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{{See also|History of the west coast of North America}}
{{See also|History of the west coast of North America}}


Haida civilization is marked by a social structure that blends elements of capitalism and socialism to create a robust and innovative attitude that continues to impress itself on contemporary politics.
⚫
Haidas used to be [[History_of_slavery#Among_indigenous_peoples|slave traders]] and ruthless warriors, raiding as far as California. Haida [[oral history|oral narratives]] record journeys as far north as the [[Bering Sea]], and one account implies that even Asia was visited by Haidas before Europeans entered the Pacific (see [[Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact]]). The Haidas' ability to travel was dependent upon a supply of [[thuja plicata|Western Red cedar]] trees that were carved and shaped into their famous [[Dugout_(boat)#Indigenous_Peoples_of_North_America|Pacific Northwest canoes]]. Carved from a single tree, a vessel could sleep 15 adults head to toe, and was propelled by up to 60 paddlers (who often included women). In the event of a battle at sea, paddlers were armed with heavy stone rings (18 to 23 kg) attached to woven tree root or bark ropes. These devices, are thrown at enemy canoes, inflicting substantial damage. Haida warriors entered battle with red cedar armor, wooden shields, stone maces and atlatls. War helmets were carved. These techniques are unknown to anyone other than the Haida people as they have kept it secret for many years. It is still unknown how the Haida would carve their war helmets and how they looked.


⚫
Always described by anxious Europeans as warriors and [[slave traders]] raiding as far as California, Haida [[oral history|oral narratives]] record journeys as far north as the [[Bering Sea]], and one account by now deceased Haida historian Henry Geddes suggests that Asia was visited by Haidas after a one month deep water voyage before the Europeans even entered the Pacific (see [[Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact]]). The Haidas' ability to travel was dependent upon a supply of [[thuja plicata|Western Red cedar]] trees that were carved and steamed into their famous [[Dugout_(boat)#Indigenous_Peoples_of_North_America|Pacific Northwest canoes]]. Carved from a single tree, a vessel could sleep 15 adults head to toe, and was propelled by up to 60 paddlers (who often included women).
⚫
The Haida were feared along the coast because of their practice of making lightning raids against which their enemies had little defense. In 1856, an expedition in search of a route across [[Vancouver Island]] was at the mouth of the [[Qualicum River]] when they observed a large fleet of Haida canoes approaching and hid in the forest. They observed these attackers holding [[Decapitation|human heads]]. When they came to the mouth of the river, they came upon the charred remains of the village of the [[Qualicum people]] and the [[Mutilation|mutilated bodies]] of its inhabitants, with only one survivor, an elderly woman, hiding terrified inside a tree stump. <ref>Elms p 20, citing William Wyford Walkem, Stories of Early British Columbia, "Adam Horne's trip across Vancouver Island" (Vancouver, BC: Published by News Advertiser, 1914) p 41.</ref> Also in 1856, the ''[[USS Massachusetts (1845)|USS Massachusetts]]'' was sent from [[Seattle]] to [[Port Gamble]], [[Washington Territory]] on [[Puget Sound]], where indigenous raiding parties made up of Haida from British territory and Tongass (Cape Fox tribe [[Tlingit]]) from Russian territory had been raiding and enslaving the Salishan [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] there. When the Haida and Tongass warriors refused to hand over those among them who had attacked the Puget Sound Native American]] communities, a battle ensued in which 26 natives and one soldier were killed. In the aftermath of this, [[Colonel Isaac Ebey]], the first settler on [[Whidbey Island]], was shot and beheaded on August 11, [[1857]] by a Haida raiding party in revenge for the killing of a native chief during similar raids the year before. British authorities demurred on pursuing or attacking the northern tribes as they passed northward through British waters off Victoria<!--"for fear or touching off a full-scale Indian war" is said in the source but I don't know if I agree, because of other sources--> and Ebey's killers were never caught.<ref>[http://members.aol.com/Gibson0817/ebey.htm Beth Gibson, ''Beheaded Pioneer'', Laura Arksey, Columbia, Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, Spring, 1988.]</ref><ref>Bancroft says they were Stikines, a Tlingit subgroup, and makes no mention of the Haida. [http://www.archive.org/details/washidahomont00bancrich ''History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889'', p.137 [[Hubert Howe Bancroft]] (1890)]</ref>


