After going through 3 boxes of old files printed in various Courier fonts and on poorly photocopied articles, I feel significantly better educated on my subsistence reindeer herding history.
So here's the scoop:
1892, right? So this guy, Sheldon Jackson, is a missionary who comes to Alaska and starts a school, and he believes that all the natives were a "vanishing race," suffering from chronic starvation. He has this brilliant idea to bring domesticated reindeer over from Siberia to help them out, along with 4 Siberian Natives to train the Eskimo on reindeer husbandry.
Well, the Eskimo don't like that at first because they weren't really chronically starving. They just went through periodic cycles of food shortages like any hunter-gatherer society. So the natives from the town of Wales get pissed off, murder a guy and threaten to kill the Siberian natives, so instead the government has 6 Lapland Natives imported to Alaska to train the Eskimo. I guess that works better, because a temporarily successful apprenticeship program is established to train adolescent Eskimo boys in reindeer herding.
So here's the scoop:
1892, right? So this guy, Sheldon Jackson, is a missionary who comes to Alaska and starts a school, and he believes that all the natives were a "vanishing race," suffering from chronic starvation. He has this brilliant idea to bring domesticated reindeer over from Siberia to help them out, along with 4 Siberian Natives to train the Eskimo on reindeer husbandry.
Well, the Eskimo don't like that at first because they weren't really chronically starving. They just went through periodic cycles of food shortages like any hunter-gatherer society. So the natives from the town of Wales get pissed off, murder a guy and threaten to kill the Siberian natives, so instead the government has 6 Lapland Natives imported to Alaska to train the Eskimo. I guess that works better, because a temporarily successful apprenticeship program is established to train adolescent Eskimo boys in reindeer herding.
When the program first starts, they're given a certain number of reindeer to herd for 5 years, and that number is increased when they successfully make it through the 5 years. However, eventually the government gets more stingy and stops providing the Eskimo their promised reindeer, or only gives them to the Eskimo on loan. Reindeer herding becomes a practice for only the wealthy Eskimo (known as "oomalik").
Fast forward to 1916. More native ownership of reindeer herds is encouraged, and eventually less wealthy Eskimo families can have their own herds. Naturally, this takes power away from the wealthy and results in a gradual change in social dynamics and community identity within the Eskimo villages. Now, the oomalik are no longer looked up to for conflict resolution, as they hold roughly the same status as their less wealthy neighbors and have to share grazing territories with them. In addition, the Eskimo become more sedentary, due to the fact that reindeer prefer to return to the same territories for breeding. So even when conflicts arise, a family can't leave the village without sacrificing their herd. It's amazing how all of this ties in together!
Well, nonetheless, by the 1930s, reindeer herding in the Seward Peninsula is at its peak with some 640,000 reindeer roaming the tundra. Then of course, the Great Depression happens, and the reindeer population plummets to less than 25,000 by 1950. The reindeer are also increasingly bred for their hides instead of their durability, which results in weaker herds.
Fast forward to today. Well, that's kind of what we're hoping to learn about from these upcoming interviews. Reindeer herding is still fairly common, but it is declining due to the fact that fewer young people are learning the practice from their elders, and wild populations of caribou are competing for resources. Then of course is the whole other matter of the change in their natural environment and food sources, and the causes pushing caribou westward towards the reindeer territories.
Fast forward to 1916. More native ownership of reindeer herds is encouraged, and eventually less wealthy Eskimo families can have their own herds. Naturally, this takes power away from the wealthy and results in a gradual change in social dynamics and community identity within the Eskimo villages. Now, the oomalik are no longer looked up to for conflict resolution, as they hold roughly the same status as their less wealthy neighbors and have to share grazing territories with them. In addition, the Eskimo become more sedentary, due to the fact that reindeer prefer to return to the same territories for breeding. So even when conflicts arise, a family can't leave the village without sacrificing their herd. It's amazing how all of this ties in together!
Well, nonetheless, by the 1930s, reindeer herding in the Seward Peninsula is at its peak with some 640,000 reindeer roaming the tundra. Then of course, the Great Depression happens, and the reindeer population plummets to less than 25,000 by 1950. The reindeer are also increasingly bred for their hides instead of their durability, which results in weaker herds.
Fast forward to today. Well, that's kind of what we're hoping to learn about from these upcoming interviews. Reindeer herding is still fairly common, but it is declining due to the fact that fewer young people are learning the practice from their elders, and wild populations of caribou are competing for resources. Then of course is the whole other matter of the change in their natural environment and food sources, and the causes pushing caribou westward towards the reindeer territories.
Not that you ever wanted to know that much about reindeer, but writing it out helps me remember it. And if you managed to read down this far, hopefully you found it as interesting as I did!
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