Veronica Chapman
Anth 101: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Human
cultures evolve in their own and different ways. Some are isolated by continental and
geological boundaries; some are catapulted forward by science and
technology. Culture itself is an
exclusively human phenomenon, and since there are only two sexes, male and
female, the discussion of any culture ultimately becomes a discussion about
genders and their subsequent roles.
Unlike sex, which is a biological concept, gender is a social construct
specifying the socially and culturally prescribed roles that men and women are
to follow (Gender and Society). Gerda
Lerner described gender in The Creation
of Patriarchy as the “costume, a mask, a straitjacket in which men and
women dance their unequal dance”. Though
many Western cultures have made some progress in the realm of sexual equality,
there still seems to be, even in the most progressive of cultures, a battle
between the sexes.
Having
come of age in America in the latter half of the twentieth century, I am
familiar with the feminist movement. In
one of the most industrialized and technologically advanced countries in the
world, the ancient and archaic notion that women somehow are inferior to men
prevails into the twenty-first century.
Male driven politics in this country still has a strong-hold on the
reproductive rights of females in the form of abortion laws and laws governing
birth control products. Women still are
pressured by media and society to conform to a certain ideal the one can only
be a complete woman if one marries and procreates.
However
oppressive things may seem in this country, it is interesting indeed that
immigrants from other cultures find the freedoms and independence that American
women enjoy “with at least suspicion and at most contempt” (J. LaVelle Ingram,
Ph.D. “ Honorary Men”). The fear that
American women instill in others from even more oppressive societies has
inspired some to actually provide written instructions on how people should try
to accept American women in their own society.
In “Honorary Men”: The Role of
Women in America, the content is devoted to explaining to immigrants of the
U.S. that American women, despite the way they dress and participate in the
workforce, are “within the norms of social correctness (and beauty) that all
women follow in their own cultures”.
Apparently, though we lack actual equality with our male counterparts,
the freedoms we do enjoy are so offensive to those who seek to share our
country, that some feel the need to apologize for us.
Culture
that understands and embraces the contributions of the female in its society,
beyond the production of children, is not completely unique, though it does
seem harder to find. Even where it did
and still does endure, I have found that the authors of some resources seem
reluctant to report or acknowledge its existence. Sergei Kan of Dartmouth College gives an
explanation for this trend in his essay Clan
Mothers and Godmothers: Tlingit Women
and Russian Orthodox Christianity, 1840-1940. He states, “One major reason is that there
were many more men than women among the missionaries and that the written
record they left behind sheds more light on the experience of native men than
on that of native women”. The contrast
between the modern American society that feels the need to apologize to new
immigrants for the behavior of their own women, and an ancient North American
culture that embraced the female as an important and substantial member of
their society is a dichotomy worth exploring.
The
Tlingit is such a culture, and they flourished in southeast Alaska and northern
British Columbia. Before European
contact the people of this area lived in beachfront villages in large
matriclan-based wooden houses. A typical
summer fishing season could provide enough salmon and other seafood to be
preserved for year-round use. Additional
foods from land and sea mammals and from plants allowed for a freedom from
concern for subsistence needs. The
forests also provided cedar and spruce that were used for housing, basket,
tools, and boats (Ackerman and Klein pg28).
The
area in which the Tlingit existed, the islands and mainland west of the
Cascades and Coast Mountains, are among the richest in the world (Ackerman and
Klein pg28). The remoteness and
environment helped isolate them, which sheltered them from outside influences,
until 1741 when the ships of Vitus Bering explored the coast of Alaska for Russia. Even today the area remains sparsely
populated (Ackerman and Klein pg29). For
centuries the Tlingit, Hiada, and Tsimshian cultures evolved free from any
foreign or religious influences.