⚫
Haidas were respected along the coast as traders and a warrior society. In 1856, an expedition in search of a route across [[Vancouver Island]] was at the mouth of the [[Qualicum River]] when they observed a large fleet of Haida canoes approaching and hid in the forest. They observed these attackers holding [[Decapitation|human heads]]. When they came to the mouth of the river, they came upon the charred remains of the village of the [[Qualicum people]] and the [[Mutilation|mutilated bodies]] of its inhabitants, with only one survivor, an elderly woman, hiding terrified inside a tree stump. <ref>Elms p 20, citing William Wyford Walkem, Stories of Early British Columbia, "Adam Horne's trip across Vancouver Island" (Vancouver, BC: Published by News Advertiser, 1914) p 41.</ref> Also in 1856, the ''[[USS Massachusetts (1845)|USS Massachusetts]]'' was sent from [[Seattle]] to [[Port Gamble]], [[Washington Territory]] on [[Puget Sound]], where indigenous raiding parties made up of Haida from territory claimed by the British and Tongass (Cape Fox tribe [[Tlingit]]) from territory claimed by the Russians had been raiding and enslaving the Salishan [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] there. When the Haida and Tongass warriors refusing to acknowledge American jurisdiction and to hand over those among them who had attacked the Puget Sound Native American]] communities, a battle ensued in which 26 natives and one soldier were killed. In the aftermath of this, [[Colonel Isaac Ebey]], an US military officer and the first settler on [[Whidbey Island]], was shot and beheaded on August 11, [[1857]] by a small Haida fleet in retaliation for the killing of a respected Haida citizen during similar raids the year before. British authorities demurred on pursuing or confronting any northern Indigenous Nations as they passed northward through waters the British nevertheless claimed authority over<!--"for fear or touching off a full-scale Indian war" is said in the source but I don't know if I agree, because of other sources--> and Ebey's killers were never caught.<ref>[http://members.aol.com/Gibson0817/ebey.htm Beth Gibson, ''Beheaded Pioneer'', Laura Arksey, Columbia, Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, Spring, 1988.]</ref><ref>Bancroft says they were Stikines, a Tlingit subgroup, and makes no mention of the Haida. [http://www.archive.org/details/washidahomont00bancrich ''History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889'', p.137 [[Hubert Howe Bancroft]] (1890)]</ref>
⚫
Their great skills of seamanship, their superior craft and their relative protection from retaliation in their island fortress added to the aggressive posture of the Haida towards neighboring tribes. Diamond Jenness, an early anthropologist at the [[Canadian Museum of Civilization]], caught their essence in his description of the Haida as the "Indian [[Vikings]] of the North West Coast".

⚫
Their great skills of seamanship, their superior craft and their relative protection from retaliation in their island fortress added to the aggressive posture of the Haida towards neighboring tribes. Diamond Jenness, an early anthropologist at the [[Canadian Museum of Civilization]], caught Canadian's notion of a Haida essence in his description of the Haida as the "Indian [[Vikings]] of the North West Coast".


:"Those were stirring times, about a century ago, when the big Haida war canoes, each hollowed out of a single cedar tree and manned by fifty or sixty warriors, traded and raided up and down the coast from [[Sitka]] in the north to the delta of the [[Fraser River]] in the south. Each usually carried a [[shaman]] or medicine man to catch and destroy the souls of enemies before an impending battle; and the women who sometimes accompanied the warriors fought as savagely as their husbands."
:"Those were stirring times, about a century ago, when the big Haida war canoes, each hollowed out of a single cedar tree and manned by fifty or sixty warriors, traded and raided up and down the coast from [[Sitka]] in the north to the delta of the [[Fraser River]] in the south. Each usually carried a [[shaman]] or medicine man to catch and destroy the souls of enemies before an impending battle; and the women who sometimes accompanied the warriors fought as savagely as their husbands."


The Haida created notions of wealth such as seen in the first ever totem poles on the coast and the first bent boxes embellished with designs describing the Haida concept of "The One Under the Sea". War was always subject to rules of engagement and lineage relationships and ceremony frequently described the course of battle. Slaves were the common result of war and this labor force not only provided additional economic capacity, it also allowed for the successful captor to collect substantial intellectual property in the way of names. The lineage connections amongst Nations that supported a core "royal" hierarchy in otherwise distant and apparently hostile communities is seldom discussed or even known outside a small group of indigenous intellectuals.
The Haida went to war to acquire objects of wealth, such as coppers and [[Chilkat blanket]]s, that were in short supply on the islands, but primarily for slaves, who enhanced their productivity or were traded to other tribes. High-ranking captives were also the source of other property received in ransom such as crest designs, dances and songs.


