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From Clan to Kwaan to Corporation: The Continuing Complex Evolution of Tlingit Political Organization

2002; University of Minnesota Press; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wic.2002.0022

1533-7901

Thomas F. Thornton,

Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights

Like many Native American groups, the Tlingit of Southeast Alaska traditionally were organized into corporate descent groups, known as clans. The seventy or so Tlingit matrilineal clans composed not only the foundation of personal and social identity, but also the central units of governance, through which such vital political functions as land tenure; resource production, distribution, and trade; and war and peacemaking were managed. However, clans' sociopolitical prerogatives were severely undermined by the forces of Western contact and colonization beginning in the eighteenth century. By the early 1900s conditions were so stressful that a syncretic revitalization movement, the Alaska Native Brotherhood, was launched by Alaska Native leaders seeking to replace fractious clan-based governance with a unified political organization that could more effectively advocate on behalf of Natives within the dominant society.