Tlingit

The Tlingit, who call themselves Lingít, "People of the Tides", are Indigenous to the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their homeland stretches along the islands and rainforest coast of south-east Alaska and inland into north-western British Columbia and the southern Yukon, so they are both Alaska Natives and First Nations in Canada. Known for their clan system, carved crests and oratory, they number about 22,600 in the United States, according to the 2020 census, and about 2,100 in Canada.

At its greatest, Tlingit territory ran from the Portland Canal on today's Alaska–British Columbia border north to the coast near the Copper River delta, taking in almost all of the Alexander Archipelago. Coastal groups such as the Chilkat, Chilkoot and Taku controlled routes through the mountains, travelling up the Stikine, Taku, Chilkat and Alsek rivers to trade and intermarry with Athabaskan neighbours. Some settled inland around Atlin, Teslin and Tagish lakes. The people are organised in local tribes called kwáans. Cultural traditions with elements related to the Tlingit are traced to about 10,000 years ago near the mouths of the Skeena and Nass rivers.

Tlingit society is divided into two halves, or moieties, Raven and Eagle, each made up of clans and house groups. Descent, inheritance and hereditary titles pass through the mother's line. Clans hold heraldic crests displayed on totem poles, house posts, canoes, blankets and feast dishes, and even everyday objects were decorated and believed to hold spiritual power. Wealth mattered, but so did generosity and correct behaviour. Like other Northwest Coast peoples, the Tlingit practised hereditary slavery until it was outlawed under United States rule. Families lived in large cedar plank clan houses. Traditional belief was animist, with shamans who healed and foretold the future, and a central belief in the reincarnation of people and animals.

Salmon was the most important food, followed closely by seals and land game. Through the year people harvested halibut, shellfish and seaweed in spring, seals and salmon in summer, berries, herring and eulachon, and hunted deer, bears and mountain goats in the forests. Relying only on food gathered from the beach was considered a sign of poverty.

The Tlingit first met Europeans in 1741, when Russian explorers arrived, followed by the Spanish in 1775. When the Russian-American Company built a post near Sitka, Tlingit warriors attacked and destroyed it in June 1802. The Russians returned in 1804 and, after the Battle of Sitka, the last major armed conflict between Russians and Alaska Natives, founded New Archangel, capital of Russian America from 1808. In 1867 the Russian Empire sold Alaska to the United States. Disease took a terrible toll: the smallpox epidemic of 1862 is estimated to have killed about 60 per cent of mainland Tlingit and 37 per cent of island Tlingit. Between 1886 and 1895 many Tlingit joined the Russian Orthodox Church, which some scholars see as a way of resisting pressure to assimilate.

In Alaska the Tlingit have no reservations; under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, land is held largely through Native corporations, chiefly Sealaska Corporation, which serves Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people. In Canada, communities such as the Taku River Tlingit at Atlin, the Teslin Tlingit Council and the Carcross/Tagish First Nation have reserves. The Tlingit activist Elizabeth Peratrovich is credited with helping pass Alaska's Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, the first such law in any American state or territory. The Tlingit language, a branch of the Na-Dene family, has perhaps 200 to 400 speakers in the United States and about 100 in Canada, and revitalisation programmes run through Sealaska Heritage Institute, the University of Alaska Southeast and community classes.

Our 1500 map draws Tlingit territory along the south-east Alaskan coast and its hinterland under the label "Tlinoit", an approximate outline. Neighbouring peoples with their own pages include the Eyak to the north-west and the Athabaskan-speaking Dene of the interior.