university of nebraska press circumpolar lives and livelihood a comparative ethnoarchaeology of gender and subsistence mar 2006

of Gender and Subsistence Edited by Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach university of nebraska press • lincoln and london... Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Circumpo

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of Gender and Subsistence

Edited by Robert Jarvenpa and

Hetty Jo Brumbach

university of nebraska press • lincoln and london

of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manufactured

in the United States of America

䡬 ⬁ Set in Minion and Gill Sans

by Bob Reitz.

Designed by R W Boeche.

Printed by Thomson-Shore, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data Circumpolar lives and livelihood: a comparative ethnoarchaeology of gender and subsistence / edited by Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach.

p cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn-13: 978-0-8032-2606-7 (cloth: alk paper) isbn-10: 0-8032-2606-3 (cloth: alk paper)

1 Arctic peoples—Social conditions 2 Arctic peoples—Economic conditions 3 Hunting and gathering societies—Polar regions 4 Traditional fishing—Polar regions.

5 Subsistence economy—Polar regions.

6 Sexual division of labor—Polar regions.

7 Ethnoarchaeology—Polar regions 8 Polar regions—Social conditions.

9 Polar regions—Antiquities.

I Jarvenpa, Robert II.

Brumbach, Hetty Jo, 1943–

gn673.c568 2006 306.3'64'09113—dc22 2005021947

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Gender, Subsistence, and Ethnoarchaeology 1

Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach

2 Chipewyan Society and Gender Relations 24

Hetty Jo Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa

3 Chipewyan Hunters:

Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach

7 Sámi Reindeer Herders:

Jukka Pennanen

Carol Zane Jolles

9 Iñupiaq Maritime Hunters:

Carol Zane Jolles

10 Conclusion: Toward a Comparative

3.1 A Chipewyan girl and her great-grandmother

at the family’s fish-drying/smoking facility 573.2 A woman’s log smoking and storage cache 643.3 Women cooperate in removing hair and flesh

3.4 A Chipewyan woman and her personal

4.1 A Khanty man from Pim River checks a fish trap 944.2 A Khanty woman from Trom’Agan removes

5.1 A Trom’Agan woman uses a knife and her teethfor the initial processing of a reindeer skin 1345.2 A Trom’Agan girl, age 12, comes ashore

7.2 Inger-Anni Palojärvi feeds “home reindeer”

7.3 Berit Siilasjoki cuts owner’s marks

7.4 Inkeri Siilasjoki prepares her wooden

7.5 A family picks cloudberries together 233

8.3 A Diomede school with bell, upkut, and meat racks 2569.1 The Ingaliq community, Little Diomede Island,

9.4 Views of Bob’s family’s uua, or meat hole 280

9.5 A view of Bob’s family’s uua in winter 281

9.6 An idealized view of an upkut with a saiyuq 282

Maps

1.1 Circumpolar locations of Chipewyan, Khanty,

2.1 Southern Chipewyan territory in

3.1 Moose-hunting locales near Patuanak and

3.2 The spring beaver–muskrat hunting route of anall-female team Inset: women’s daily

4.1 Khanty territory in western Siberia, Russia 804.2 The Surgut region and the Trom’Agan

4.3 A Khanty family territory or estate and

4.4 The distribution of living, storage, andprocessing facilities in a Khanty summer settlement 874.5 The distribution of living, storage, and processing

facilities in a Khanty family fall settlement 916.1 Sámi territory in northwestern Finland 1616.2 Official reindeer husbandry districts in

6.3 Kultima village and family household clusters 1687.1 The annual reindeer-herding cycle

7.2 Salvasjärvi summer village with marking

7.3 A communal village corral at Kultima 1997.4 The configuration of living, storage, and processing

features for a reindeer-herding homestead in Kultima 223

storage areas and wooden storage sheds 25210.1 Women’s and men’s storage spaces in a contemporaryChipewyan satellite village of Patuanak 29110.2 Historic Chipewyan winter staging community site 29310.3 The distribution of meat storage hole chambers in

the central part of Ingaliq settlement 311

Tables

2.1 Types of southern Chipewyan hunting teams 43

3.2 Location and distance factors in moose hunts 593.3 Moose hunting and processing toolkits 63

3.5 Location and distance factors in rabbit hunting 743.6 Rabbit hunting and processing toolkits 75

5.3 Khanty moose hunting and processing toolkits 133

7.2 Location, time, and distance factors in

7.3 Location, time, and distance factors in

7.4 Reindeer breeding and processing toolkits 2177.5 Reindeer breeding formation processes 2267.6 Location, time, and distance factors in gathering 2317.7 Berry gathering and processing toolkits 2359.1 Consultants: formal and informal adult

10.1 Shifting Chipewyan gender dynamics and the

10.2 Subsistence variables and gendered landscapes

[First Page][-11],(1)

This work would not have been possible without a dedicated internationalteam of professional collaborators in Russia, Finland, and Alaska We are in-debted to Dr Elena Glavatskaya, Dr Jukka Pennanen, and Dr Carol Zane Jollesfor joining us in this (ad)venture Their creativity and insight, their expertiseand hospitality in the field, and their considerable efforts in interpreting the dataand writing their respective chapters for this volume made a logistically com-plex project viable and rewarding Graduate assistants Riitta-Marja Leinonenand Scott Williams provided invaluable help in Finland for which we are grate-ful, and Scott also skillfully prepared the final version of many of the maps inthis volume

The bulk of our research was generously supported over several years by aNational Science Foundation grant (No opp-9805136) Dr Fae Korsmo, formerdirector of the Arctic Social Sciences Program, Office of Polar Programs atnsf, has our gratitude for her consistent encouragement and advice We alsoreceived support from the Canadian Studies Faculty Research Program, Aca-

