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.26 Despite the widespread introduction of iron, the Tlingit continued the27 traditional working of copper, making masks, daggers, bracelets, rattles, and28 copper plates.They also acquired half-finished copper plates from the Rus-29 sians; what these latter plates were is not known.The Hudson s Bay Company30 also sold copper plates to the Tlingit.According to Yu.F.Lisianskii, the plates31 obtained from the Russians cost 20 to 30 times less than those forged of Native32 copper, the latter being valued at 20 to 30 sea otter skins (Lisianskii 1812:11 12).33 The standard copper plate, according to K.Oberg, was about 60 centimeters34 long, 46 centimeters wide, and 12 to 16 kilograms in weight.Such a plate cost35 no less than five or six slaves (Oberg 1973:117).However, it is possible that the36 plates underwent fabrication after the Tlingit bought them; their form was37 changed and they were engraved on the back and (often) painted according38 to the master s taste.E.Curtis suggested that the Indians had engraved the39 copper plates to resemble the icons they had seen among the Russians (Curtis212 Influence of European Contacts on Tlingit Culture 1 1970:145).Copper plates were sometimes presented to loyal Tlingit chiefs as a2 valuable gift (see documentary appendix entry {31}).Thus, the chief toion of3 the Stikine people, Mikhail Kukkan, was rewarded with such a plate in 18604 (avpr, f.rak, op.888, d.1025, l.109ob.).5 The jeweler s business arose through European influence when the Euro-6 peans started manufacturing silver bracelets with Northwest Coast style en-7 gravings.The Russians brought the craft of silver engraving to the Tlingit in8 about 1800, in the opinion of Christian Feest (1985:71).Feest s assertion, how-9 ever, is doubtful because the Russians did not supply the Tlingit either with10 silver or silver goods at this time.Certainly, in 1790 the Russians sold (or gave)11 the Tlingit copper bracelets, the engraving on which could have influenced12 the Indians to create similar items.But, in my view, the development of this[213], (5)13 branch of handicrafts occurred later around the mid-19th century, when the14 Indians had amassed sufficient silver (silver coins, ornaments) from EuropeanLines: 48 to15 traders.16 According to Emmons, after meeting the European traders, the value of 17 copper as a metal for making decorations dropped significantly among the 0.0pt Pg 18 Indians, and it was soon displaced by silver.The Tlingit have suggested thatNormal Pag19 Mexican dollars were initially used as a source for silver.The Tlingit evidentlyPgEnds: TEX20 obtained Mexican dollars from Russians who traded in California, where by21 1812 Fort Ross had been established.It is possible, although doubtful, that the22 medals that the governor of Russian America awarded to loyal Indians were[213], (5)23 also a source of silver.Finally, after Americans appeared on the Pacific coast in24 the 1840s, the American silver dollar was used for its silver (Emmons 1991:189).25 Another branch of handicrafts that began to form among the Tlingit under26 European influence was metalsmithing.Khlebnikov (1985:87) noted that by27 the mid-1820s some Tlingit were occupied in the repair of guns.28 Although Indian handicrafts developed under Russian American rule, they29 nevertheless did not form an entirely independent branch of the economy.30 Rather, handicrafts existed chiefly to satisfy basic requirements, serving per-31 sonal needs.Only a relatively small quantity of handicrafts was traded, and no32 separate stratum of craftsmen formed in Indian society.331.3.Inter- and Intratribal Trade and Trade with the Europeans3435 Of all spheres of Tlingit economic activity, none was more significantly in-36 fluenced by European colonization than bartering.Indeed, most contacts be-37 tween the Indians and Europeans occurred for bartering or in the presence38 of bartering.Trade was the basic channel through which European culture39 penetrated Indian society.Influence of European Contacts on Tlingit Culture 213 1 The Europeans arrival on the Northwest Coast stimulated further trade2 development.Growth in the production of traditional items of exchange (with3 the introduction of more modern tools), a significant increase in the assort-4 ment of goods exchanged, and the market s broadening because of the fur5 trade all stimulated trade.Exchange within the tribe, which had earlier taken6 the form of gift exchange, now began to resemble true trade.At the basis of7 this change lay economic gain and not the maintenance of kin relations (Oberg8 1973:107). Thus, wrote Veniaminov in the 1830s, one of the toion s children,9 who began trade with several beaver skins, had in the course of three or four10 years obtained for himself eight slaves, an excellent boat, a wife, several guns,11 and a multitude of items and, in a word, became a wealthy man (Veniaminov12 1840a:117 118).[214], (613 The Tlingit substantially expanded their contacts with tribes to the south14 (Tsimshian, Haida, and others), as well as with the Eyak and Chugach to theLines: 6315 northwest.The Eyak s assimilation by their southern neighbors (the Tlingit)16 increased after the Tlakaik Teikweidí were destroyed in 1806.Trade, strength- 17 ened by intermarriage, contributed to this. Many Ugalentsi Eyak have Kolosh 0.0pt 18 girls while the Koloshi, the reverse, have Ugalentsi wives and by means ofNormal19 this kinship have close relations.The Yakutat toion Klemuk settled amongPgEnds:20 the Ugalentsi in 1826, Khlebnikov wrote (1979:52).The Russian missionary21 Nikolai Militov, who visited the Eyak in June 1859, wrote in his journal: Now22 it is necessary to sail farther to the south to the Ugalentsi.The Ugalentsi belong[214], (623 to a clan of ferocious Kolosh: language, morals, customs, dress, way of life24 everything is the same as among the Kolosh (Yakimov 2001:214).By the time25 Russian America had been sold to the United States (1867), the Eyak, who26 lived along the coast from Yakutat Bay to the mouth of the Copper River,27 were in fact already no different from the Tlingit; during the first American28 census of Alaska s population (1880) they were counted among the Tlingit29 (Petroff 1884:28 29).In the opinion of the well-known Alaska linguist M.E.30 Krauss, between 1785 and 1825, the Eyak, pressured by the Tlingit, relocated31 northwestward into Chugach territory near the mouth of the Copper River32 and lost their Native lands to the southeast, which were occupied by the Tlingit33 who then assimilated the local Eyak (Krauss 1982:12).34 The Tlingit also influenced the culture of the Chugach Eskimos.This in-35 fluence is graphically demonstrated by Chugach household items found in the36 American museums and the mae.Plaited Chugach crafts, primarily baskets37 and hats, clearly show Tlingit influence, having been decorated in the style of38 the Northwest Coast.The form of the wooden platters and the zoomorphic39 representations on them, as well as mountain goat horn spoons with totemic214 Influence of European Contacts on Tlingit Culture 1 engravings on the handles attest to these influences (Birket-Smith 1953:59 67;2 Razumovskaia 1967:102 104).3 For the Tlingit, even more significant than contacts with the Eyak and4 Chugach were trade connections with the interior Athapaskans.The depletion5 of fur resources in Tlingit territory in the 1830s and the relative saturation of6 their internal market by European goods led to the coastal Indians actively ex-7 panding trade into the interior
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