found in. all. northern part of Chukotka to the delta of the. Amur. elements,. groups from the. River. Crowell (chapter. 12) explores the technological, social, ritualistic, and symbolic aspects of the. Koniag poison-dart whale-hunting complex,. a practice that. had only modest. subsistence value to Aleuts but that supported complex social and religious hierarchies. and the transmission of esoteric knowledge. As with so many. tures of North Pacific cultures, even the origins. ogy. itself is. and. efficacy of. fea-. poison technol-. open to debate. In contrast to the strong economic. basis of. North. Alaskan whaling, which was conducted by politically powerful umialiks with large skin boats. and crews and was. critical to. community. survival,. Koniag. (and eastern Aleutian) whaling had an esoteric, ritualistic cast and was carried on, as Black notes in chapter 8, as "ritual warfare". waged one-on-one between. individual shaman-hunters and whales. In chapter 9, Jordan shifts this discussion to matters of social, artistic,. and technological production based on analysis of prehistoric Koniag. settle-.

3. Introduction. ment of. patterns and material culture.. elites,. 1. The emergence of lineages, establishment. and growth of intervillage competition and warfare. are all features. associated with a dramatic increase in cultural complexity that surround. what. appears to be the emergence of the potlatching system shortly after a.d. 1400.. These data scream. for. as-yet-unavailable. comparative material from the. Northwest Coast.. What. fueled these massive social changes, and where did they originate?. Some Koniag. elements, such as the technology of warfare (plate or rod armor),. seem to have Aleutian and Asian cast It. and. its. origins, while its art has a Bering Sea. Yupik. dental morphology suggests Northwest Coast biological affinities.. seems that Kodiak, located in perhaps the most productive biological. gion of the North Pacific and traditions,. nexus of a number of different cultural. was a "crossroads" of its own.. One consequence North. at the. re-. of the high-density population and mobility of the. was exchange, not only of ideas and technology, but. Pacific area. material goods (see Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988a: 126—37, 17's detailed catalogue. of glass trade beads found on. artifacts highlights cultural. and individual preferences. terial availability (see also Francis. ment of beads and of these cultures. many as. 316). Chapter. of the exhibition. much. as it. does ma-. 1988:341). As Francis argues, the move-. their usage as charms, items of value,. testifies to. fig.. also of. and ornaments. in all. the importance of trans-Beringian trade for. all. peoples of this region; following the development of the historic sea otter fur trade,. new. trans-Pacific links. began to unite. Siberia, Alaska, the. Northwest. Coast, the Pacific Islands, and China. Francis emphasizes the great utility of. the lowly bead in the reconstruction of culture history and calls to. need. for detailed stylistic, functional,. mind. the. and symbolic studies of the relationship. of beaded designs to dyed hair and quill embroidery, precursors that have long. been suggested. as. evidence of Asian— American contacts. Francis provides the. link to the third section of this volume, al. and. whose. central. theme. relates to cultur-. social processes.. PART. III:. While the. INTERACTIONS — TRADE WAR, AND PEACE. first. ,. two. sections of the. book present data and. reflections. on objects. and elements of cultural exchange, on. history, the evolution of complexity,. symbolism, and iconography. Part. concerned primarily with the process-. III is.

WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. 14. es. of sociocultural change in. linguistic,. its social,. cultural, technological,. and biological dimensions. The. The. social relations of interchange are,. most of the changes recognized. after all, ultimately responsible for. tural record.. demographic,. studies in this section are concerned not so. in the cul-. much with. the. archeological or ethnological elements proving (or disproving) the connection. between cultures in the North. with the way peaceful or hostile. Pacific area as. exchanges took place before historical times (chapters i8, 19), with population. movements. 20),. and with contemporary ethnic relations and the ethnic processes in the. North. related to Russian expansion in the. Pacific (chapter. Union and the impact of Russian nu-. northeastern part of the former Soviet. merical dominance on demography, ethnic identity, native language usage,. and bilingualism (chapters 21 and that the processes at different. from those. work. 22).. One. conclusion that can be reached. in the twentieth century. in early historical reports. and Lebedev. do not seem qualitatively. (Merck 1980),. Gurvich and Fienup-Riordan here (chapters 18 and. is. 19),. as discussed. by. and by Burch, Worl,. in the Crossroads catalogue. In chapter 23, Krauss concludes. with. a review of the political history of border contacts.. Gurvich provides a scenario. for interethnic contacts that. emerges from. the ethnohistorical record of the coastal peoples of Chukotka. Contacts be-. tween these groups were based on economic and frequently. —but. was required. not always. —. beneficial to. social exchanges,. both. parties.. which were. Economic exchange. to equalize regional imbalances in resources, or to acquire. goods. that could be exchanged through a remote network. Ritual exchanges were also. common, between. ety of. individuals, villages,. mechanisms existed. tance trade, trade. fairs,. A vari-. to support these exchanges, including long-dis-. and plunder and raiding. Historical analysis in. Chukotka shows. tive trading, raiding,. and warfare. fairs in. and even cultural groups.. for slaves, as well as goods.. clearly the trend. toward more competi-. after the establishment of the regional trade. northeastern Siberia in the 1600s. In Siberia, this development caused. the expansion of reindeer breeding and European and Chinese trade goods,. including tobacco, beads, and metal into eastern Chukotka and the gradual assimilation of Siberian. Eskimo groups by the Chukchi. also felt across Bering Strait as trade fairs, raiding,. traders. Effects. were. and general warfare. in-. creased in response to the expanding market for Siberian goods in exchange for. Alaskan. furs.. War and. peace are subjects that have been neglected in the anthropologi-.