In recent years we have enjoyed a lively interchange of ideas with scholarsexploring similar terrain We owe special thanks to Janet Spector for her pio-neering work on gender and task differentiation We are also grateful to AliceKehoe, Sarah M Nelson, the late Susan Kent, Barry Isaac, Cheryl Claassen,Rosemary A Joyce, Lynne Goldstein, Nancy L Wicker, Bettina Arnold, Marcia-Anne Dobres, Robert Janes, Lisa Frink, Rita S Shepard, Gregory A Reinhardt,Rita Wright, and Cathy Costin

We are deeply grateful to Gary Dunham at the University of Nebraska Pressfor his kind encouragement and insightful suggestions for enhancing our book

We also appreciate the anonymous reviewers, much of whose thoughtful advicehelped in revising our work Renae Carlson at Nebraska and Mary M Hilldeserve special thanks for their fine handling of the production and copyeditingprocesses

Our largest debt is to the people of the communities who collaborated in thisproject and kindly invited us into their homes The Chipewyan of the EnglishRiver First Nation, Canada, the Khanty of the Trom’Agan and Surgut region,Russia, the Sámi of Kultima, Finland, and the Iñupiaq of Little Diomede Island,Alaska, have our deepest respect and gratitude We trust that readers of thisbook will share this respect as they learn of these peoples’ lives and livelihood

Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach

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1 Introduction

Gender, Subsistence, and Ethnoarchaeology

Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach

Scene 1: The woman quickly butchered the seal her husband had posited on the boulder-strewn shore Her young daughter observed at-

de-tentively Deft slices from two different-sized ulus (woman’s butchering

knives) separated the hide and, in turn, transformed the hindquarters,forequarters, rib cage, and other sections into neat packets of meat,which were placed in plastic sacks As the woman finished her taskthe daughter began hauling the meat homeward up a steep slope Thewoman’s eldest son arrived to retrieve the hide Remaining packetswere quickly distributed to those who wanted them A middle-agedman selected a “bag of ribs for frying,” and the final packet was given

to a small boy with explicit instructions about who should receive themeat (Iñupiaq community on Little Diomede Island, Bering Strait,Alaska)

Scene 2: The moose is an unexpected windfall that the two men terpret as a sign indicating future hunting and trapping success in thearea Clearly, however, one man is more enthusiastic about the kill Hevalues the prospect of fresh meat in camp and is eager to replenish thelarders of his family and relatives in the village The second man cer-tainly values the meat, but he is concerned about logistical problems

in-The two hunting partners are to return to the village in six days, bywhich time they must have their trapping cabin built In their isolatedsituation the men are without women to complete the fine butcheringand smoke drying of the meat The second man is uneasy that the timeneeded to process the meat properly will interfere with their primarygoal of cabin construction (Near the Chipewyan community of Patu-anak, Saskatchewan, Canada)

Scene 3: “The mordy [fish basket traps] were about 7 kilometers away

from home at the farthest I was allowed to check them when I was

14, and until then I wasn’t strong enough for that But there was a

morda near our house which I used to check since the age of 11 or

12 I wasn’t allowed to check them because a morda is rather big and,

when soaked with water and considering the fish inside, it wasn’t aneasy matter for a girl to pull it ashore But when I grew older, I did it

in a cunning way A morda can be opened, so I tried to pull the end

out and put it on the ground and then scooped the fish out It wasmuch easier.” (Middle-aged Khanty woman from Trom’Agan drainage,western Siberia, Russia)

Scene 4: “We have a very good division of labor We do not talk aboutthose tasks, and they are not written down anywhere, but they getdone, however We kind of have a system that nobody is irreplace-able My man says that if you put water in a drinking glass andput your finger in the glass, if a hole stays, then you are irreplaceable.”

(Sámi woman from Kultima, Finland)

Overture

Daily events and conversations such as those described above are part of theempirical backbone of this book, which examines the interplay of gender dy-namics and subsistence systems among hunter–gatherer and hunter–herder so-cieties More pointedly, how do variability and subtlety in female and maleeconomic behaviors both reflect and affect utilization of the landscape and theway that tools, structures, and facilities are constructed, used, and discarded?

This volume’s authors are concerned with relationships between gender rolesand ideologies, on the one hand, and processes that influence the formation

of the archaeological record, on the other Ultimately, we seek to bridge thegap between the observable present, where gender dynamics play out, and thearchaeological past, where women’s and men’s lives and livelihoods must bedeciphered from static sites and residues

As we argue throughout this book, gender is a highly malleable and adaptivefeature of human social and cultural life It is, therefore, worthy of attention byboth ethnologists and archaeologists, especially in small-scale societies of thekind featured in this comparative study To whatever degree sexual differencesare biogenetically programmed, gender is socially constructed and negotiated

Accordingly, our approach regards gender as far more than a list of things thatwomen cannot do or may be forbidden from doing By the same token, actual

we view gender, including the ability of humans to creatively construct and alterfemale and male roles and personae, as a significant set of social behaviors thatallow for adaptation to different environments and to historical and evolution-ary changes in these environments

To address the foregoing concerns this volume develops an ological approach for analyzing and modeling gender and subsistence in in-digenous communities across the Circumpolar North Among other findings,the research reveals that women’s and men’s food acquisition and processingactivities are considerably more complex and flexible than commonly assumed

ethnoarchae-Moreover, gender-constructed behaviors can be modeled as part of the processdistributing artifactual and faunal materials across the landscape, generatingarchaeological remains, sites, and settlement systems with distinctive femaleand male patterning