The Haida engaged in sea battles; their warriors were equipped with red cedar armor, war helmets, wooden shields, stone maces and [[atlatl|spear-throwers]]. They tied cedar bark ropes to heavy stone rings that were hurled to smash enemy canoes and that could quickly be retrieved for subsequent throws. A stone weighing 18 to 23 kg (40 to 50 pounds) could shatter the side of a [[dugout|dugout canoe]] and cause it to founder. Most tribes avoided sea battles with the Haida and tried to lure them ashore for a more equitable fight. The [[Tsimshian]] developed a signal-fire system to alert their villages on the [[Skeena]] River as soon as Haida invaders reached the mainland.
When engaged in sea battles; Haidas wearing red cedar and mammal hide armor, stout helmets used shields, bows and arrows as well as stone maces and [[atlatl|spear-throwers]]. They tied cedar bark ropes to heavy stone rings that were hurled to smash enemy canoes and that could quickly be retrieved for subsequent throws. A stone weighing 18 to 23 kg (40 to 50 pounds) could shatter the side of a [[dugout|dugout canoe]] and cause it to founder. Most tribes avoided sea battles with the Haida and tried to lure them ashore for a more equitable fight. The [[Tsimshian]] developed a signal-fire system to alert their villages on the [[Skeena]] River as soon as Haida vessels entered inshore waters.


The incidence of warfare was undoubtedly accelerated in the half century from 1780 to 1830, when the Haida had no effective enemies except the many European and American traders on their shores who would rather trade than fight. During this period, the Haida successfully captured more than half a dozen ships. One was the ship ''Eleanora'', taken by chiefs of the village of Skungwai (or [[Ninstints]]) in retaliation for the maltreatment Chief Koyah had received from its captain. An even more spectacular event was the capture of the ship ''Susan Sturgis'' by Chief Weah (Matthews) of [[Masset]] and the rescue of its crew by Albert Edward Edenshaw. In such conflicts, the Haida quickly learned the newcomers' fighting tactics, which they used to good effect in subsequent battles, as Jacob Brink notes:
The incidence of warfare was undoubtedly accelerated in the half century from 1780 to 1830, when the Haida had no effective enemies except the many European and American traders on their shores who would rather trade than fight. During this period, the Haida successfully captured more than half a dozen ships. One was the ship ''Eleanora'', taken by Nangitlagadaa (aka "chiefs") of the village of Skungwai (or [[Ninstints]]) in retaliation for the maltreatment Chief Koyah had received from its captain. An even more spectacular event was the capture of the ship ''Susan Sturgis'' by Chief Weah (Matthews) of [[Masset]] and the somewhat suspect rescue of its crew by Albert Edward Edenshaw. In such conflicts, the Haida quickly learned the newcomers' fighting tactics, which they used to good effect in subsequent battles, as Jacob Brink notes:


:"As early as 1795, a British trading ship fired its cannons at a village in the central part of the archipelago because some of the crew had been killed by the inhabitants, and the survivors had to put hastily to sea when the Indians fired back at them. They found out later that the Indians had used a cannon and ammunition confiscated from an American Schooner a few years earlier."
:"As early as 1795, a British trading ship fired its cannons at a village in the central part of the archipelago because some of the crew had been killed by the inhabitants, and the survivors had to put hastily to sea when the Indians fired back at them. They found out later that the Indians had used a cannon and ammunition confiscated from an American Schooner a few years earlier."

Revision as of 07:30, 10 February 2009

This article is about the people. For their government in Canada, see Council of the Haida Nation. For the tribal class ship of the Canadian Navy, see HMCS Haida (G63).
Haida
Haida carver Saaduuts, 2007
Regions with significant populations
Canada
British Columbia)

United States
Alaska)
Languages
English, Haida

The Haida are an indigenous nation of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. The Haida territories comprise the archipelago of the Queen Charlotte Islands, known in the Haida language as Haida Gwaii ("land of the Haida"), and the southern half of Prince of Wales Island in the southernmost Alaska Panhandle, which is the home of a subgroup called the Kaigani Haida. In other words, the Haida territories lie in both Canada and the United States, as do various other indigenous peoples of the Americas such as the Coast Salish.

The term "Haida Nation" can and does refer to both the people and their government on Canadian territory, the Council of the Haida Nation; the government for those in Alaska is the Central Council Tlingit Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. Their ancestral language is the Haida language, which has been classified as a Na-Dene language, but today is usually considered to be a language isolate.[2] In addition to those Haida residing in the Queen Charlottes and Alaska, there are also many Haidas in various urban areas in the western United States and Canada.

Haida society continues to be very engaged in the production of a robust and highly stylized art form. While frequently expressed in large wooden carvings (totem poles) or ornate jewellery, it is also moving quickly into the work of populist expression such as Haida manga. Haida art is a leading component of Northwest Coast art.

