Re: [Paddlewise] Makah Hunt

I grew up near Fort Ross, in Sebastopol. My high school civics teacher was given to
looking
beyond the system-mandated history texts, for which effort he received a ton of grief
from the school system (this was the 50s and red-hunting was in full flower). His
research indicated that the otter, seal, sea lion, and whale hunting motivated by trade
with the fort was pretty much enterpreneurial, conducted from both hard and skin boats.
The Aleut baidark was introduced by Aleut factors (traders "employed" by the Russians.
The level of coercion is not recorded, but undoubtedly the benefits package provided by
the Russians was not up to the level of that provided by, say, Hewlett-Packard.)

Anyway, the participants in the hunt, as recorded in the surviving accounting paperwork,
ranged from Hispanics and local native Americans to Tlingits, Haidas, and Aleuts. The
Aleut baidark became the vessel of choice for hunting otter along this inhospitable
coast, and there are quite a few surviving frames, scattered from Sonoma County, where
Fort Ross was located, through the Bay Area.

Whatever the effect of coercive business practices of the Russians, it paled when
compared to the effects of smallpox, which devastated the native Americans and, mutating,
infected even the Russian carriers of the original strain, leading to the abandonment of
Fort Ross.

The gaps in the above account are bigger than the substance, however, so I'd like to hear
from anyone with further info.

Roger

Keith Kaste wrote:

> On the historical side I believe I have read in several accounts that the baidarkas
> that made it to Fort Ross and the San Francisco Bay were paddled all the way from
> Alaska.  They were not transported on Russian vessels.  The Russian presence in
> Alaska, though fierce and uncompromising, was not very large, nor was it very well
> supplied from Russia.  Still the Russians and other westerners managed to wreak havoc
> on the indigenous people they encountered pretty much the same as they had done in
> every other frontier they had "conquered".
>
> The irony of "Western" culture interfering with the actions of indigenous people is
> inescapable.  But it is a different world now.  The Makah did not kill whales 150
> years ago simply for the sake of ceremony.  They required the whales as a part of
> their subsistence, their survival.  The ceremony was attached to that pragmatic
> requirement.  To kill whales only for the sake of ceremony is not reasonable.
>
> John Somers wrote:
>
> >  Under penalty of death, they forced the indigenous coastal peoples
> > of the region that is now Alaska, including the Aleutians, Alutiiq, and
> > others, to hunt sea otters from their kayaks and umiaks as far south as San
> > Francisco Bay, California!  Apparently this was done by transporting the
> > native hunters and their paddlecraft on the foreigners' ships.
>
> >         Now fast forward to 1998 and we have the deep irony of the Makah whale
> > hunt.  An indigenous tribe, the Makah, propose to resume whale hunting.
> > Their ancestors alone made a condition of their treaty with the U.S.
> > government that they could do this.  According to their website, their
> > purpose is to restore the underpinning of their traditional culture:
> >         Enter now the suggested flotilla of kayaks on the water to interfere with
> > the Makah hunt.  My mind is beginning to boggle at the great karmic cycle
> > this would represent.  Get this:  Sincere and concerned descendants of
> > invading and conquering peoples (or at least members of the resultant
> > dominant cultures) now using highly adapted, modern-tech versions of
> > traditional craft to inhibit an effort at cultural restoration by
> > indigenous people who are using traditional/modern means to hunt their
> > traditional prey, which itself has been decimated largely by the ancestral
> > cultures of the protestors!
> >
>
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