The People of Denendeh: Ethnohistory of the Indians of Canada's Northwest Territories Book

Contents Preface....................xi
Orthography....................xvii
Names of Communities in Denendeh....................xix
1 Horde, Band, and Tribe Seen from Denendeh, an Introduction....................1
Part I COMMUNITY AND LIVELIHOOD AT MIDCENTURY....................21
2 The Bush Community and Trading Fort at Midcentury....................23
The Bush Community....................23
The Trading Fort....................26
3 The Yearly Round of the People of "Lynx Point," Jean Marie River, 1951-1952....................30
The Household....................30
Living in and off the Land....................35
4 Fish Consumption, Rabbit Uses, and Caribou Hunting among the Dogribs....................56
Fish Consumption....................56
Rabbits....................57
Caribou....................63
5 The Security Quest at "Lynx Point," Jean Marie River, 1951-1952....................72
Mode and Standard of Living....................72
Economic Problems....................79
Part II LOOKING BACK IN TIME....................91
6 Changing Times....................95
Effects of the Highway, Rae, 1967, by Nancy O. Lurie....................95
News of Jean Marie River after Twenty Years, 1951-1971....................100
Current Styles and Material Possessions, Rae, 1971....................102
7 The Contact History of the Subarctic Athapaskans: An Overview....................104
Stages in Northern Athapaskan Contact History....................106
The Trading Post and the Mission....................114
Boom Frontier and Settled Frontier....................116
The Government-CommercialEra....................117
Epidemics and Population Patterns during the Contact-Traditional Stage....................120
8 Overview Hearing at the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, 1975....................124
Survey of Native Peoples and Linguistic Geography....................125
Contact History to World War II....................127
From World War II to the Present....................132
Concluding Overview....................138
9 Moving Back through the Full Fur and Mission Period....................140
The Influenza Epidemic of 1928....................140
Native Occupation and Status in the Fur Trade, 1900-1925....................143
The Signing of Treaty No. 8 at Fort Resolution in 1900....................153
The Mackenzie Soul Rush of the 1860s....................159
Naedzo Looks Back at the Old Days....................163
10 Traditional Leadership....................167
The Historical Record....................167
Bosses, Leaders, and Trading Chiefs among the Dogribs....................183
Chiefly Succession among the Rae Dogribs, 1867-1971....................187
11 Female Infanticide, European Diseases, and Population Levels among the Mackenzie Dene....................192
Nineteenth-Century Observers' Statements on Female Infanticide....................193
Sources of Population Data, 1820s-1920s....................194
The Censuses of 1829, 1858, 1891, and 1924: Sex Ratios....................195
European Diseases and Population Levels....................207
Toward Population Models: Discussion and Definition of Terms....................212
Four Population Models....................216
Conclusion....................218
12 Dogrib Oral Tradition As History: War and Peace in the 1820s....................220
Dogrib Oral Tradition....................220
Naedzo's Testimony....................224
Historicity in Naedzo's Testimony....................226
The Confrontation....................229
Akaitcho....................231
13 Earliest Contacts....................234
Living off the Land with the Chipewyan Indians in 1791-1792....................234
When the First Pale Men Came to Lac la Martre....................246
14 Looking to the Future....................250
The Indian Brotherhood and the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry....................250
Dene Dependency and Dene Self-Determination....................256
Part III BEING DENE....................269
15 Traditional Knowledge and Belief....................271
Three Understandings....................271
Four Legends....................281
16 The Dogrib Hand Game....................293
Composition of the Game....................295
The Rules of Play....................301
The Hand Game in Dogrib Society....................304
Action in the Dogrib Hand Game: Photographs....................307
17 Enjoyments and Special Times....................312
Fun and Deportment....................312
Brewing, by Teresa S. Carterette....................315
New Year at "Lynx Point"....................324
Festivities of Treaty Time in Rae....................328
Women's Work, Women's Art....................335
Ninhts'i Netsà....................337
18 Being Dene....................340
Helene Rabesca, 1897-1996....................340
Louis Norwegian, 1907-1977....................354
Afterword....................365
A Note about the Contributors....................367
References Cited....................369
Index....................385