Anthropos: Anthropos, 16/17.1921/22

Anthropos, 16/17.1921/22

Bibliographic Data

Journal

Structure Type:: Journal

Works URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714789

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714789

Persistent identifier:: BV041701500

Title:: Anthropos

Sub Title:: internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- u. Sprachenkunde

Other Titles:: Anthropos

Place of Publication:: Fribourg

Publisher:: Ed. St. Paul, Anthropos-Institut

Year of Publication:: 1906

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Domain:: Social and cultural anthropology > General overview

Journal Volume

Structure Type:: Journal Volume

Works URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-709511

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-709511

Persistent identifier:: DE-11-001853193

Title:: Anthropos, 16/17.1921/22

Year of Publication:: 1921

Call Number:: LA 1118-16/17

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Journal Issue

Structure Type:: Journal Issue

Title:: 16. Jahrgang, 1921

Other person:: Schmidt, W.

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Journal Article

Structure Type:: Journal Article

Title:: A Narrative of the Ten'a of Anvik, Alaska

Other person:: Clews Parsons, Elsie

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

A Narrative of the Ten’a of Anvik, Alaska. SI A Narrative of the Ten’a of Anvik, Alaska. By Dr. Elsie Clews Parsons, New York City. The following data were secured in February, 1920, at Hampton Institute, Virginia, from an Indian student from Anvik, Alaska. Anvik is a village 1 on the Anvik River, a tributary of the Yukon River, about four hundred miles from its mouth and about one hundred and twenty- five miles from the coast. The village is populated by the most northern of one of the Atha bascan peoples, called Ingalik or Ingilik by the Russians, meaning Lousy, according to Jette, an Eskimo name *, or Tinneh or Ten’a, a native name. The native name for Anvik is Gudrineth- chax *, meaning Middle People, a place name as are the other native names for the river villages. The only published accounts of the Ten’a are those of the French missionary Jette, stationed at Konkrines and the American missionary Chapman, stationed at Anvik 1 2 3 4 . My in formant was educated at the American mission and his opportunities to observe his own people have been in certain particulars limited. In spite of his knowledge of English and of American culture he is, however, unusually unsophisticated and he has been an acute and sympathetic observer of the live at Anvik, White and Indian. He is therefore what we fre quently look for among school-taught Indians but rarely find — a qualified interpreter of native culture. As our time for working together was quite limited, I asked him to present his infor mation as if he were telling the story of an Anvik villager from birth to death. The resulting narrative was so vivid and so illuminated by the psychological insight that we commonly fail to get in more systematic enquiry that it has seemed well to me to keep the data in ap proximately the original form rather than to reclassify. Data obtained in this way from absentee informants should be supplemented, of course, by field enquiry, but as no systematic ethnographical research in Alaska is in sight, the publi cation of this narrative is, I think, desirable as a contribution, as far as it goes, to our know ledge of Anthabascan tribes and of their cultural relations to their Eskimo neighbors, their Indian neighbors on the coast, and to Russian and American intruders. When Cries-for-Salmon was to be born they called in Havetsekedtsa, Their-Little-Grandmother, an old woman of experience, to help. For three days after the birth Their-Little-Grandmother staid by the side of the bed of skins, nor might the mother leave her bed without the permission of Their- Little-Grandmother. I don’t know much about these days because boys and men do not stay in the house at this time — they go to the kadjim'. All I know is that the afterbirth is wrapped in a cloth and placed in the fork of a tree — the afterbirth is a part of the body and you would not want to destroy it, just as when you cut yourself, you wipe off the blood with shaw- 1 Dall wrote in 1869 that Anvik was a large village of some ten or twelve houses, each of which may contain twenty inhabitants ( Alaska and its Resources, 217, Boston 1870). 2 From the word for louse egg. E. W. Nelson, “The Eskimo about Behring Strait”, 307, XVIII (1900). Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology . 3 x as ch in German. 4 J. Jette, “On the Medicine-Men of the Ten’a”. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XXXVII (1907), 157—188; “On Ten’a Folklore”, lb., XXXVIII (1908), 298-367. “On the Superstitions of the Ten’a Indians”, Anthropos, VI (1911), 95—108, 241—259, 602—615, 699 723; “Riddles of the Ten’a Indians.” lb., VIII (1913), 181—201, 630—651; John W. Chapman, Notes on the Tinneh Tribe of Anvik, Alaska”. Congres International des Americanistes, XV" Session, II, 7—38. Quebec, 1907; “Athabascan Traditions from the Lower Yukon”. Jour nal of American Folk-Lore, XVI (1903), 180 — 185; “Ten’a Texts and Tales”. Pub. American Ethnological Society, VI. Leyden, 1914. 4*

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