Lifeways

The Tlingit are classified as part of the Northwest Coast Culture Area. Typical customs of the NORTHWEST coast Indians include salmon fishing; sea mammal as well as land mammal hunting; large houses made from beams and planks of wood; totem poles; wooden ceremonial masks; dugout canoes; cedar chests and boxes; the potlatch (a ceremony for giving gifts) and other elaborate rituals; a society based on wealth and rank; powerful shamans and secret societies; the practice of keeping slaves; and extensive trade contacts among other tribes. All are true of the Tlingit.

Tlingit totem poles were constructed as part of or separate from their houses. Each delicately sculpted and brightly painted figure on the poles, representing both people and animals, had a special meaning to a clan’s history. When the pole was erected, a speaker would relate stories about the clan’s ancestors and about animal spirits.

Of the southern Northwest Coast tribes, the CHI NOOK were the most famous traders. But of the more northern tribes, the Tlingit had the most extensive trade contacts. They were middlemen among many different peoples: their coastal neighbors, the Athapascans of the interior, and the Inuit. They dealt in all kinds of goods, some their own and some made by other tribes: boats, blankets, baskets, boxes, raw copper, copper plaques, cedar boards and bark, seal and fish oils, whale oil and bones, ivory, mountain goat and mountain sheep horns and hides, elk meat, caribou meat, sinews, lichens, beads made from tooth shells, abalone and other seashells, the mineral jadeite, slaves, and more.

The most-sought-after Tlingit product was the Chilkat blanket (named after one of the Tlingit bands but made by other Tlingit bands and Tsimshian Indians as well). Tlingit women made these blankets from cedar-bark fiber and mountain goat or mountain sheep wool, working on them as long as half a year. Some of the yarn spun from these materials was left white; the rest was dyed black, blue-green, or yellow. Then the women wove them with their fingers into intricate abstract designs and animal forms. The completed blankets had an unusual shape. They were about six feet long with a straight edge at the top. But

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Chilkat (Tlingit) blanket with designs that supposedly can talk

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The bottom edge was uneven—about two feet at the ends and three feet in the middle. There were long fringes on the sides and bottom but none along the top edge. The women also made Chilkat shirts. The designs had special meanings for families or clans. It was said that if one knew how to listen, the Chilkat blankets and shirts could actually talk.

The Tlingit wore armor in warfare. They placed wood slats over two or three layers of hide to repel enemy weapons. They also wore helmets of solid wood for protection and masks to frighten their enemies. They used spears, bows and arrows, and different-shaped clubs in their fighting. They also made daggers of stone with ivory handles. After the arrival of Europeans, the Tlingit used steel for the blades.

Tlingit iron, ivory, and leather knife