Tutchone

The Tutchone, a FIRST NATION people numbering several thousand, are among the most numerous of the more than 7200 Yukon natives of INDIAN heritage. Their homeland is the vast plateau dissected by the Alsek and Yukon River headwaters, flanked on the southwest by the Coastal and St Elias mountains and on the northeast by the Selwyn range. Although they mostly speak English today, traditionally they spoke local variations of an Athapaskan language which form the basis for a division into Northern and Southern Tutchone grouping of bands. They gained their livelihood hunting caribou, moose, sheep and smaller game, especially marmots, varying hare and ground squirrels. They also took birds and fresh water fish, and some bands had access to annual salmon runs, on which they depended heavily.

Keywords

Native Tribes

The fluctuating fauna and subarctic climate, with warm summers and very cold winters, required a seminomadic way of life. Families gathered in spring and summer fish camps, at autumn meat camps, and clustered for part of the winter near dried food supplies and at good fish lakes. By later winter, however, they had to scatter to find game, and sometimes they starved. The 19th-century FUR TRADE developed winter trapping and encouraged dispersion of families.

Some 19th-century Tutchone, influenced by the Coast Tlingit with whom they traded, had plank dwellings, but most lived in double lean-tos of brush or domed skin tents. Since dog traction came only with white contact, belongings were limited to those which could be easily carried or made on the spot, such as the snares used to catch animals of all sizes. Much of the technology was quite expendable, but the knowledge of how, where and when to use it made it highly efficient. Some Tutchone had raw copper for making knives and arrowheads; the majority used bone and antler. Women made fine birchbark containers and beautiful tailored skin clothing.

Ogilvie Mountains
The Ogilvie Mountains bordered the traditional territory of the Tutchone in the Yukon (photo by Brian Milne/First Light).

Ridge Pole Lodges
These lodges of the subarctic people were quickly assembled with poles covered with bark or skins (artwork by Gordon Miller).

Early Social and Political Organization

Descent is reckoned through the female line and lineages are grouped into exogamous moieties, Crow and Wolf. Traditionally, there was no formal political organization, but strong chiefs attracted the most followers. Wealth-based rank began to develop in the 19th century as the result of trading and intermarriage with Coast Tlingit seeking furs to sell to whites on the coast. Tutchone nearest the coast were incorporated into clans bearing Tlingit names.

Dietary and various social observances marked birth, puberty and death. Children learned early how to maintain good relations with the powerful spirits of animals and other natural phenomena on whose good will the welfare of humans depended. SHAMANS, especially, enlisted the help of strong spirit powers to locate game and cure illness. People expressed their world view in singing, dancing, oratory and extensive oral narrative and are now publishing literature in an orthography developed by the Yukon Native Language Centre.

Economic Change

The influx of whites during the KLONDIKE GOLD RUSH of the late 1890s and building of the ALASKA HIGHWAY in 1942 drastically altered Tutchone culture. The natives gradually shifted to a dual economy based on wage labour as well as hunting, fishing and trapping.

Land Claims Settlement
Like other Yukon natives the Tutchone never signed a treaty (see INDIAN TREATIES) and several strong Tutchone leaders, such as Elijah Smith (d 1991), Paul Birckel and Harry Allen, through helping to develop the Council for Yukon Indians also helped bring about a LAND CLAIMS settlement signed by most Yukon First Nations in 1993. Tutchone have likewise been active in forming the Council for Yukon First Nations, organized in August 1995 with the goal of establishing a Yukon First Nation government to co-exist with the Yukon Territorial and federal governments. In 1995 Judy Gingell, a Tutchone, was appointed Commissioner of Yukon.

See also NATIVE PEOPLE, SUBARCTIC and general articles under NATIVE PEOPLE.

Author CATHARINE MCCLELLAN

Links to Other Sites

Languages of Canada
A comprehensive online database of languages currently in use in Canada. Also provides details about extinct languages. Check out the "language maps" for more information. Based on "Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition." From SIL International, a US website.

Yukon Native Language Centre
A superb multimedia site that offers an introduction to native languages in the Yukon. Features the Gwich'in, Hän, Kaska, Northern Tutchone, Southern Tutchone, Tagish, and Upper Tanana languages. Includes information about training programs for teachers and the public.

Four Directions Teachings
Elders and traditional teachers representing the Blackfoot, Cree, Ojibwe, Mohawk, and Mi’kmaq share teachings about their culture. Animated graphics visualize each of the oral teachings. This website also provides biographies of participants, transcripts, and extensive learning resources for students and their teachers. In English with French subtitles.

Fort Selkirk Tour
Scroll down the page for an illustrated history of Fort Selkirk, a home to both Selkirk First Nation people and Euro-American settlers. A Government of Yukon website.

A Look Back in Time - The Archaeology of Fort Selkirk
An informative guide to the ancient and traditional history of the Fort Selkirk area, one of the Yukon’s most important historic sites. A Government of Yukon website.