Woman the Hunter

8 Woman the Hunter: Ethnoarchaeological Lessons from Chipewyan Life-Cycle Dynamics HETTY JO BRUMBACH AND ROBERT JARVENPA Introduction Faithful to its title, the 1968 Man the Hunter volume! rather do ati- cally portrayed hunting as the exclusive role of males. In this vigg; of cgltural evolution, men were characterized as ‘cooperative hunters of b.lg game, ranging freely and widely across the landscape.” The exclu- swe]y mal? hunter model was constructed, in part, by a questionable manipulation of the original codings for subsistence variables in Murdock’s ‘Ethnographic Atlas”® and by ignoring contradictory evi- dence presented in the original symposium proceedings by several f:tht1qgraphers. [n essence, by narrowing and redefining the scope of huqtlpg,' the symposium participants obscured women’s ver real participation in a behaviourally and culturally complex enterprisz Dahl.b(‘erg’S edited volume, Worman the Gatherer* served as somet.hin of a rejoinder, but it did this by highlighting the role of women a% gatherers of plant foods, which often contributed more than half of some foraging people’s subsistence. Thus, while one of its essa S demoqgtrated the importance of female hunters among the Agta )c;f the Phfl']ppines,5 the volume at large has come to be best known %or its discussion of women as plant gatherers ‘par excellence.” Unfortu- nately, such extreme views, rendered as mutually exclusive ‘man the :\hunter' versus ‘w}(\)ma{l the gatherer’ models, have come to sum up e way many archa ists i i women)/' y eologists interpret the economic roles of men and ' Why women do not hunt or, more accurately, why some anthropolo- gists have difficulty envisioning women as hunters is a complex issue best left for consideration in a separate essay. Despite a growing litera- Woman the Hunter 201 ture on the topic,® the ethnographic evidence for women as hunters has had negligible impact upon archaeologists interpreting artifacts, fea- tures, and other residues recovered at prehistoric sites. As Conkey and Spector have pointed out,” there is a deep-seated assumption that women in prehistory were ‘immobilized” by pregnancy, lactation, and child care, and therefore needed to be left at a home base while the males ranged ‘freely and widely across the landscape.’ If these rigid assumptions have merit, then what of the role of women in circumpolar arctic and subarctic societies where plant foods contrib- ute very little to the diet in terms of calories? Do women play any role in the food quest in these environments? Cultural Context and Research Methods To address this problem and to shed light on the issue of women’s contribution to subsistence, we turned to the methods of ethnoarchae- ology, particularly the archaeological study of ongoing populations. Since the mid-1970s we have been engaged in carrying out ethno- archaeological research among the Chipewyan, Cree, and Métis Cree populations of northwestern Saskatchewan. Much of this study has focused on the historical and ecological basis of ethnic-cultural adapta- tion and differentiation, including the roles of Native and European groups in the upper Churchill River fur trade.® This work involved survey and mapping of late eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and early to mid- twentieth-century sites, including extensive on-site collaboration with Native interpreters. Additional research carried out in 1992 was directed at conducting a more systematic analysis of male and female interpretations of archaeo- logical remains.’ For analytical purposes, we adapted Spector’s idea of ‘task differentiation,’? a framework developed explicitly to break the bounds of androcentric bias in archaeology. Spector used the approach profitably in examining male and female activity patterns for the Hidatsa of the Great Plains. Ethnographic information on the historical Hidatsa was reanalysed to identify tasks performed by males and females, as defined on the basis of four dimensions: (1) social unit (age, gender, and kin relations of personnel cooperating in economic activity); (2) task setting (locations, locales, or geographic range of activity); (3) task time (frequency, seasonality, and other temporal contexts for activity); (4) task materials (implements, technology, and facilities employed in ac- tivity). The resultant patterning is suggestive of the ways that women’s S S St