5. Introduction. cal literature. of the North Pacific, despite frequent note of warfare throughout. we encounter numerous. the region. Here. stereotypes, but Httle in the. solid data. Northeast Siberians, especially the. of the open tundra. who. also widespread in. west Coast. Some evidence suggests. South Alaska and the North-. was present. as early as. among Eskimo groups. is. 2,000—3,000 the fact that. of western Alaska, in contrast. image of the smiling, "nonviolent" Eskimo. Violence was. to the stereotype. a. Cossack subjugation. (MacDonald 1983; Crowell 1988). Less well known. warfare was widespread. fact. it. way of. Chukchi, are renowned warriors. for centuries successfully resisted. by force of arms. Warfare was. years ago. 1. an important part of Alaskan Inupiat and Yupik. life. and was expressed. wide range of behaviors between individuals, communities, and larger groups (Burch 1974, 1988; Fienup-Riordan,. tural. This behavior. many. facets. is. only beginning to be recognized and researched.. cul-. Among. the. needing investigation are the relationships between warfare and. which increase dramatically 2,500 years ago, trade goods,. in the. North. as seen archeologically. Pacific region. sites,. and other. all. of. beginning about. by the increased presence of exotic. war technology, the mutilation of human. pearance of fortified. skeletal remains, ap-. signs.. The impact of white presence and of what can be is. in. volume and 1990).. this. economic contacts, population growth, and population movements,. ism. in. also assessed in this last part of the. called white colonial-. volume. Fienup-Riordan notes in. chapter 19 that although the advance of the whites in North American Indian territory resulted. in. from their more aggressive posture, the. arrival of. Europeans. Western Alaska marked the end of "the violent interregional struggles that. had characterized the region before their. arrival.". The impact of. presence in the Northern Pacific in the nineteenth century archeological point of view by Shubin (chapter 20),. is. the Russian. assessed. who throws. from an. light. on the. little-known history of Kurile Island and shows that the involuntary partici-. pation of Aleuts and Koniags brought there by Russians to develop the natural. resources of the islands (fur) was crucial in the development of a distinctive. Kurile culture through the influence of Russian and Ainu elements on Koniag culture.. The evolution of demography and ethnic in chapter 21. and the. shift in the use. identity in Siberia. is. discussed. of native languages in chapter 22.. The. approach to questions of contemporary ethnic identity reflected in these chapters is characteristic. of a dominant focus of research in former Soviet ethnogra-.

WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. l6. phy (Bromlei 1974; Arutiunov 1989;. see also. Lebedev 1988). At the same. time, the recent opening of Soviet information about the situation of tionalities" brings a. its. "na-. promise of more accurate and complete data than provid-. ed in conservative works of the past 30 years.. At the same time. that Siberian data were. researchers, the U.S. -USSR cold. war was. becoming. affecting millennia-old relationships. between Siberian and Alaskan peoples. The volume the. scarce to the western. closes. with a comment on. sign of progress in the reopening of state-imposed boundaries in the. first. 23 Krauss explores the recent. "glasnost age." In chapter. political history of. Beringian contacts and the circumstances leading to a long-awaited renewal of direct ties. and concludes on. a note of both. hope and uncertainty about the. future.. This section points out the uneven coverage given to. much. received. attention. in. research.. earlier. In. particular,. American scholarship has given almost no attention and linguistics relating to Asian— American. many. subjects that. contemporary. to comparative folklore. cross-ties, subjects that. were of. primary interest to the Jesup expedition and subsequent research through the 1940s. Although these topics have been neglected in the North American tradition, they remain strong in Soviet. and Russian scholarship. n.d. [1983}; Meletinskii n.d. [1983}).. Any new work. (e.g.,. Chlenov. in this area obviously. needs to take a structuralist approach.. We. might. also conclude. with the obvious: that from the time of the Je-. sup expedition, Asian—American anthropological, archeological, and historical studies have benefited enormously from internationalism and scholarly ex-. change in which. specialists trained in a Russian/Soviet or. North American. tradition have conducted fieldwork across Bering Strait and have participated. widely in conferences and publication projects. The decline in progress in solving. many problems noted. century's political history. —. ment of Russian language ies,. especially. in recent years can be attributed directly to this. the closing of borders and subsequent abandon-. scholarship and integrated. North. by North Americans. From the chapters in. clearly see that. re-. Pacific area stud-. this. volume we can. our knowledge of trans-Beringian issues and dynamics has. barely progressed beyond the level of the Jesup expedition's achievements.. While our knowledge of Asian and American our knowledge of their interrelationships for a reanalysis. is. cultures has advanced greatly,. almost. nil.. The time. is. and rediscovery of culture contacts and exchange in. northern crossroads region.. now. ripe. this vast.