Left
alone and blessed with a prosperity that not many indigenous people enjoyed,
the Tlingit culture is multifaceted and complex, a characteristic of Northwest
Pacific Coast peoples with access to easily exploited rich resources. In Tlingit culture a heavy emphasis is placed
upon family and kinship and on a rich tradition of oratory. Wealth and economic power are important
indicators of status, but so is generosity and proper behavior, which are all
signs of “good breeding” and ties to aristocracy. Art and spirituality are incorporated in
nearly all areas of Tlingit culture, with even everyday objects such as spoons
and storage boxes decorated and imbued with spiritual power and historical
associations (New World Encyclopedia).
According
to the website Canada’s First Peoples,
the assigned roles of men and women are as follows: men were responsible for
all the hunting and fishing, building (longhouses), carving (canoes, totem
poles); women stayed near the home, doing work on land, were responsible for
all domestic chores, such as cooking, cleaning, and child rearing. Women also dug for clams and shellfish and
collected berries from nearby forests.
The women also pounded and softened cedar bark for weaving and making
clothes. Marriages were always between
people from different clans. Clans were
individuals identified with their matrilineal clan (naa), a large group of people related by shared genealogy,
history, and possessory rights. The
Tlingit clan functions as the main property owner in the culture, thus almost
all formal property amongst the Tlingit belongs to clans, not to individuals
(New World Encyclopedia). When a man
decided to marry a woman, he paid her father an agreed amount before the
wedding. After the birth of the couple’s
first child (born into the mother’s clan), the wife’s clan paid her husband an
amount equal to the initial wedding payment.
After the payment, the marriage was annulled and the woman could chose
to stay with her husband or leave him.
In
his essay, “Clan Mothers and
Godmothers: Tlingit women and Russian
Orthodox Christianity, 1840-1940”, Sergei Dan states: “These gender roles were ordered by a rather
rigid division of labor, with the men bringing home fish and game and the women
turning them into food, clothing, and other household items. In addition, women collected berries and
edible plants as well as crustaceans, all of which were important parts of the
diet but somewhat lower in status than meat and fish. The process of the latter made the woman the
essential contributor to Tlingit survival”.
The whole Tlingit economy of subsistence and luxury wealth rests
ultimately on the stores of dried salmon prepared by the women. The cutting and smoking of fish, in this wet
climate, are tasks requiring far more skill and experience than catching the
fish (De Laguna 1983:81).
The
New World Encyclopedia also states:
“Because of the heavy emphasis on clan and matrilineality the father
played a relatively minor role in the lives of his children. Instead, the father’s primary role was filled
by the mother’s brother, the children’s maternal uncle, who was of the same
clan as the children. This man would be
the caretaker and teacher of the children, as well as the disciplinarian. The father had a more peripheral relationship
with the children, and as such many Tlingit children have very pleasant
memories of their fathers as generous and playful while they maintain a
distinct fear and awe of their maternal uncles who exposed them to hard
training and discipline”.
In
much of the literature on traditional culture and in the words of contemporary
elders, the role of mother in the past seems strikingly different from the role
of mother in Euro-American culture today.
Mother as nurturer is not the strong theme. Grandmother often appears in that role. Care of young children was often in the hands
of grandmother, who received help from others in the family. De Laguna (1957:507), quoting informants,
writes, “The grandchild loved the grandmother more than their own mother and
father, because their grandmother is always there’ commented a second
woman. ‘We love our grandchildren better
than our own children,’ said a third”.
In other words, the day-to-day child care that has become defined as the
primary responsibility of mother in Euro-American culture was not an
all-encompassing role in traditional culture but one shared by many, especially
grandmothers and grandfather (Ackerman and Klein pg42).
Second,
successful mothers who are able to increase their wealth and able to sponsor
potlatches or aid with potlatches held by kin groups could effectively raise
the status of all individuals within that group. In other words, a highly successful woman
could raise her own status and those of all clan mates, including her children. Since the gathering of wealth was so clearly
an important woman’s role, women were often important organizers of a potlatch
even if a man might sponsor the event.