Building upon the editors’ previous studies of gender and subsistence venpa and Brumbach 1995; Brumbach and Jarvenpa 1997a), the present bookextends the same research strategy to a larger sample of societies representingseveral major biogeographical zones and cultural–linguistic traditions in theCircumpolar North This approach provides a four-way controlled comparisonbetween (1) Chipewyan hunter–fishers of central subarctic Canada, (2) Khantyhunter–fisher–herders of western Siberia, Russia, (3) Sámi reindeer herders ofnorthwestern Finland, and (4) Iñupiaq maritime hunters of the Bering Strait,Alaska (see Map 1.1) Implemented by an international team of collaboratinganthropologists with prior experience and expertise in the foregoing commu-nities and regions, this study highlights “task differentiation” analysis with bothfemale and male consultants as a key for identifying the social, spatial, temporal,and material dimensions structuring the acquisition, processing, storage, andmanagement of subsistence resources By systematically including the input ofsuch consultants, it is suggested that our interpretations of the past are less likely

(Jar-to be dis(Jar-torted by preconceived stereotypes of female and male behavior

Supplemented by participant observation and settlement mapping, the taskdifferentiation protocol provides the basis for making empirical generalizationsand comparative statements about women’s and men’s economic roles and theirimpact upon the formation of the archaeological record Ultimately, analysis

of the data is directed toward developing a typology or gradient of “genderecology” for the Circumpolar North that links alternatives in subsistence orresource management with (1) types or degrees of differentiation in female andmale economic roles and (2) several types of archaeologically visible signatures

or “gendered landscapes.”

Our controlled comparison also yields broad implications for interpretingwomen’s behavior and gender dynamics in archaeology and anthropology gen-erally Beyond the larger theoretical issues, however, this book provides a rich

storehouse of new ethnographic information on women’s and men’s actual lization of the landscape and creation of a built environment Fine-grained, sub-

uti-stantive accounts linking women’s and men’s behaviors to material features anddiscards are in short supply, yet they are sorely needed to temper the abundantrhetorical assertions and epistemological arguments about androcentric bias in

archaeology and women’s importance in prehistory This book contributes tothat tempering

Conceptual Perspectives and Precedents

A comprehension of gender dynamics requires penetrating analyses of women

in relation to men (the latter until recently the de facto focus of most research),

an endeavor that brings us closer to achieving one of anthropology’s mostworthwhile goals: to achieve a comprehensive understanding of human sociallife and culture Our field’s long-lived scholarly focus on men has concealed half

of human experience and, in turn, given rise to some peculiar interpretations

of our species’ historical development and recent biocultural adaptations

Consider a hypothetical zoologist who studies polar bears, auklets, or haps dung beetles but observes only males because purportedly “they are morevisible” or “they are more interesting” or “they contribute more to the archae-ofaunal record.” Should such a research design be taken seriously? How would

per-it affect our understanding of polar bear life? Indeed, how can we know themale polar bear or the male auklet without understanding how each fits into

a social structure of females, juveniles, and elders and a complex of vidual behaviors and relationships that ultimately impact both the histories ofindividuals and the adaptability of the species? To do otherwise conflates thesubject of the research with the zoologist himself or herself, who admires the

supraindi-“majestic and ferocious” male bear rather than Thalarctos maritimus as it exists

in the real world

Gender research, therefore, involves far more than a “remedial” job of simply

“adding women” to an existing data set (Conkey and Spector 1984; Wylie 1991)

Not only can we achieve a more complete understanding of the human dition, but also we are asking essentially new questions, designing innovativeresearch strategies, and developing novel interpretations of the female–malenexus Based in part on biological reproductive behaviors and in part on ne-gotiated ideology and social relations, gender is deeply rooted in all societies

con-Indeed, some view it as the oldest and most fundamental distinction shapinghuman social existence In a related vein, Sassaman argues that “gender is theprimary social variable of the labor process in forager or hunter-gatherer soci-eties” (1992:71) Thus, when we probe the complexities of gender we are neithercelebrating the “majestic” male nor attempting to privilege a rediscovered “ma-jestic” female Rather, we are practicing anthropology in its most holistic sense

The goal of this book is not merely to recognize women’s presence but rather

to investigate the impact that gender relations and gender ideology have inthe construction of social landscapes and the processes that contribute to theformation of the archaeological record In this sense an ability to “see” women

or men as valid subjects of inquiry is only a starting point The way this ness (or insight) generates stimulating new questions and interpretations aboutgender dynamics is our ultimate concern

sighted-Two decades ago Conkey and Spector (1984) raised serious questions aboutthe lack of interest in gender by archaeologists This lack stands in contrast

to developments in sociocultural anthropology in recent years where the portance of gender relations, sexual stratification, differences in female andmale visions of society and culture, and gender bias and blindness in socialresearch have been prominent themes (Dahlberg 1981; Leacock 1978, 1981, 1983;

im-Morgen 1989; Ortner and Whitehead 1981; Quinn 1977; Reiter 1975; Rosaldo1980; Rosaldo and Lamphere 1974; Sacks 1979; Sanday 1981) Archaeologicalresearch, however, has only begun to address the dynamics of gender in pasttimes and places (Arnold and Wicker 2001; Claassen 1991; Claassen and Joyce1997; Gero 1991; Gero and Conkey 1991; Kehoe 1990; Nelson 1990, 1997; Spector1993; Spector and Whelan 1989; Watson and Kennedy 1991; Wicker and Arnold1999; Wright 1996)

Despite a long-standing lack of interest in formal analyses of gender, ologists have not been silent about women’s and men’s behavior Rather, thearchaeological literature is “permeated with assumptions, assertions, and pur-ported statements of ‘fact’ about gender” (Conkey and Spector 1984:2) Some

archae-of these assumptions concern women’s roles in foraging societies Without anexplicit acknowledgment of the gender ideology informing one’s scholarship,there is always a risk that some version of Western ideology will be privileged

The familiar man the hunter/woman the gatherer (or “man the hunter/womanthe child bearer–lactator”) model (Washburn and Lancaster 1968), for example,persists as a way of interpreting domestic economies and the division of labor inmany archaeological studies of nonagricultural societies Yet this view may beless a reflection of past male and female behaviors than an uncritical imposition

of American postwar values and sexual ideology on others One might term it

“Ozzie and Harriet do prehistory.”

