Linguistic Ethnography: Gwich'in Caribou Anatomy and Cultural Ecology [ISO 639 gwi]

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

Vadzaih (Rangifer Tarandus) is a staple of Gwich'in subsistence and spirituality. Over the millenia, the Gwich'in have developed a detailed knowledge of caribou body parts: not only sundry names and uses for these parts but an encyclopedia of traditional stories, songs, games, family names, foodways, and ceremonies associated with them. The project's research objective is to discover what the Gwich'in Athabaskan people, as a small-scale subarctic society, can teach the nation through their language and world view about living in harmony with the land and with the wild game animals they share it with. To realize this goal the researchers will interview active hunters and elders in their home communities of Arctic Village, Venetie, and Fort Yukon in northeast Alaska, and Old Crow, Tsiigehtchic, and Fort McPherson in northwest Canada. A fundamental question for the research is not only what do the Gwich'in know about caribou anatomy, but how do they see caribou and what do they say and believe about caribou that defines themselves, their dietary and nutritional needs, and their subsistence way of life? Language is the key. Gwich'in, an endangered language with four living dialects, is a member of the Na-Dene language family, and the fieldwork plan includes speakers of all four of those dialects. An important part of the plan is to train young speakers and language learners in basic transcription and translation skills. Recording the traditional ethnoscientific knowledge Gwich'in elders have about caribou in their corpus of oral narratives and in their lexicon has farreaching implications for zooarchaeology, for applied linguistics, and for folklore and cultural anthropology. It is an empirical approach which essentially weds natural science with the humanities, osteology with verbal art.