History

See also: History of the west coast of North America

Haida civilization is marked by a social structure that blends elements of capitalism and socialism to create a robust and innovative attitude that continues to impress itself on contemporary politics.

Always described by anxious Europeans as warriors and slave traders raiding as far as California, Haida oral narratives record journeys as far north as the Bering Sea, and one account by now deceased Haida historian Henry Geddes suggests that Asia was visited by Haidas after a one month deep water voyage before the Europeans even entered the Pacific (see Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact). The Haidas' ability to travel was dependent upon a supply of Western Red cedar trees that were carved and steamed into their famous Pacific Northwest canoes. Carved from a single tree, a vessel could sleep 15 adults head to toe, and was propelled by up to 60 paddlers (who often included women).

Haidas were respected along the coast as traders and a warrior society. In 1856, an expedition in search of a route across Vancouver Island was at the mouth of the Qualicum River when they observed a large fleet of Haida canoes approaching and hid in the forest. They observed these attackers holding human heads. When they came to the mouth of the river, they came upon the charred remains of the village of the Qualicum people and the mutilated bodies of its inhabitants, with only one survivor, an elderly woman, hiding terrified inside a tree stump. [3] Also in 1856, the USS Massachusetts was sent from Seattle to Port Gamble, Washington Territory on Puget Sound, where indigenous raiding parties made up of Haida from territory claimed by the British and Tongass (Cape Fox tribe Tlingit) from territory claimed by the Russians had been raiding and enslaving the Salishan Native Americans there. When the Haida and Tongass warriors refusing to acknowledge American jurisdiction and to hand over those among them who had attacked the Puget Sound Native American]] communities, a battle ensued in which 26 natives and one soldier were killed. In the aftermath of this, Colonel Isaac Ebey, an US military officer and the first settler on Whidbey Island, was shot and beheaded on August 11, 1857 by a small Haida fleet in retaliation for the killing of a respected Haida citizen during similar raids the year before. British authorities demurred on pursuing or confronting any northern Indigenous Nations as they passed northward through waters the British nevertheless claimed authority over and Ebey's killers were never caught.[4][5]

Their great skills of seamanship, their superior craft and their relative protection from retaliation in their island fortress added to the aggressive posture of the Haida towards neighboring tribes. Diamond Jenness, an early anthropologist at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, caught Canadian's notion of a Haida essence in his description of the Haida as the "Indian Vikings of the North West Coast".

"Those were stirring times, about a century ago, when the big Haida war canoes, each hollowed out of a single cedar tree and manned by fifty or sixty warriors, traded and raided up and down the coast from Sitka in the north to the delta of the Fraser River in the south. Each usually carried a shaman or medicine man to catch and destroy the souls of enemies before an impending battle; and the women who sometimes accompanied the warriors fought as savagely as their husbands."

The Haida created notions of wealth such as seen in the first ever totem poles on the coast and the first bent boxes embellished with designs describing the Haida concept of "The One Under the Sea". War was always subject to rules of engagement and lineage relationships and ceremony frequently described the course of battle. Slaves were the common result of war and this labor force not only provided additional economic capacity, it also allowed for the successful captor to collect substantial intellectual property in the way of names. The lineage connections amongst Nations that supported a core "royal" hierarchy in otherwise distant and apparently hostile communities is seldom discussed or even known outside a small group of indigenous intellectuals.

When engaged in sea battles; Haidas wearing red cedar and mammal hide armor, stout helmets used shields, bows and arrows as well as stone maces and spear-throwers. They tied cedar bark ropes to heavy stone rings that were hurled to smash enemy canoes and that could quickly be retrieved for subsequent throws. A stone weighing 18 to 23 kg (40 to 50 pounds) could shatter the side of a dugout canoe and cause it to founder. Most tribes avoided sea battles with the Haida and tried to lure them ashore for a more equitable fight. The Tsimshian developed a signal-fire system to alert their villages on the Skeena River as soon as Haida vessels entered inshore waters.

The incidence of warfare was undoubtedly accelerated in the half century from 1780 to 1830, when the Haida had no effective enemies except the many European and American traders on their shores who would rather trade than fight. During this period, the Haida successfully captured more than half a dozen ships. One was the ship Eleanora, taken by Nangitlagadaa (aka "chiefs") of the village of Skungwai (or Ninstints) in retaliation for the maltreatment Chief Koyah had received from its captain. An even more spectacular event was the capture of the ship Susan Sturgis by Chief Weah (Matthews) of Masset and the somewhat suspect rescue of its crew by Albert Edward Edenshaw. In such conflicts, the Haida quickly learned the newcomers' fighting tactics, which they used to good effect in subsequent battles, as Jacob Brink notes:

"As early as 1795, a British trading ship fired its cannons at a village in the central part of the archipelago because some of the crew had been killed by the inhabitants, and the survivors had to put hastily to sea when the Indians fired back at them. They found out later that the Indians had used a cannon and ammunition confiscated from an American Schooner a few years earlier."

