Tikchik village: a nineteenth century riverine community in ... - Cluster

Continuityand InnovationIt can be stated at the outset that the Tikchik collection of traditionalEskimo artifacts, in spite of certain special characteristics, iswell within the tradition of coastal Yuk culture; the inhabitants ofthe village possessed a material culture not radically different fromthat of their coastal relatives. This fact is clearly illustrated whenthe Tikchik traditional artifacts are compared with the following importantcollections : ethnographic materials collected by Nelson (1899)in the central Bering Sea coastal region near the turn of the century;an historic and recent-prehistoric archaeological collection fromHooper Bay Village south of the Yukon Delta (Oswalt, 1952a); asite atrecent-prehistoric archaeological assemblage from the Togiakthe mouth of the river of that name (Kowta, n.d.), and an historicarchaeological collection from Crow Village on the middle KuskokwimRiver (Oswalt and VanStone, 1967).Very briefly, such a comparisonreveals that an overwhelming majorityof the traditionalartifacts in all categories can be duplicated in one of these four collections.Resemblance between the Tikchik collection and those olNelson and Kowta are particularly striking and would doubtless beeven more so if wooden artifacts had been preserved at Tikchik.The nineteenth century inhabitants of the Bering Sea coast possesseda cultural inventory which was not only well adapted to seamammal hunting and hunting and trapping on land, but also to thetaking of fish. Thus they were able to adjust economically to anyenvironmental situation that was compatible with their varied technology.It has been noted that when these people entered the KuskokwimRiver system, fishing and land hunting methods were emphasizedwhile the sea mammal hunting technology withered awayand was forgotten (Oswalt and VanStone, 1967, p. 2) The same can.little is knownbe said for the Nushagak River system and, althoughconcerning the Yuk movement inland in this region,that close ties have always been maintained with the coastal peopleshere as well as along the Kuskokwim.it seems clearAlthough no exhaustive comparative analysis of the Tikchik artifactswill be attempted, it is certain that even within the context of306