202 Hetty Jo Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa and men'’s lives differentially affect the formation of the archaeological record. In our modification of Spector’s approach, we interviewed both Chipewyan women and men, integrating questions concerning the soe cial, spatial, temporal, and material dimensions of specific economig¢ tasks. Additional data were derived from direct observation of such activities in living context. Maps were made of abandoned and stills occupied Chipewyan settlements and individual house sites, empha- sizing locations and facilities used in performing relevant activities. Because time constraints did not permit documentation of all tasks carried out by the Chipewyan, we concentrated on one set of activities; the acquisition and processing of food resources. Nine resources or resource clusters were identified to reflect the mammal, fish, and bird species emphasized by the women and men themselves and also those known to figure prominently in local diet and economy: moose, barrens ground caribou, snowshoe rabbit, beaver, muskrat, whitefish, lake trout, ducks, and various species of plants.!! While plant foods do not play a major role in terms of absolute calorie contribution, we included berries in the analysis as the most common plant food resource. Furthermore, to balance the Chipewyan’s over- whelming emphasis on animal products, we added a general category of non-edible or non-food plant resources, including bark (for baskets and other containers), moss (baby diapering material), and medicinal plants, among other such resources. For each animal or plant resource, we questioned informants about a comprehensive system of tracking, ca pturing or harvesting, and process- ing. For example, our informants’ ultimate rendering of the ‘moose system’ included detailed knowledge on locating or tracking, killing, field butchering, transport to a residence or settlement, distribution or sharing of meat, final butchering and thin cutting, meat drying and storage, food preparation, hide smoking, and other usage of antlers, bones, fat, and body organs. Other resource ‘systems’ emerged with their own distinctive pathways and thereby provided extensive infors mation on a range of activities through which animal and, to a lesser degree, plant products passed. Formal questions concerning the four dimensions were posed to each consultant. These included information on the participants in specifie tasks and their kin, marriage, or other ties. The seasonality or temporal scheduling of events was also recorded. Locations were determined Woman the Hunter 203 either by having informants take us to the relevant places in the case of activities carried out at or near settlements, or by marking locations on maps for more distant areas. The material dimension was explored in much the same way. For some activities our informants were able to demonstrate with the actual tools and facilities employed, whereas other, more distant activities were explained verbally. Direct observa- tion of ongoing hunts or other economic enterprise was possible in some instances. Maps were made of selected settlements and camps with their associated work areas and features. The emphasis on the material aspects of task performance was especially productive. Ilach narrator recalled in some detail, and often with considerable emotion, his or her efforts in provisioning a family, whether it was snaring rabbits with a grandmother sixty years ago or butchering a moose with a husband that very week. In some instances, we were fortunate to be on the scene when hunting or food processing activities were occurring. These observationally enriched sessions lent an imme- diacy and clarity to some testimony. By structuring interviews in this fashion and by posing the same range of questions to both women and men, we hoped to avoid or, at least, reduce biasing the results in the direction of our own gender stereotypes. We asked women about hunting and killing animals, and men about cooking meat and processing hides. For this we were re- warded. While some of our assumptions about gender were affirmed, we also learned that actual performance was far more flexible than we had thought. Chipewyan Women Hunters P’erhaps the most interesting revelations were about women. We re- corded, either through interviews or direct observation, considerable information on women'’s participation in the meat acquisition process (which includes all animal products hunted, trapped, or netted), their profound interest in tools and tool kits, and their investment in §0n~ structing features and facilities. We also added much to our previous knowledge regarding the complex technologies and procedures involved in women's processing and storage of dry meat, animal hides, and bone grease, and their usage of medicinal plants, among other matters. One conclusion of this project is the simple but undeniable reality that women hunt. Although the women we studied do not dispatch T TN STV T 5 AT 1 - 7 e PR e AT o