7. Introduction. 1. NOTES We have respected. the authors' transliteration of Russian sources in English language. papers, but for those contributions originally written in Russian and translated by us,. we have. followed the simplified Library of Congress transliteration system used in the. Crossroads of Continents catalogue. Valerie tions,. Chaussonnet translated the Russian contribu-. and edited those previously translated. in the Soviet. Union; Muriel Joffe and. Valerie Chaussonnet jointly translated Vasil'ev's contribution.. Between the time. volume was prepared and was printed, the Soviet Union ceased to the former Soviet ate,. Union. as a. The. references. when. appropri-. to exist.. country have therefore been "updated". this. but the references to Soviet social sciences, politics, and so on have accurately. mained "Soviet" 1.. re-. in the text, as historical realities.. Except for one communication,. three contributions,. namely by Holm,. all. given at the symposium were included;. Vasil'ev,. and Francis and originally written. for. the Crossroads catalogue but omitted or dramatically shortened because of space considerations, 2.. were added to. this. volume. as. important contributions to the research themes.. References to artifacts and illustrations from the Crossroads of Continents cata-. logue are indicated by figure number, followed by the nal. museum 3.. catalog. number. "Ethnic processes". is. museum. of origin and the origi-. in brackets.. part of Soviet anthropological terminology. Soviet studies. of ethnic processes describe the dynamics of ethnic identity and include, aspects of cultural. phenomena, studies of linguistic evolution. (e.g.,. among. other. the impact of. bilingualism, loss of native languages), demographic changes (e.g., the shift in ethnic affiliation. and merging of ethnic groups, impact of mixed marriages), and the general. transformation of the. way of life and ethnic. in Soviet ethnographical research. self-identity.. and focused,. as a rule,. These studies were numerous. on the evolution in the twenti-. eth century of ethnic groups under the tremendous economic, social, and political. changes of the contemporary world. (see, e.g.,. Bromlei 1974).. REFERENCES Acosta, Jose de 1. 598. Historia natural y moral de las Indias. Enchuysen: Jacob Lenaertsz. Reprinted. Madrid, 1792, 2 vols.. Alekseev, Valerii (ed.). 1983. Na styke Chukotki Moscow: Nauka.. i. Aliaski (Crossroads of Chukotka and Alaska).. Meyn..

WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH AND VALERIE CHAUSSONNET. l8. Amtiunov, Sergei A. Narody. 1989. i. kul'tury, Razvitie. development and. i. vzaimodeistvie (Peoples. interaction).. Arutiunov, Sergei A., and William. and cultures,. their. Moscow: Nauka.. W. Fitzhugh. Prehistory of Siberia and the Bering Sea. In Crossroads of Continents:. 1988. Cultures of Siberia eds., pp.. and Alaska. William W. Fitzhugh and Aron Crowell,. 117-29. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. Press.. Boas, Franz. The Jesup North. 1903. Pacific Expedition. American. Museum Journal. 3(5):72-ii9.. The Jesup North. 1905. Pacific Expedition. In Proceedings of the International. Congress of Americanists, i. Bogoras,. ph Session,. pp. 91—100.. New York.. W. G.. 1902. Folklore of Northeastern Asia as. Compared with That of Northwestern. America. American Anthropologist 4:577—683.. 1924. New Problems. of Ethnographical Research in Polar Countries: The 21st Inter-. national Congress of Americanists.. 1929. The Hague.. Elements of the Culture of the Circumpolar Zone. American Anthropologist n.s. 3 1 (4): 5 79-60 1.. Bromlei, Yu. (ed.). 1974. Burch, Ernest. 1974. Soviet Ethnology. S., Jr.. Eskimo Warfare versity of. 1988. and Anthropology Today. The Hague/Paris: Mouton.. War and. A laska. in. Northwest Alaska. Anthropological Papers of the Uni-. 16:1-14.. Trade. In Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia. Alaska. William. W. Fitzhugh and Aron. and. Crowell, eds., pp. 227-40.. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. Press.. Chaussonnet, Valerie. 1988. Needles and Animals: Women's Magic. In Crossroads of Continents: Cultures. of Siberia. eds., pp.. and Alaska. William W. Fitzhugh and Aron Crowell,. 209—26. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. Press.. Chlenov, Mikhail A. n.d.. [1983} The Whale in the Folklore and Mythology of Asian Eskimo. In Cul-.

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