Tlingit

Lifestyles

In times of antiquity, the Tlingit were a dominant people known for their warriors who wore wooden helmets and leather tunics or wooden slat armor; for their longhouses made from thick planks of cedar and carved house posts and screens, which housed several families and slaves; for the totem poles carved with the details of ancestral lineage and natural and supernatural beings; for the canoes, especially the huge war canoes with elaborate clan carvings; for the potlatches that would last for about a week; and for the woven Raven's Tail and Chilkat blankets (later button blankets). These were mostly a seminomadic people who had their winter homes where their longhouses and totems were situated. There were fishing camps, berry gathering areas, bird-egg islands and rookeries, and areas where the herring spawned, as well as camp areas made during hunting, trapping, and war, or [Page 2202]during trading times. Camp areas were owned by clans and individuals and were considered property to be distributed during potlatches.

Pamela Rae Huteson wearing an eagle button blanket and spruce-root hat.

Source: Photograph by Simon P. Roberts.

The Tlingit are a matriarchal society, and claim their crests from their mother's moiety. The two main moieties are Crow/Raven and Wolf/Eagle; Crow and Wolf are from the inland Tlingits who are closer to the Athabascans; it may also be an earlier form of Raven and Eagle. Within these clans are subdivisions of various clans and houses. Marriages were arranged, and it was taboo to marry within your own clan, so care was taken to know the clans of the people. This clan knowledge was especially important when giving a potlatch.

A boy of 8 to 10 would be sent to his maternal grandfather or uncle to be trained until he reached manhood, not only as a hunter and fisherman, but also as a warrior. Girls lived in solitude for up to a year when they started their menses, during which time they would learn to weave and perform other skills that would prepare them for womanhood.

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