One of the goals of this book is to show that women’s roles are more flexibleand expansive, even in the hunting-intensive contexts of the northern latitudes,than is typically recognized when it is assumed that plant collection and pro-cessing and hunting follow a more or less strict division of labor Women’s

economic roles are neither so rigid nor so limited in scope Our own workwith the Chipewyan suggests that a revised view of women’s roles is particularlysalient for northern latitude hunter–gatherer communities where plant foods

do not contribute substantially to the diet in terms of calories Women clearlyparticipate as hunters and procurers of animals, a pattern recognized by otherethnoarchaeologists working in northern settings (Albright 1984; Janes 1983)

Increased consciousness regarding the importance of women and genderrelations by archaeologists, however, has not been matched by intentional re-search designs and planned field research exploring such issues Kent’s (1998)work in southern Africa is a notable exception, and we concur with her viewthat the power of ethnoarchaeology resides in its potential for constructingmeaning-laden models for interpreting past behaviors Methodologically andanalytically, this is a distinctly different enterprise than searching for analogiesabout gender in the extant ethnographic record created by other scholars forrather variable purposes This book, therefore, breaks new ground in two ways:

(1) it is a planned ethnoarchaeological investigation of gender dynamics and

subsistence, and (2) it employs a cross-cultural controlled comparison to revealmeaningful similarities and variability in these behaviors and institutions

While our approach to ethnoarchaeology has grown and evolved over thepast 25 years, it is part of the general field of inquiry recognized by Stiles asembracing “all the theoretical and methodological aspects of comparing ethno-graphic and archaeological data” (1977:88) This broad paradigm includes notonly varying uses of ethnographic analogy but also the strategies of “living ar-chaeology” (Gould 1980) or “archaeological ethnography” (Janes 1983:4; Watson1979) that entail ethnographic study of living societies in order to link mate-rial remains to the behaviors and processes producing them Efforts to defineethnoarchaeology more narrowly are not in agreement and invite semantichairsplitting (David and Kramer 2001:6–13; Kent 1987:33–39) More restrictivedefinitions tend to privilege the interests and needs of archaeologists only whileexcluding from analysis, among other valuable sources of knowledge, the testi-mony of previous occupants of historical archaeological sites

A less restrictive view of ethnoarchaeology is relevant for the present study

Much ethnoarchaeological research has been conducted by archaeologists marily for an archaeological audience However, our heavy input from culturalanthropology and ethnography, including judicious use of Native voice and in-terpretation, arguably provides our style of ethnoarchaeology with a distinctiveedge and currency Years ago, Conklin (1982) suggested that ethnoarchaeology

could be enriched if cultural anthropologists paid more systematic attention totechnology and material culture Heeding Conklin’s wisdom, we have alwaysconceived of our approach to ethnoarchaeology as a three-way dialogue be-tween a cultural anthropologist (Jarvenpa), an archaeologist (Brumbach), andour Native collaborators regarding the material consequences and meanings oftheir behavior (Brumbach and Jarvenpa 1990)

There is a creative tension in this dialogue in that each party serves as acheck upon and challenge to the assumptions of the others Not surprisingly,the prominence and salience of the ethnographer’s, archaeologist’s, and con-sultants’ information and interpretations tend to ebb and flow over time as theresearch unfolds and as new lines of inquiry emerge from previous projects

The present work may be regarded as “ethnographically enriched” in thesense that the various members of the research team, cultural anthropologistsand archaeologists alike, had extensive prior ethnographic field experience intheir respective study regions and communities From the outset this provided

a fine-grained understanding of the social and cultural context of people’slives in the Chipewyan, Khanty, Sámi, and Iñupiaq communities Nonethe-less, our research strategy is emphatically ethnoarchaeological All collaborat-ing researchers employed the same task differentiation methodology to revealhow women’s and men’s subsistence behaviors differentially impacted the con-structed landscape or built environment Our emphasis in this study is uponthe architectural landscape of dwellings, storage features, food processing facil-ities, and other larger structures and upon gendered spatial organization withinhomesteads, encampments, and settlements Less emphasis is paid to smallerartifacts The life cycles of these smaller residues offer a promising avenue forfuture research by ourselves and/or other researchers

Why Northern Circumpolar Ethnoarchaeology?

We emphasize the gendered dimension of subsistence primarily because it offers

a direct linkage to the kinds of implements, facilities, and faunal materials, andtheir associated spatial distributions, likely to be accessible in the archaeologicalrecord Women’s and men’s involvement in power relations, religion, and otheraspects of social life, while no less compelling, present thornier problems inmodeling for archaeological interpretation and will be treated only indirectly

in this study

Many historically familiar forms of food acquisition and processing stilloccur in northern Native communities where sea mammal hunting, fishing,

terrestrial hunting, foraging, and reindeer herding are often central in the dailyeconomic life of family households The fact that these subsistence activitieshave become intertwined with cash and wage economies and with governmentprograms and regulations in complex ways does not make the behaviors anyless compelling or worthy of analysis Women and men are still active upon thelandscape, utilizing materials and resources that have been significant in localeconomies and cultural traditions for centuries Indeed, in many cases theiractivities are still creating “archaeological sites.” Such conditions are well suited

to ethnoarchaeological approaches

Behavioral–cultural persistence is not a trivial issue, especially when directhistorical analogies can be used to illuminate gender relations Archaeologistssometimes refer to the difficulty of “seeing” women or the residues of women’sactivities in the archaeological record Yet the visibility of men is rarely ques-tioned This reductio ad absurdum will be eliminated by this book’s findings