P ) 206 Hut__v Jo Brumbach and Robert Jar\'cnpa g::)dh;r;t. Before my first child 1 would go duck hunting with h 5 - My husband did the shooting. We brought the whol . et ome to clean. (A.M., 44 years) e Ik Tused to h s % " st hl:)’: rabbits with my mom. We had a little trai] where we went o s;e we would cross a lake and go into the bush in winter [ca. , she would put rabbit snares, She would kill seven or eleve 1 en make tea from snow, ar »and have some ba k o s nnock. We used snares, We — f (fl:he;1 li.ibblts back home whole, She would sometimes gut th x"“lg e egpecjal,; h::;rt (;n tfizm and keep them frozen in a shed outside a\/r\]/e : ed rabbits in winter, But in sum ; : . . m > > would snare rabbits in other places. (D.N., 64 ye':r;)my M lhavu on ) . 3 to padcl;;le :I:;aver hunting with my husband. But before marriage I used muskrat hooss my.gralldma ... for one day in a small canoe for beaver and shissis, S t“ ing in the spring time, Sometimes we trapped and s(holt 5 e o a 5 — alway;rrclfs T{ tg;randma made me shoot them, but often | missed aught them with traps .. [ ater o husband. We wo Ps ... Later, | always went wit} . uld go on the same traj Ay lall, » 37 : - ) own traps. (D.H,, 40 years) et we eachindividually set our I learned fr sy ;moggrrggrr} an grandma how to trap muskrat and how to was hard to get. E"xcl}:b o e and woien trapped, because money wouldn’t overla}.)“Wi‘th bWOIl:‘aIT,had }.\er own place for trapping so that it the Churchill Ryer rothers’ or .SlStel'S' Places. I would trave] down " i s lr: ‘a can.oe with Grandma to Dreger Lake, past Foamic Gitivas 'Can()‘e b;h‘ ’cn OF ngh‘l‘ years old. We used an old-style wood. we used ‘bush gum" ans}-cla tewa]li':daily .on rocks, and if we didn’t }“a"e glue, gum comes fromja ... SPrucpeP. U-D.l, 431;'};&1]::; P ihe g Wh i : g " ne‘: i :l,:i e; i);](;ung girl snaring rabbits at Dipper Lake, I did the work i and.‘thin Syu}lrs old when I started that. I used to be scared of e 1 kmg}g I.’.C.l bwould walk a distance away, like from here to the eshel und\ . ring back a load of rabbits sometimes, so that I'd er the snow to get later. I'd snare rabbits all year round Woman the Hunter 207 We used to trap fur, not only muskrats. I used to go with my grandparents to trap muskrats with metal traps, not snares. We would go trapping in Little Flatstone Creek and Mudjatik River ... When going out for muskrat we’d go out and camp for a couple days and then move the whole trapline, move it again, all the way down to the mouth of Little Flatstone and then working out way up to Patuanak. The skinning of muskrats, usually that’s a man’s job, but women would help if there were lots of animals. I am faster than my husband. My grandma used to make large birch-bark baskets, square but tall boxes, taller than wide. She would use these to store the dried muskrat meat ... We used to snare lots of rabbits at Little Flatstone, me and my grandmother. (L.N., 52 years) As noted previously, most Chipewyan women reported a decline in hunting activities during the years when pregnancy and child-rearing responsibilities were greatest. A range of available government ser- vices, as well as Western technology, have triggered major changes in demography, with increased family size in recent history perhaps being the most relevant to this study. Although data are incomplete and somewhat difficult to compare, examination of three census lists re- vealed an increase in the number of reported sub-adult children over time. Shifts in family demography are central to our argument that changes in women'’s economic roles, particularly reduced involvement in hunting, occur quite late in history. Contemporary observations of family size and hunting, therefore, cannot be used uncritically to model prehistoric gender dynamics. Three Chipewyan Censuses 1838 Census In 1838 the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) conducted a census of all its fur-trading posts, including the Ile a la Crosse post within the English River District, which served as the major point of trade for the southern Chipewyan or Kesyehot 'ine, the people considered in this study.' Of the 489 Chipewyan enumerated for the English River District in that year, only 108 were identified by name. These ‘Hunter’s Names’ were broad transcriptions of Chipewyan names (e.g., Chee na Gun, Jennay afsee, Houlcho Eazze) for adult male family heads and some of their male relatives and comrades. The remaining 380 Chipewyan in the 1838 census were enumerated

