Kaska

By JOHN J. HONIGMANN

Casca, Kasa, Nahane, Nahani

The Kaska are a group of Athapaskan-speaking Indians closely related to the Tahltan. At the time of earliest European contact, the Kaska spread out thinly over a wider area in northern British Columbia and southeastern Yukon Territory in Canada. By mid-1940s when studied by anthropologist John Honigmann, they lived in reserves. This culture summary primarily pertains to the Upper Liard Kaska living northwest of Lower Post, and, in less detail, to the Dease River Kaska who were adjacent to the Tahltan Indians.

The Kaska population living on the reserves in 1944 was estimated to number as many as 1200.

The population was estimated to be reduced to 900 in 1995 (Krauss 1995).

The Kaska language belongs to the Athapaskan family which also includes the language of the neighboring Tahltan people. By mid-1940s, most Kaska spoke English almost fluently.

Continuous contact with people of European background began early in the nineteenth century when the Hudson’s Bay Company established trading posts at Fork Halkett and other locations. Roman Catholic and Protestant mission work has been in progress since the first part of the twentieth century. A Roman Catholic mission was established at McDame Creek in the Dease River area in 1926. With the construction of the Alaska Highway which passed through part of their settlements in 1942, the Kaska became service providers to road workers and military officers. This led to the establishment of new Kaska settlement along the highway.

Traditional Kaska dwellings consisted of sod- or moss-covered conical lodges made from closely packed poles, and A-frame buildings made from two lean-tos placed together. With increasing contact with people of European descent , they lived in log cabins, tents, or modern frame houses, depending on the season and location.

The location and size of traditional Kaska settlements varied across seasons as families moved from place to place in search of food. In the summer, for example, bands moved to the mountains to hunt big game. With the beginning of the cold season in the fall, families gathered around lakes and rivers for fishing.

The early Kaska economy was based on a combination of hunting, fishing and the collection of wild vegetable foods. Fishing was especially important as the primary source of protein.

With the advent of the trading posts and fur trapping, the technological and subsistence systems changed radically. Traditional technology, based on the working of stone, bone, horn, antler, wood, and bark, gave way to the European-Canadian’s hardware, clothing (except for that made of tanned skins), and other material items. Traditional travel by snowshoes, toboggans, skin and bark boats, dugouts, and rafts increasingly gave way to motorized scows and trucks, although dogsleds and snowshoes continued to be used in running the winter traplines.

The Kaska traded with European-Canadian settlers primarily in fur and hides. Proceeds from trade were used for purchasing consumer goods and imported hardware.

The collection of wild food plants and their preparation and storage were primarily the work of women. Men secured game by hunting (including caribou drives) and trapping. Both men and women participated in catching and drying fish.

Local bands did not own exclusive ownership rights to any territory. Each band felt free to hunt or fish anywhere within the regions broadly associated with the macro-band. While hunting, however, family units avoided hunting grounds being used by other bands.

When visited by Honigmann in 1944-1945, the majority of the Kaska claimed kinship ties to each other by virtue of genealogically descending from one of two exogamous matri-moieties named Wolf and Crow. Moiety identification was especially important in mate selection and during burials. Yet, actual kinship sentiments were greatly limited to extended family members.

Traditional Kaska kin terms combined elements of Crow type cousin terminology and Iroquois type bifurcate merging for Ego’s parent generation.

Exogamous matrilineal moieties regulated marriage. The preferred type of marriage was among cross-cousins. The ideal marriage age was 18 for boys and 16 for girls. A period of bride service, involving up to two years of matrilocal residence, was required. Divorce was allowed but rarely occurred. Sororal polygyny was practiced but it was not as commonly found as monogamy. Both the levirate and the sororate were also practiced.

The dominant type of domestic group in traditional Kaska society was the matriarchal extended family. As observed by Honigmann, this unit typically consisted of a man, his wife, perhaps her sisters and their husbands, married daughters and their husbands, unmarried sons and daughters, and the unmarried children of the married daughters. Oftentimes, the domestic group also included adopted children and less fortunate unrelated individuals of both sexes attached to the matriarchal extended family.

Personal items of a man were destroyed following his death. The most important focus of Kaska inheritance rules concerned a person’s social standings and material goods. Following a family head’s death, for example, his position of leading the extended family went to one of his most competent sons. Should the successor son be a poor or incompetent hunter, the extended family would dissolve for later reorganization around one or more new heads. As to the material goods of a deceased man, half of them would go to his brother, while his children divided up the other half. The brother was also entitled to inherit the deceased’s widow.

Physical punishment was used but never been severe than a light whipping inflicted with a willow switch. Boys were especially encouraged to train themselves for endurance by withstanding physical pain. Part of this training involved being plunged into icy water and whipped with willow switches. Boys who appeared tough were praised, while those who felt the pain were scolded.