The main point here is that both women and men in contemporary polar communities are highly visible harvesting, processing, distributing, andconsuming resources in ways that have useful analogical connections with be-haviors of their immediate female and male ancestors in the recent historicalpast These ongoing patterns hold potential as a guide for interpreting women’seconomic roles in the archaeology of this area (Brumbach and Jarvenpa 2002)

Circum-Archaeologists have regularly used ethnographic data both as a generalframework for analysis and as a source of direct analogies This has been mostpronounced in the New World, where extant human communities are often di-rect descendants of archaeological populations The recency of the prehistoric–

historic transition in the North permits, if not invites, a creative interplay andcorroboration between ethnographic (and ethnohistoric) and archaeologicalsources of information A number of influential northern anthropologists haveconducted both ethnographic and archaeological field research in an effort todemonstrate continuities and developmental trends for particular cultures andculture areas VanStone’s (1971, 1979) analyses of changing settlement systemsamong Ingalik and Nushagak River Eskimo, Clark and Clark’s (1974) studies ofKoyukon houses, and Campbell’s (1973) concern with Tuluaqmiut territorialityand mobility come to mind

In a related vein, the “living archaeology” investigations of Binford (1978)with Nunamiut and of Janes (1983) among the Mackenzie Basin Slavey havesought to model the “formation processes” creating archaeological residues

Our earlier ethnoarchaeological research among Chipewyan, Cree, and Métis

groups in central subarctic Canada combines the use of direct historical gies and a concern with site formation processes (Jarvenpa and Brumbach 1988,1995; Brumbach and Jarvenpa 1989, 1997a)

analo-More recently, Clark (1996) has elaborated upon her earlier analyses, tempting to reconcile patterning in artifactual and archaeofaunal residues withKoyukon informant testimony regarding household seating arrangements andactivity areas for women, men, elders, and children The unexpected distribu-tion of bear and lynx remains, for example, spiritually powerful animals assid-uously avoided by premenopausal Koyukon women, requires an array of alter-native interpretations Aside from invoking exceptional circumstances, such asinhabiting Koyukon houses with female shamans or I˜nupiat occupants, there isalso the possibility, as in most societies, that some degree of behavioral flexibilityoperated in spite of or in contradiction to ideal norms and proscriptions

at-Indeed, the latter point is nicely reinforced by Janes’s (1983) investigationsamong the Slavey While a division of labor with men as hunters and women

as food processors and preparers is emphasized in Slavey ideology, behavioral realities are another matter Across 38 major categories of subsistence and eco-

nomic activities, only 5.26 percent of the total are performed exclusively by adultwomen and a scant 2.63 percent by men However, children and adults of bothsexes all engage in nearly 35 percent of these tasks, including such things as smallmammal hunting, setting and checking fishnets, plucking and gutting fowl, andprocessing furs, among other tasks

This flexibility and mastery of a wide range of skills by both women and men,including early transmission of this knowledge to children, is highly adaptive in

a demanding subarctic environment The archaeological implications of theseobservations are, perhaps, less encouraging, at least at the intrasite householdlevel As Janes notes, “The fact that activity areas are all nearly multifunctional

at Willow Lake precludes the existence of sex-specific space” (1983:79) We willreturn to these issues later in the book when considering historical changes inintersite and intrasite gender dynamics among Chipewyan hunters

Other recent ethnoarchaeological studies in arctic and subarctic contextsare developing in several interesting directions Frink’s (2002) observations ofcontemporary Yup’ik (or Cup’ik) women at Chevak, Alaska, underscore theirprominent role as managers of multigenerational fish camps where they mustmake complex decisions regarding the processing and storage of fish according

to species, intensity of spawning runs, and season These decision-making namics, coupled with behaviors such as cutting of ownership marks on fish tails,

On another front, Shepard’s (2002) analysis of 19th-century missionization

in the Kuskokwim drainage of western Alaska employs a provocative model

of linked changes in dwelling structures, division of labor, and the allocation

of female and male space Arguing that house structure provides the clearestexpression of “materialized ideology” in nonstratified societies, she exploresthrough historical archaeology and documentary analysis the gradual aban-

donment of the large qasgi (men’s dormitory, communal center, bathhouse)

and a subsequent compacting and commingling of women’s and men’s living,work, and storage spaces The larger question posed by Shepard is well worthpursuing: do changes in ideas (missionization) produce changes in behavior(gender relations) that are identifiable archaeologically?

Development of the Gender Dynamics and Subsistence Systems Project

This book is the culmination of an international, multiyear field research ject, Gender Dynamics and Subsistence Systems in Circumpolar Societies: AnEthnoarchaeological Interpretation (hereafter gdss), supported by the ArcticSocial Sciences Program of the National Science Foundation The origins ofthe project derive from earlier studies conducted by the editors, Jarvenpa andBrumbach Our long-term involvement with the Chipewyan began in the earlyand mid-1970s with studies of hunting ecology, socioeconomic change, andinterethnic relations (Jarvenpa 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982a, 1982b) Ethnoarchaeo-logical studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s focused on the historical andecological basis of ethnic–cultural adaptations and differentiation, includingthe role of Chipewyan, Cree, Métis Cree, and European groups in the centralCanadian fur trade (Brumbach 1985; Brumbach and Jarvenpa 1989, 1990; Brum-bach et al 1982; Jarvenpa and Brumbach 1983, 1984, 1985, 1988) That researchexperimented with several kinds of ethnoarchaeological methodology, includ-ing extensive collaboration with on-site Native interpreters

pro-In our earlier work Chipewyan consultants were asked to interpret artifactsand features at a range of 19th- and early-20th-century sites, including multi-family encampments, special purpose locations, and fur trade outposts, amongothers In this manner novel and challenging perspectives on past behavior andthe meanings of past behavior were obtained (Brumbach and Jarvenpa 1990)

