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Haida |
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This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (October 2007) |
| Haida |
|---|
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| Haida carver Saaduuts, 2007 |
| Total population |
|
c. 2,0001 |
| Regions with significant populations |
 Canada(  British Columbia) United States(  Alaska) |
| Languages |
| English, Haida |
The Haida are an Indigenous nation of the Northwest Coast of North America. The Haida territories comprise the archipelago of the Queen Charlotte Islands, known in the Haida language as Haida Gwaii ("land of the Haida") and the southern half of Prince of Wales Island in the southernmost Alaska Panhandle, which is the home of a subgroup called the Kaigani Haida.
The term "Haida Nation" can and does refer to both the people and their government on Canadian territory, the Council of the Haida Nation; the government for those in Alaska is the Central Council Tlingit Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. Their ancestral language is the Haida language, which has never been adequately classified by linguists because of its uniqueness.2 In addition to those Haida residing in the Queen Charlottes and Alaska, there are also many Haidas in various urban areas in the western United States and Canada.
Haida society continues to be much engaged in the production of a robust and highly stylized art form. While frequently expressed in large wooden carvings totem poles or ornate jewelery it is also moving quickly into the work of populist expression such as Haida manga.
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Haidas were traditionally known as ruthless warriors and slave traders, raiding as far as California. Haida oral narratives record journeys as far north as the Bering Sea, and one account implies that even Asia was visited by Haidas before Europeans entered the Pacific. The Haida's ability to travel was dependent upon a supply of Western Red cedar trees that were carved and shaped into their famous Pacific Northwest Canoes. Carved from a single red cedar tree, a vessel could sleep 15 adults head to toe, and was propelled by up to 60 paddlers (who often included women). In the event of a battle at sea, paddlers were armed with heavy stone rings (18 to 23 kg) attached to woven tree root or bark ropes. These devices, are thrown at enemy canoes, inflicting substantial damage. Haida warriors entered battle with red cedar armor, wooden shields, stone maces and spear-throwers. War helmets were carved. These techniques are unknown to anyone other than the Haida people as they have kept it secret for many years. It is still unknown how the Haida would carve their war helmets and how they looked.
The Haida were feared along the coast because of their practice of making lightning raids against which their enemies had little defense. Their great skills of seamanship, their superior craft and their relative protection from retaliation in their island fortress added to the aggressive posture of the Haida towards neighboring tribes. Diamond Jenness, an early anthropologist at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, caught their essence in his description of the Haida as the "Indian Vikings of the North West Coast".
"Those were stirring times, about a century ago, when the big Haida war canoes, each hollowed out of a single cedar tree and manned by fifty or sixty warriors, traded and raided up and down the coast from Sitka in the north to the delta of the Fraser River in the south. Each usually carried a shaman or medicine man to catch and destroy the souls of enemies before an impending battle; and the women who sometimes accompanied the warriors fought as savagely as their husbands."
The Haida went to war to acquire objects of wealth, such as coppers and Chilkat blankets, that were in short supply on the islands, but primarily for slaves, who enhanced their productivity or were traded to other tribes. High-ranking captives were also the source of other property received in ransom such as crest designs, dances and songs.
Even prehistorically, the Haida engaged in sea battles.They tied cedar bark ropes to heavy stone rings that were hurled to smash enemy canoes and that could quickly be retrieved for subsequent throws. A stone weighing 18 to 23 kg (40 to 50 pounds) could shatter the side of a dugout canoe and cause it to founder. Most tribes avoided sea battles with the Haida and tried to lure them ashore for a more equitable fight. The Tsimshian developed a signal-fire system to alert their villages on the Skeena River as soon as Haida invaders reached the mainland.
The incidence of warfare was undoubtedly accelerated in the half century from 1780 to 1830, when the Haida had no effective enemies except the many European and American traders on their shores who would rather trade than fight. During this period, the Haida successfully captured more than half a dozen ships. One was the ship Eleanora, taken by chiefs of the village of Skungwai (or Ninstints) in retaliation for the maltreatment Chief Koyah had received from its captain. An even more spectacular event was the capture of the ship Susan Sturgis by Chief Weah (Matthews) of Masset and the rescue of its crew by Albert Edward Edenshaw.
In such conflicts, the Haida quickly learned the newcomers' fighting tactics, which they used to good effect in subsequent battles, as Jacob Brink notes:
"As early as 1795, a British trading ship fired its cannons at a village in the central part of the archipelago because some of the crew had been killed by the inhabitants, and the survivors had to put hastily to sea when the Indians fired back at them. They found out later that the Indians had used a cannon and ammunition confiscated from an American Schooner a few years earlier."
Swivel guns were added to many Haida war canoes, although initially the recoil on discharge caused the hulls of many craft to split.
Fortified sites were part of the defensive strategy of all Northwest Coast groups for at least 2,000 years. Captain James Cook was so impressed with one Haida fort off the west coast of Graham Island that he called it Hippah Island after the Maori forts he had seen in New Zealand. Military defences at Haida forts included stout palisades, rolling top-log defences, heavy trapdoors and fighting platforms supplied with stores of large boulders to hurl at invaders.
Historical Haida villages were3:
The Haida's calendar:
Below if a brief list of anthropologists and scholars who have done research on the Haida.
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