208 Hetty Jo Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa T . : able 8.1. Chipewyan population data from censuses in the English River District Canada — Followers = and Total V! Men Women Boys Girls strangers population : ggg 108 119 107 103 52 489 L 25 40 36 42 10* 153 74 112 101 112 112 437 ‘Other relatives’ in this case included two males and eight females :avr\ll?‘r,\g;m(c;til;ly g] C(:jlumns following the roster of male family heads: individuals), ‘Sons’ (107), ‘Daughters’ : . , S 2 rs’ (103), and “Follow- ers and Strangers’ (52) (see table 8 1) Sst , e : -1). The listings provid picture of variation in family si: ) Ty > of - y size and structure at that time. Sj . 8 . . i m Catholic mxssnonuahqn did not penetrate the region until 1846, pol C? rr::us] mza:lrrlage was still common. Twenty-six of the named hu,nter}s’g(})lr arly 24 per cent, had at least two wives, and s o e el ohiis e » and some had three or four. age, however, one can only ass hat * § and ‘Daughters’ represented s Sy ey sub-adult or dependent offspri had not yet married or i fidependent it fih a otherwise formed independ ili ; L t families. In th early twentieth century, Chi S bontaie » Lhipewyan grooms were on average ab i years older than their brides, a it for the . , a pattern that may have held f nineteenth century as well.™ If so i ‘ ¢ » young women may have bee ing from the ‘Daughters’ to the ‘Wives’ i ey Ives' category in their mid-t whereas a comparable transitio oot _ e n for m i A i en may have been delayed until StrMore p,roblematic for comparative purposes is the ‘Followers and i ) A . i ;(r)u,srtsh categlory, :uggestlllg a variety of dependants and hangers-on nd the nuclear family. Only seventeen of th ili . £ e families, or about 1 f:tresent of aflll families, accommodated such individuals in 1838. Th: ambt?ory wa)s not used by the HBC in all its censuses, creating some = iguity. Ier’haps the most reasonable assumption is that ‘Followers Zn _ Strangers represented distant kin and /or Ofrli\;;giht‘i;)rr; :c:hez regf;ionaldbands, perhaps experiencing misfortune 2 wWho formed temporary or short-term alli i . S B . an Chipewyan families in the English River District. e friends, in some cases 1906 Census ;h;eoyefli] 1396 mark.ed thff beginning of Canadian federal involvement cal Indian affairs with the extinction of land title through Treaty Woman the Hunter 209 No. 10. The subsequent establishment of legally recognized bands and reserves affected the majority of the southern Chipewyan population, for whose attention the HBC and the French Roman Catholic Church had contended for decades. The annuity payment list for the English River Band of Chipewyan established in 1906 is simultaneously a cen- sus of the community. The seemingly low count of 153 individuals (table 8.1) does not reflect a massive population decline among Chipewyan since the early nineteenth century, however. The English River Band was one of several regional bands of southern Chipewyan in the old English River or Ile a la Crosse trading district. The 1906 population, therefore, is a regional subset of descendants of the 1838 population discussed previously. The treaty roster listed 41 family units, most of them identified by named male heads (25), but many by named females (16). The latter apparently were widows, about a third of whom had dependent chil- dren. Catholic baptism had introduced French first names for most individuals, but older Chipewyan nomenclature was retained in sur- names (e.g., Jean Baptiste Estralshenen, Marie Yahwatzare, Norbert Darazele). By this date, all marriages appear to be monogamous, an- other artifact of Catholic influence. Although the 1906 census contains no information on age, it provides a tabular listing of ‘Men” (25 individuals), ‘Women’ (40), ‘Boys” (36), ‘Girls’ (42), and ‘Other Relatives’ (10) for each of the 41 named family units, paralleling the format used in the HBC’s earlier census. In a similar vein, other than the named family heads, all remaining indi- viduals are enumerated anonymously. If we assume that the ages and social positions of ‘Sons’ and ‘Daughters’” were parallel to that of ‘Boys’ and ‘Girls,” and that ‘Followers and Strangers’ were roughly equivalent to ‘Other Relatives,” then the two census documents are comparable. 1974 Census A list of federally registered Indians in the English River Band for 1974, an annually updated document produced by the Canadian De- partment of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, represents the direct contemporary descendants of the Chipewyan community iden- tified in the 1906 treaty census.'® Barring radical rates of in-migration, therefore, the almost threefold rise in population (from 153 to 437) over seventy years (table 8.1) reflects the level of natural increase for this community. Occupying the settlements of Cree Lake, Dipper Lake, Knee Lake, Patuanak, and Primeau Lake, the English River Band has

