Hän people
 Chief Isaac of the Han, Yukon Territory, ca. 1898 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 310[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Canada ( Yukon) | 250[1] |
 United States ( Alaska) | 60[1] |
| Languages | |
| English, Hän | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Gwich'in | |
The Han (also Hankutchin or Hän) are a Northern Athabascan people who speak (or spoke) the Hän language. Only a handful of fluent speakers remain. Their traditional land centered around a heavily forested area around the Yukon River straddling what is now the Alaska-Yukon Territory border. In later times, the Han population became centered around Dawson City, Yukon and Eagle, Alaska.
Etymology
The name Han is a shortening of Hankutchin, which is the Gwich’in word hangʷičʼin for the Han literally meaning "people of the river". This word has been spelled variously as Han-Kootchin, Hun-koo-chin, Hong-Kutchin, An Kutchin, Han Kutchin, Han-Kutchín, Hăn-Kŭtchin´, Hän Hwëch'in, and Hungwitchin. The French traders called the Han Gens du fou, Gens de Fou, Gens de Foux, Gens des Foux, or Gens-de-fine. The name Gens de Foux (and variants) has also been used to refer to the Northern Tutchone, in which case the name Gens de Bois or Gens des Bois referred to the Hankutchin.
History
The Han were one of the last North Athabascan groups to have contact with European peoples. In 1851 the first white man, Robert Campbell, (from the Hudson's Bay Company) entered Han territory, when he traveled from Fort Selkirk to Fort Yukon. However, it wasn't until 1873 and 1874 (after the US purchase of Alaska) when two trading posts were set up. One was established by Moses Mercier, a former employee of the Hudson's Bay Company in Belle Isle across the Eagle River and the other, Fort Reliance, was established on the Yukon, just below the mouth of the Klondike River, near Dawson, by two Alaska Commercial Company traders, Leroy N. McQuesten and Frank Bonifield. Contact with whites led to a shift from fishing-hunting economy to a fur trapping economy with increasing reliance on European goods (e.g., guns, clothing, canvas) from 1887 to 1895.
Traditional religion was gradually supplanted after Bishop William Bompas established the first Anglican mission in Han territory.
Several epidemic diseases affected the population.
Culture
Food
Historically, fish, especially salmon, was the main part of the Han diet. King salmon was caught along the Yukon River in June and chum salmon in August. Fishing tools included weirs, traps, gill nets, dip nets, spears, and harpoons. Salmon was dried and stored for winter consumption.
Between the salmon runs from June–September, the river camps were abandoned and other fish, moose, caribou, birds, bears, and other small game were sought after. Men hunted game (once after the salmon run and later for caribou in February and March) while women fished (for fish other than salmon.) Stone boiling in woven spruce-root baskets was a common cooking method.
Housing
A square half-recessed house was made of wooden poles and moss insulation (called a moss house) and served as the main type of housing.
A temporary domed house made of skin was used when traveling.
Language
The Han language is most similar to Gwich’in (Kutchin) and more distantly related to Upper Tanana and Northern Tutchone. The language was used as a lingua franca by Gwich’in, Tutchone, Tagish, and Upper Tanana peoples toward the end of the 19th Century during the gold rush. The language is now the most endangered language of Alaska with only a few speakers (all over sixty).
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Alaska Native Language Center : Alaska Native Languages / Population and Speaker Statistics
Bibliography
- Crow, John R.; & Obley, Philip R. (1981). Han. In J. Helm (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Subarctic (Vol. 6, pp. 506–513). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
- McPhee, John. (1977). Coming into the Country. New York: Farrat, Strauss, and Giroux.
- Mishler, Craig and William E. Simeone. (2004). Han, People of the River: Hän Hwëch'in. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.
- Osgood, Cornelius. (1971). The Han Indians: A compilation of ethnographic and historical data on the Alaska-Yukon boundary area. Yale University publications in anthropology (No. 74). New Haven, CT.
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