Swivel guns were added to many Haida war canoes, although initially the recoil on discharge caused the hulls of many craft to split.

Fortified sites were part of the defensive strategy of all Northwest Coast groups for at least 2,000 years. Captain James Cook was so impressed with one Haida fort off the west coast of Graham Island that he called it Hippah Island after the Maori forts he had seen in New Zealand. Military defences at Haida forts included stout palisades, rolling top-log defences, heavy trapdoors and fighting platforms supplied with stores of large boulders to hurl at invaders.

Villages

Haida Heritage Centre at Kaay Llnagaay

Historical Haida villages were[6]:

Skidegate

Calendar

The Haida's calendar:

  • April/May- Gansgee 7laa kongaas
  • May/Early June- Wa.aay gwaalgee
  • June/July- Kong koaas
  • July/August- Sgaana gyaas
  • August/September- K'ijaas
  • September/October- K'alayaa Kongaas
  • October/November- K'eed adii
  • November/December- Jid Kongaas
  • December/January- Kong gyaangaas
  • January/February- Hlgiduum kongaas
  • February/March- Taan kongaas
  • March- Xiid gayaas
  • April- Wiid gyaas

Notable Haidas

Anthropologists and scholars

Below if a brief list of anthropologists and scholars who have done research on the Haida.

  • Emily Carr deserves mention as an early chronicler of the heraldic poles and long houses through her paintings

See also

Further reading

  • Blackman, Margaret B. (1982; rev. ed., 1992) During My Time: Florence Edenshaw Davidson, a Haida Woman. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
  • Boelscher, Marianne (1988) The Curtain Within: Haida Social and Mythical Discourse. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
  • Bringhurst, Robert (2000) A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World. Douglas & McIntyre.
  • Geduhn, Thomas (1993) "Eigene und fremde Verhaltensmuster in der Territorialgeschichte der Haida." (Mundus Reihe Ethnologie, Band 71.) Bonn: Holos Verlag.
  • Harris, Christie (1966) Raven's Cry. New York: Atheneum.
  • Huteson, Pamela (2007) "Transformation Masks" Surrey, B.C. Canada: Hancock House Publishers LTD. ISBN- 13 978-0-88839-635-8 and ISBN- 10 0-88839-635-X
  • Snyder, Gary (1979) He Who Hunted Birds in His Father's Village. San Francisco: Grey Fox Press.
  • Stearns, Mary Lee (1981) Haida Culture in Custody: The Masset Band. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
  • The Hydah mission, Queen Charlotte's Islands : an account of the mission and people, with a descriptive letter, Rev. Charles Harrison, publ. Church Missionary Society/Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, London, England, 1884.
  • Yahgulanaas, Michael Nicoll (2008) "Flight of the Hummingbird" Vancouver; Greystone Books.

Notes

  1. ^ Ethnologue. (2005). "Language Family Trees: Na-Dene, Haida." In Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th ed. Dallas, TX: SIL International. Online (2007). Retrieved on 2007-06-01. Follow links for ethnic population figures, as follows: Northern Haida—1,700 (1,100 in Canada, 600 in US); Southern Haida—500 (all in Canada).
  2. ^ Schoonmaker, Peter K. (1997). The Rain Forests of Home: Profile Of A North American Bioregion. Island Press. p. 257. ISBN 1559634804. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ Elms p 20, citing William Wyford Walkem, Stories of Early British Columbia, "Adam Horne's trip across Vancouver Island" (Vancouver, BC: Published by News Advertiser, 1914) p 41.
  4. ^ Beth Gibson, Beheaded Pioneer, Laura Arksey, Columbia, Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, Spring, 1988.
  5. ^ Bancroft says they were Stikines, a Tlingit subgroup, and makes no mention of the Haida. History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889, p.137 Hubert Howe Bancroft (1890)
  6. ^ Canadian Museum of Civilization webpage on Haida villages
  7. ^ Parks Canada website

References

  • Macnair, Peter L.; Hoover, Alan L.; Neary, Kevin (1981) The Legacy – Continuing Traditions of Canadian Northwest Coast Indian Art

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Haida people.
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