Analyses of ongoing behavior (such as hunting patterns and food consumption)

archae-While the earlier work revealed much about processes of intercultural orinterethnic communication, competition, and identity management, the dy-namics of gender were left largely unexplored Ten out of the 44 key consultantsparticipating in that study were women, but most interviews were structured toshed light on ethnic–cultural differences rather than the complexities of gender

Therefore, in 1992 another phase of research was developed that consciouslysought a more systematic analysis of female and male interpretations of archae-ological residues (Jarvenpa and Brumbach 1995, 1999; Brumbach and Jarvenpa1997a, 1997b)

A major focus of our work in the early 1990s was women’s roles in thefood procurement process In contrast to man the hunter/woman the gathererstereotypes in which women are peripherally attached to male hunters andtrappers, we found that Chipewyan women were actively engaged in the pursuit,capture, and processing of a wide range of mammals, fish, and birds Moreover,

“task differentiation” analysis (treated fully in the following section) strated that there were interesting differences in the spatial, social, temporal, andmaterial dimensions of women’s versus men’s hunting and fishing activities

demon-Analysis of oral testimony, resource and settlement mapping, and direct servation of Chipewyan female and male subsistence activities in living contextallowed us to document processes involved in the distribution and discard ofitems of material culture across the landscape Assuming that similar gender dy-namics were operative in the past, we have argued that such ethnoarchaeologicalmodeling can reveal principles underlying the formation of the archaeologicalrecord

ob-Nonetheless, some outside factors, such as the encroachment of the Westernworld, new technologies (i.e., guns, outboard motors, electricity), and manda-tory schooling for children, among other late-20th-century events, have affectedmen and women differently The emergence of more centralized service centers,such as the Chipewyan community of Patuanak, has brought about a new pat-tern of increased population aggregation In order for part of the population(e.g., women and school-aged children) to remain at this central settlement formost of the year, another portion of the population must be increasingly mobileand logistically organized Following Binford’s (1978, 1980) framework, duringthe mid- to late 20th century Chipewyan men became far-ranging, logistically

Table 1.1 Four-way Circumpolar comparison

Group Language Family Biogeographic Zone AnthropologistsChipewyan Athapaskan Central Canada Robert Jarvenpa

subarctic, full Hetty Jo Brumbachboreal forest

Khanty Finno–Ugric Western Siberia, Elena Glavatskaya

subarctictaiga–bogS´ami Finno–Ugric Northwestern Finland, Jukka Pennanen

arctic alpinefjeld–forestI˜nupiaq Eskimo–Aleut Bering Strait, Carol Zane Jolles

arctic insularmarine

organized “collectors,” while women became “foragers” who operate on a nearlydaily basis from a central residence

The insights we gained from the Chipewyan gender study convinced us thatthe same research design could be profitably applied to an expanded sample ofindigenous communities and societies across the Circumpolar North Thus, inthe mid-1990s we began searching for colleagues working in northern latitudecountries who had interests in gender issues as well as significant ethnographicexperience in communities with viable subsistence economies Critical also wasthe interest and willingness of local community members to participate in acomparative ethnoarchaeology project At the same time, we wanted a sample

of cases that would represent both northern North American (“New World”)and northern Eurasian (“Old World”) peoples Ideally, distinctions between in-terior, subarctic, boreal forest (or taiga), and coastal arctic marine ecosystems aswell as between pastoralist–herders and hunter–fisher–gatherers would also bereflected in the sample Not surprisingly, several years were needed to assemble

a team of collaborating scholars and secure the formal permissions that wouldprovide a workable four-way comparison capturing major biogeographical andcultural–linguistic traditions across the Circumpolar North, as noted in Table1.1

With funding secured, the field research phase of gdss was initiated in 1999

By employing the same data-gathering and analytical protocols in all four cieties, several related issues regarding cultural and behavioral variation would

so-be addressed:

1 What kinds of socially conditioned roles, ideas, and symbols of der relations occur in major sectors of the Circumpolar North?

gen-2 How are gender roles and relationships expressed in concrete als and activities (especially subsistence efforts) across the landscapeand, thereby, converted to identifiable residues and patterns in thearchaeological record?

materi-3 How do both cultural constructs of gender (number 1) and the havioral repertoires they entail (number 2) vary within and betweenCircumpolar communities?

be-4 In what ways is the variation noted above (number 3) explainable interms of local cultural traditions, biotic environments, communityhistories, kinds and durations of relationships with European colo-nial institutions, or prevailing political economic circumstances?

It was felt that a controlled ethnoarchaeological comparison would provideuseful information for grappling with such questions On the one hand, suchresearch offers potential insights to be gained from a systematic comparison ofuniformly documented cases On the other hand, it avoids the dearth of contextand meaning that frequently plagues large-scale statistical cross-cultural com-parisons (Levinson and Malone 1980) Small-scale comparisons, even over largeregions, are often compelling because many subtleties of behavior and historyfor each community are well known and can be useful in understanding generaltrends and patterns In this sense, the scale and logic of our analysis approachesEggan’s (1954) pioneering notion of “controlled comparison.”

