"The book is an investigation of culture change among the Yup'ik Eskimo people of the southwestern Alaskan coast from the time of European/Russian contact through the mid-twentieth century"--Provided by publisher.
The book is an investigation of cultural change among the Yup'ik Eskimo people of the southwestern Alaskan coast from the time of European/Russian contact through the mid-twentieth century. (Sociology)
Frink explores the lives of the people who lived and live on the Yukon-Kuskokwin coast of southwestern Alaska, presented through indigenous, scientific, and colonist perspectives. Due to the challenges of living and working in this region, there has been very little academic research on the indigenous people who inhabit it until the publication of this book. The focus of the book is on three villages ancestrally linked to the current-day Alaskan Native community--Qavinaq, Kashunak, and Old Chevak. Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
A Tale of Three Villages tracks the histories of three villages ancestrally linked to Chevak, a contemporary village in southwestern Alaska. Through an innovative interdisciplinary methodology that respectfully and creatively investigates the spatial and material past, the author convincingly demonstrates that, in order to understand colonial history, we must actively incorporate indigenous people as actors, not merely as reactors.
People are often able to identify change agents. They can estimate possible economic and social transitions, and they are often in an economic or social position to make calculated—sometimes risky—choices. Exploring this dynamic,A Tale of Three Villages is an investigation of culture change among the Yup’ik Eskimo people of the southwestern Alaskan coast from just prior to the time of Russian and Euro-North American contact to the mid-twentieth century.
Liam Frink focuses on three indigenous-colonial events along the southwestern Alaskan coast: the late precolonial end of warfare and raiding, the commodification of subsistence that followed, and, finally, the engagement with institutional religion. Frink’s innovative interdisciplinary methodology respectfully and creatively investigates the spatial and material past, using archaeological, ethnoecological, and archival sources.
The author’s narrative journey tracks the histories of three villages ancestrally linked to Chevak, a contemporary Alaskan Native community: Qavinaq, a prehistoric village at the precipice of colonial interactions and devastated by regional warfare; Kashunak, where people lived during the infancy and growth of the commercial market and colonial religion; and Old Chevak, a briefly occupied “stepping-stone” village inhabited just prior to modern Chevak. The archaeological spatial data from the sites are blended with ethnohistoric documents, local oral histories, eyewitness accounts of people who lived at two of the villages, and Frink’s nearly two decades of participant-observation in the region.
Frink provides a model for work that examines interfaces among indigenous women and men, old and young, demonstrating that it is as important as understanding their interactions with colonizers. He demonstrates that in order to understand colonial history, we must actively incorporate indigenous people as actors, not merely as reactors.