The basic building unit of traditional Kaska society was the local band consisting of the matrilocal extended family, adopted children and some unrelated dependents. Local bands occupying contiguous areas constituted a macrocosmic band. By the 1940s, there were four such territorial units, namely Frances Lake, Upper Liard, Dease River, and Nelson Indians (Tselona).

Each of these units was highly disorganized and extremely amorphous to encourage strong group solidarity among members. Yet, they provided a broadly identifiable territorial boundary in which local bands arranged marriages and developed shared dialects.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Kaska, together with many other native communities of Canada, participated in indigenous movements that were precipitated by many factors including an increase in oil, gas, and mining activities affecting their homeland (Moore 2007). This political awareness led to the establishment of a province-wide society called “Kaska Dena Council”. This council consists of five contemporary Kaska subgroups or “Kaska First Nations”as they are officially called, namely: the Dease River First Nation at Good Hope Lake; Daylu Dena Council at Lower Post; and the Kwadacha First Nation at Fort Ware, north of Prince George, B. C.

Headed primarily by the head of the matriarchal extended family, each local band was an autonomous economic unit. The head was expected to be a skilled hunter, a quality that attracted people to join his band. The authority of the head was for life as long as he continued to be a competent leader. By 1930s, the Kaska as a “tribe” had a government-appointed “chief” but with not much meaningful political role to play on their behalf.

The band headman was primarily responsible for the maintenance of peace within the local band. Punishments ranged from verbal reprimand to physical force. Adult members who committed certain crimes (such as incest, sorcery and adultery) were expelled from the band.

There are no evidences of frequent large-scale aggression wars. When it occurred, war was justified on grounds of defending one’s group and avenging for offenses committed upon members. Retaliatory expeditions were organized not by band headman but by a war leader. Individuals recruited into such an expedition were organized into two divisions. The first comprised noncombatant young men, about 19 or 20 years old, who packed goods. The other contained capable adult men who did the actual fighting.

In pre-contact times, the Kaska recognized several supernatural beings including spirits, souls and monsters. By mid-1940s, most Kaska were nominally Roman Catholics, although they did not seem particularly devout. Few vestiges of the aboriginal religion seemed to remain, most of them changed by exposure to Christianity.

The most important religious figure in traditional Kaska society was the shaman who was believed to have acquired supernatural powers by “dreaming of animals in a lonely place”. The shaman was consulted for curing, divination and clairvoyance.

Traditional Kaska ceremonies revolved around life cycles. The most important of these was the vision quest ritual expected of young men around the time of puberty. This ritual, which was believed to provide one with critical hunting skills, involved going to a lonely place, fasting for a day or two, and deep dreaming to communicate with animals and/or spirits. Other organized ceremonials include summer dances and potlatches.

The Kaska enjoy dancing and singing a wide variety of songs including love songs believed to possess magical properties for winning a girl’s favors. Other aspects of Kaska art includes detailed accounts of a number of culture heroes who played important roles in Kaska history and culture. A culture hero named Kliatata was, for example, believed to have helped the Kaska with the invention of snowshoe and bow, two of the key technologies they needed to exploit this subarctic ecology.

The shaman claimed to cure almost all illness by using certain procedures. Some of these techniques, as reported by Honigman, included blowing water from his mouth on the sore part of the patient’s anatomy, magically transferring the intensive illness to an inanimate object such as a rock, and mending broken taboos believed to have caused the patient’s suffering.

The Kaska recognized several interrelated causes of death ranging from illness and injury to more mystical powers like sorcery and malevolent magic. The body of the deceased was carefully wrapped and disposed of in four ways, through cremation, inhumation, abandonment, and caching in a tree. Souls of good people flew up to reside in the sky, while those of the wicked constantly suffered here on earth.

Honigman, John J., 1949. Culture and Ethos of the Kaska Society. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, no. 40. New Haven, CT, Department of Anthropology, Yale University.

Honigman, John J., 1954. The Kaska Indians: An Ethnographic Reconstruction. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, no. 51. New Haven, CT, Department of Anthropology, Yale University.

Honigman, John J., 1981. “Kaska.” In Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 6, Subarctic, June Helm (ed.). Washingtoc, D.C., Smithsonian Institution.

Kaska Dena Council, “Our History”, in http://www.kaskadenacouncil.com Accessed October 28, 2011.

Krauss, Michael E. 1995. The indigenous languages of the North: A report on their present state. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks as referred to at http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kkz, July 16, 2012.

Moore, Patrick, 2007. “Negotiated Identities: The Evolution of Dene Tha and Kaska Personal Naming Systems. In Anthropological Linguistics. Vol. 49, No.3/4 (Fall-Winter, 2007). Indiana: Indiana University Press.

This culture summary is based on the article, "Kaska" by John Honigmann, in the Encyclopedia of World Culture, Vol. 1, North America, 1991. Timothy O’Leary and David Levinson, eds. MacMillan Reference, USA. Teferi Abate Adem updated the population July 2012.