It is worth noting that the potential for fostering international cooperationand linkages of various kinds was a desired by-product of gdss The collabo-ration offered ample opportunities for sharing and cross-fertilization of ideasamong anthropologists who normally work within the scholarly traditions oftheir own countries The conversations that developed in the field betweenAmericans, Finns, and Russians challenged all of us to view the complexities ofgender cautiously and from varying perspectives These stimulating conversa-tions continue We hope such interchange will help build a larger community ofscholars addressing common Circumpolar issues and problems that transcendnational and political boundaries

Methodology

The core of our methodology involved formal interviews with middle-agedand elderly informant–consultants who could speak with authority on gen-

eral community change in the 20th century and on different periods withinindividual life histories For analytical purposes we adapted Spector’s (1983:82–

83) idea of “task differentiation,” a framework developed explicitly to break thebounds of androcentric bias in archaeology She used the approach profitably

in examining female and male activity patterns for the Hidatsa of the GreatPlains Ethnographic information on the historical Hidatsa was reanalyzed toidentify tasks performed by males and females as defined on the basis of fourdimensions:

1 Social unit (age, gender, and kin relations of personnel cooperating

in an activity)

2 Task setting (locations, locales, or geographic range of an activity)

3 Task time (frequency, seasonality, and other temporal contexts for

pro-In our modification of Spector’s approach in the early 1990s we interviewedboth Chipewyan women and men, integrating questions concerning the so-cial, spatial, temporal, and material dimensions of specific economic tasks Thescope of our inquiry was focused specifically on the acquisition and processing

of food resources, knowing that such behaviors are more likely to leave materialconsequences and remains than other dimensions of human life Additionaldata were derived from direct observation of such activities in living context

Maps were made of still-occupied Chipewyan settlements, seasonal ments, and individual dwelling sites, emphasizing locations and facilities used inthe performance of relevant activities, whether these involved moose hunting,rabbit snaring, fishing, or other tasks

encamp-Although the southern Chipewyan utilize about 40 local animal and plantspecies as food, nine resources or resource clusters appeared in the interviewmaterial These resources reflect the mammal, fish, and bird species emphasized

by the women and men themselves and known through prior study to figureprominently in Chipewyan diet and economy (Jarvenpa 1979, 1980) While plantfoods do not play a major role in terms of absolute caloric contribution, weincluded berries in the analysis as the most common plant food resource Fur-thermore, to balance the overwhelming emphasis of the Chipewyan on animalproducts, we added a general category of inedible or non–food plant resources,including bark (for baskets and other containers), moss (baby diapering mate-rial), and medicinal plants, among other such items

For each animal or plant resource we questioned consultants about a prehensive system of tracking, capturing or harvesting, and processing Forexample, our consultants’ ultimate rendering of the “moose system” includeddetailed knowledge on locating or tracking, killing, field butchering, transport

com-to a residence, distribution or sharing of meat, final butchering and thin cutting,meat drying and storage, food preparation, hide making, and usage of antlers,bones, and fat Other resource “systems” emerged with their own distinctivepathways and provided extensive information on a range of activities throughwhich animal and, to a lesser extent, plant products passed

In the Chipewyan case formal questions concerning the four dimensions—

social unit, task setting, task time, and task materials—were posed to each of 13consultants The latter ranged in age from 40 to 79 years, with a mean age of 62

While some had significant life experience in the 1920s and earlier, most grew up

in the 1930s and began establishing their own families in the late 1940s and early1950s The youngest consultants were children in the 1950s and began marryingand raising offspring in the late 1960s Their testimony on resource procure-ment, therefore, embraces most of the 20th century as well as different periodswithin individual life histories The four formal task differentiation questionselicited information on the participants in specific tasks (such as rabbit snaring)and their kin, marriage, and other ties The seasonality or temporal scheduling

of events was likewise recorded Locations were determined either by havingconsultants take us to the relevant places, in the case of activities carried outnear settlements, or by marking locations on topographic maps (with a scale of1:250,000 or larger) for more distant areas

The task materials dimension was explored in much the same way For someactivities our consultants were able to demonstrate with the actual tools andfacilities employed, while other, more distant activities were explained verbally

Direct observation of ongoing hunts or other economic enterprises was possible

in some instances Detailed sketch maps were made of selected settlements

and camps with their associated work areas and features Locational data fromsuch maps could be juxtaposed with information from the formal interviews togenerate insights on the spatial organization of work and gender

Each narrator recalled in some detail, and often with considerable tion, his or her efforts in provisioning a family, whether snaring rabbits with

emo-a gremo-andmother 60 yeemo-ars emo-ago or butchering emo-a moose with emo-a husbemo-and themo-at veryweek In some instances we were fortunate to be on the scene when hunting

or food processing activities were occurring These observationally enrichedsessions lent an immediacy and clarity to some testimony At the same time,our extensive reliance on Native testimony and interpretation of a range ofsubsistence behaviors contributed to a postprocessual search for meaning inour ethnoarchaeological research (Hodder 1982)

By structuring interviews in this fashion and by posing the same range ofquestions to both women and men, we hoped to remove or at least reducebias in the direction of our own gender stereotypes We asked women abouthunting and killing animals and men about cooking meat and processing hides

For this we were rewarded While some of our assumptions about gender wereaffirmed, we also learned that actual performance was far more flexible than wehad thought

Perhaps the most interesting revelations were about women We recorded,either through interviews or direct observation, considerable information onwomen’s participation in the meat acquisition process (which includes all ani-mal products hunted, trapped, or netted), their profound interest in tools andtoolkits, and their investment in the construction of features and facilities Wealso added much to our previous knowledge regarding the complex technolo-gies and procedures involved in women’s processing and storage of dry meat,animal hides, and bone grease and their usage of medicinal plants, among othermatters

The field methodology developed in the Chipewyan case was subsequentlyutilized in the Sámi, Iñupiaq, and Khanty communities As noted in later chap-ters, while some modifications were needed to accommodate local conditionsand circumstances, the same protocol discussed above was followed through-out the project We joined each collaborating anthropologist in the field forseveral weeks to become familiar with the community, to help in getting thetask differentiation interviews organized and under way, and to assist with datagathering Once this framework was in place the local scholars continued thework and finished their respective field components on their own