The good mother or good sister or even good wife, was a strong,
successful individual who could honor herself and her kin (Ackerman and Klein
pg44).
Another
unexpected surprise for the European traders and missionaries was, as reported
by Jones (1914:51), “no person is more stubborn than the average Tlingit
women”, while Krause (1956:136) noted “frequently the women carry on the
trading and they are even more inclined to be stubborn than the men”. Many likewise were surprised that often women
were given their husbands’ money to handle for them. Jones (1914:15) put it most bluntly: “The husband’s earning are wholly turned over
to his wife. She is, therefore, the
banker of the household. If he desires
to make a purchase he must appeal to her and get her consent”. In a more poetic turn of phrase, James H.
Condit (1926:257) complained that a particularly bothersome Tlingit woman
“evidently believed that the hand that pulls the purse string rules the world
as well as the hand that rocks the cradle”.
Apparently their financial sensibilities are much the same today. Modern informants contend this tradition was
a practical response to the fact that “men are foolish with money” and a good
women’s role includes the protection of her family’s wealth (Ackerman and Klein
pg35).
So
for centuries, through the separate but equally important roles of both the men
and women of the Tlingit, they all enjoyed a level of wealth and luxury and a
kind of equality that few societies achieve.
Eventually, though, outside influences did intrude. Foreign traders, explorers, and missionaries
found their way to the Pacific North West and all its many treasures and made
their presences known. With the purchase
of Alaska by the United States in 1867 full-scale efforts to change the culture
reached throughout the Tlingit communities (Ackerman and Klein pg32).
In modern society the territory of the Tlingit
is complicated by the fact that they are spread across the border between the
United States and Canada. The Tlingit
people envision the land from around Yakutat south through the Alaskan
Panhandle and including the lakes in the Canadian interior as being the Lingit Aani, the Land of the Tlingit
(New World Encyclopedia).
So
now they live as most Americans, in single family homes with their nuclear
families. The shamans are gone, but the
stories and the rituals remain. They now
have to live with all the same inequalities that the rest of us do in this
modern and advanced society. They have
had to integrate themselves into a cultural quagmire of segregation, Christian
ideologies, prejudices, and sexual stereotypes that come from centuries of
female oppression.
Though
I am sure the Tlingit had their inner conflicts and struggles, just like any
other people, the system that they developed could be a lesson to us modern
Americans. The structure of their clans
and the way they raised their children prepared all, male and female, for the
roles they would eventually fill, and both sexes were important for the
survival of all.
In
America, if you ask any parent, “What do you want for your children?” The answer is overwhelmingly, “I want them to
be happy”. The problem with this is that
it leaves it to the child to figure out what that means. To be happy is a very esoteric ideal, hard
for most adults to decipher. Whether our
children, boys or girls, will be happy or not I think depends on how we prepare
them to be contributing members of this society or culture. The role that an individual takes on as an
adult these days is up to the individual itself. This, I think, makes it all the more
important for us to have a direction or purpose, so as to not wander
aimlessly. To be a productive member of
society, sometimes is no more than to not be a burden to that society. Whether we choose to do work based on gender
stereotypes or we choose to go against the norm, should not make our roles any
less or more important. It is said that
we must learn from the past so as not to repeat it. In the case of the Tlingit, their original
culture, and their balance between the sexes, maybe it would be worth
repeating.
Works Cited
Ackerman, Lillian, and Laura F.
Klein. Women and Power in Native North
America. Norman:
University
of Oklahoma Press, 1995.
Ingram, J. LaVelle. Honorary Men: The Role of Women in America
<http://www.lifeintheusa.com/people/women2.htm
Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy,
Oxford University Press, 1986.
Kan, Sergei. Clans Mothers and Godmother’s: Tlingit Women
and Russian Orthodox
Christianity,
1840-1940. American Society for
Ethnohistory, vol.43, no,4, Native
American Women’s Responses to Christianity,
(Autumn, 1996)
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Tlingit
http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/gender.html