212 Hetty Jo Brumbach and Robert Jarvenpa that women's participation in hunting may be more easily identified in the archaeological record than that of men. The carcasses of small game animals are often returned whole to the village site for further process- ing. In contrast, kills involving one or only a few large animals are likely to take place far removed from the archaeologically more visible settle- ment sites'® and hence may be more difficult to recover. Alternately, when large game animals were killed at some distance from the base camp, more common in earlier history, much of the community, in- cluding the women, would remove itself to the location of the kill. In such instances the processing of game animals, or the conversion of carcasses to meat, hide, and other usable products, was carried out at the newly established camp, primarily by women. In this case, the archaeological evidence in the form of faunal remains, hearths, and related features would evidence women’s activities. 3. Moving from a general regional or inter-site analysis to more specific artifactual analysis, our study has demonstrated that women’s activities are directly mirrored in the use of tools. Although the Chipewyan no longer use many stone tools, the women we studied maintained and curated all assemblage of implements used to process moose and caribou hides. Every older woman we interviewed owned a set of these tools, consisting of a selection of bone or metal scrapers, butchering knives, files, hide rougheners, and rope or cord to tie the hide to stretchers. These tools are carefully maintained; wrapped in a cloth or canvas and tied with string, cloth strips, or leather thong; and stored securely away in the house or tent. These rather elaborate hide-processing kits are not what archaeolo- gists would classify as ‘casual’ or “pick up’ tools to be used once and then discarded. If recovered archaeologically, they would no doubt be classified as ‘high investment’ or ‘curated’ tools. Far too often, such ‘high investment’ implements are uncritically perceived as indicators of male activity.!” Yet it is apparent that women also made investments in the manufacture and curation of tools with which to carry out complex and multifaceted economic and domestic lives. Such behaviour was neither idiosyncratic nor casual. A more critical analysis of artifacts recovered archaeologically would undoubtedly reveal other evidence >f women's contributions to the food quest in past times and places. It should be noted that other tool kits or tool-kit-like assemblages are 1sed by both Chipewyan women and men to carry out a variety of wnting, fishing, trapping, food-processing, and manufacturing tasks. \s in the case of women’s hide-making tool kits, and certain men'’s Woman the Hunter 213 hunting and butchering kits, some of these (;ither assemtl;l:rgiz ;r;lzszg i i d in storage. However, o tially condensed both in use an rer, of o i involved storage situation as i of implements may have a more in ‘ e e i tions and activities. The P uently moved between various loca . . . ili’fi%n am}i’ use of these other kits deserve a fuller discussion than is ssible here. . - po4 Clearly women participated in a broad rangle of'ht(;%'\t.lgg :lct;\snxzsu : icipati ied from individual to individual, The level of participation varied . : g haptitse i lation, and according to life-cycle yna as from population to popu , ing S s v i it i t that it is not accurate discussed previously, but it is apparent t . gese pret all archaeological evidence of huntmgl and processing of anim indi ively male enterprise. roducts as indicators of an exclusive : . ‘ ) ’ A dramatic increase in the childbearing and child-rearing resscl):)\zl bilities of women, especially in the past seventy years, may gotem og- way toward explaining the decreased participation of some contemp rary women. NOTES 1 Richard B. Lee and Irven De Vore, eds, Man the Hunter (Chicago: Aldine, 1968). ‘ o 2 Sherzzvood L. Washburn and C.S. Lancaster, “The Evolution of Hunting,” in 293-303. Lee and De Vore, eds, Man the Hunter, ’ 3 George P. Murdock, ‘The Ethnographic Atlas: A Summary,” Ethnology 6.2 1967). . . 4 (Fran7c)is Dahlberg, ed., Woman the Gatherer (New Haven, CT: Yale Univer sity Press, 1981). . , 5 Agynes Estioko-Griffin and P. Bion Griffin, ‘Woman the Hunter: The Agta, ey, 121-51. in Dahlberg, ed., Woman the Gatherer, - . 6 Richard K gI\Ielson, ‘Athapaskan Subsistence Adaptations in Alasl;:, in ’ . . l Alaska Native Culture and History, ed. Y. Kotam.and W. Workma;\I,-:t hrr:;lo Ethnological Studies No. 4 (Osaka, Japan: Natxon'al Museum ? v cggl 1980), 205-32; Estioko-Griffin and Griffin; Hitoshi Watanabe, “Subsis :n and Elcology of Northern Food Gatherers with Special Refere::e Tto t be . 68-77; Colin M. Turnbull, inu,” in Lee and De Vore, eds, Man the Hunter, ; ' :Al\:lrl‘)l:til:\/omanhod " in Dahlberg, ed., Woman the Gatherer, 205-19; Eleanor Leacock, Myths of Male Dominance (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1981). ’ 7 Margaret W. Conkey and Janet D. Spector, ‘Archaeology and the Study