Jukka Pennanen, professor of cultural anthropology at the University ofOulu, Finland, directed fieldwork in the Sámi community of Kultima, Finland,during the spring and early summer of 1999 with follow-up work in September

of that year He had considerable prior research experience in Finnish Lapland,particularly among the reindeer-herding mountain Sámi, focusing on such is-sues as subsistence, fishing systems, language, and identity He was also integral

in planning the new Inari Sámi Museum siida in Finland Graduate studentsRiitta-Marja Leinonen, from the University of Oulu, and Scott Williams, fromthe University at Albany, suny, also assisted Pennanen in the field

Carol Zane Jolles, a research anthropologist at Indiana University–PurdueUniversity at Indianapolis (now at the University of Washington), directed fieldresearch in the Iñupiaq community on Little Diomede Island in the BeringStrait of Alaska during the mid- and late summer of 1999 She had extensiveprior field experience with both Yup’ik and Iñupiaq groups in the Bering Searegion, including communities on St Lawrence Island as well as Little Diomede,and her special expertise includes gender relations, social change, and oral his-tory

In the final field component Elena Glavatskaya, lecturer and chair of ogy in the Department of History at Urals State University, Ekaterinburg, Rus-sia, directed research in Khanty communities in the Surgut region of westernSiberia in Russia during the summer of 2000, with additional work during thefall and early winter of that year She had significant prior research experience

ethnol-in Khanty communities of the Trom’Agan River draethnol-inage and is an expert onpolitical economic change, religion, and Christianization

Organization of the Volume

The subsequent chapters of this book are arranged to guide the reader step

by step through the case materials and analyses of subsistence and gender forthe Chipewyan, Khanty, Sámi, and Iñupiaq peoples An orientation chapter foreach community summarizes the environment, history, society, and culture ofthe people, with special attention given to the sexual division of labor, genderrelations, and gender ideology This discussion serves as relevant context forunderstanding the formal task differentiation analysis of gender and subsistencefor the same community in a following chapter

In Chapter 2 Brumbach and Jarvenpa present an overview of Chipewyansociety and gender relations from the perspective of the southern Chipewyanpeople of Patuanak, Saskatchewan This serves as an overture to the formal task

differentiation analysis of Chipewyan gender and subsistence in Chapter 3 Thelatter is focused on moose- and rabbit-hunting systems

Glavatskaya summarizes Khanty society and gender relations in Chapter 4with reference to the people of the Trom’Agan drainage of western Siberia,Russia This serves as context for her task differentiation analysis of Khantyhunting (moose and wild reindeer) and fishing in Chapter 5

Pennanen discusses Sámi society and gender relations in Chapter 6 from theperspective of the western mountain Sámi of Kultima, Finland This discussionleads directly to his task differentiation analysis in Chapter 7, dealing pointedlywith Sámi reindeer-herding and plant-gathering systems

In Chapter 8 Jolles offers a broad overview of Iñupiaq society and gender lations with reference to the people of Little Diomede Island, Alaska In Chapter

re-9 her task differentiation analysis focuses upon Iñupiaq plant gathering and birdhunting

In the concluding chapter Brumbach and Jarvenpa compare the variable terns of women’s and men’s work and amplify the archaeological implications

pat-of gender and subsistence suggested in the analyses pat-of all four societies A model

or gradient of “gender ecology” is proposed that links alternatives in resourcemanagement with degrees of differentiation in female and male economic roles,

on the one hand, and types of archaeologically visible “gendered landscapes,” onthe other hand The meaning of these findings for gender theory in archaeologyand anthropology, including such constructs as the sexual division of labor, isexplored in the final discussion

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[First Page][24],(1)

2 Chipewyan Society and Gender Relations

Hetty Jo Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa

Origins and Cultural Context

The Kesyehot’ine, or Poplar House People, are descendants of Dene or paskan-speaking Chipewyan Indians who moved southward into the UpperChurchill River drainage of north-central Canada during the late 18th century

Atha-to participate in the expanding Euro-Canadian fur market economy (Gillespie1975:368–374; Smith 1975:43) Over the next 150 years these southern Chipewyanbecame particularly adept boreal forest hunters and the primary producers

of furs for the English-controlled Hudson’s Bay Company (hbc) and for val firms Despite the emergence of new kinds of interethnic relations andeconomic behaviors based on market exchange, the Chipewyan productionstrategy of subsistence hunting and fishing in seasonally nomadic family bandsremained rather stable throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries

ri-The Chipewyan are one of about 26 regional Dene or northern speaking groups that occupy the vast region extending from Hudson Bay innorth-central Canada westward into interior Alaska According to some inter-pretations, the ancestors of the Athapaskans ultimately may be traced back topeoples who migrated from eastern Siberia into interior Alaska between 10,000and 11,000 years ago during the terminal Pleistocene Those early migrants areoften associated with archaeological residues of the Paleo-Arctic microbladetradition (Clark 1991; Greenberg et al 1986; Turner 1988), yet the diversifica-tion of the various Athapaskan languages and speakers occurred much morerecently They probably diverged from a common origin in the Upper YukonRiver area within the past 2,000 years and then spread into the farthest reaches

Athapaskan-of the western Subarctic (Fowler 1977; Krauss 1973, 1988) While widely spacedChipewyan communities share a common language, there are some regionaldialectical variations Upper Churchill Chipewyan speech closely resembles thedialects at Cold Lake, Fort Chipewyan, and other western locales as opposed tothe dialects at Brochet and points eastward

2.1 Southern Chipewyan territory in central subarctic Canada.

The Kesyehot’ine have ranged widely in the territory between longitude105° W and 110° W and between latitude 55°50'N and 58°50'N in what is nownorthwestern Saskatchewan (Map 2.1) This 141,000-square-kilometer regionembraces the headwaters of the Churchill River to the south and a height of