No matter the season, every day from age six began the same way for a young K\u2019in\u00e9ix Kw\u00e1an man training to be a warrior in pre-contact Yakutat \u2014 by wading into the ocean and staying as long as he could without passing out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was environmental training,\u201d Kai Monture, a Tlingit and Eyak member of the Y\u00e9il house of the K\u2019in\u00e9ix Kw\u00e1an, or Copper River clan, told an audience in the clan house of the Walter Soboleff Building Nov. 29. \u201cWe spend half our lives on the water anyway, for subsistence. And because raiding was such a big aspect of Tlingit warfare, especially by sea, conditioning to water was a really big aspect of Tlingit warrior training.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once he\u2019d reached the age of six, the boy would no longer be with his parents. Instead, he\u2019d be living with his maternal uncle, who was of the same moiety (heritage of moiety is matrilineal) and whose responsibility it was to raise the boy. It was a responsibility so serious that if, later in life, the boy committed an offense that required a death in the clan to equalize the wrong, the uncle might volunteer to take his place, having failed to teach him better.<\/p>\n
After the boys got out of the water, their uncle would whip them with alder branches \u201cuntil the point of bleeding\u201d so they could build callouses on their skin, Monture said. It was also a way for the boys to compete as to who was the strongest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ultimate challenge was for the boys to lean forward and put your face into the whipping,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On Yakutat\u2019s long, sandy beaches, they\u2019d pick up the biggest piece of driftwood they could and carry it. \u201cIf they got tired and fell over, they\u2019d have to get up, pick the log up, and bring it back,\u201d Monture said.<\/p>\n
And they would run.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoys would be tasked to run as far as they could and to also search for metal,\u201d Monture said. \u201cIt was considered one of the most precious things you could find, just because of its utility.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Armored warriors<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the purposes of the boys\u2019 constant competition was to find out who the strongest, best, warriors were. Those were the ones who, when they became men, would wear armor in battle. Until then, they wrestled and trained with spears, clubs, hammers and daggers.<\/p>\n Pitched battles may be where training would lead, Monture said, but they were the last resort.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause full-blown war between clans was considered to be wasteful, we took the matter of settling wars very strictly,\u201d he said. \u201cTlingit people knew that wars between clans could cost each clan more than either one would gain.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s where those warriors might come in. If a dispute wasn\u2019t to be settled by negotiation, arbitration or full-scale battle, it could be decided by duel. In full battles too, those armored warriors were central; battles would be fought \u201cuntil more of the champions of one clan were killed than the other,\u201d Monture said.<\/p>\n Armor had to be custom-fit to a warrior\u2019s body. Many pieces were made out of long pieces of hardwood woven together with metal fiber or sinew. When his face was attacked, an armored warrior could raise his shoulders and wooden collar for protection. Because the front part of their mask was held up with their teeth, there was a saying that the first man to fall in battle was the one with the weak jaw, Monture said.<\/p>\n The armor, including parts made of hide, was very dense, and there are some recordings of armored men being protected against musket fire and even cannonballs shot from the water, he said.<\/p>\n A warriors\u2019 helmet, which has a name in Tlingit derived from the word for \u201ceggshell,\u201d was carved out of a tree burl. Helmets were carved with the faces of animals and spirits, and warriors would try to channel that energy to intimidate their enemies, Monture said.<\/p>\n A shielded warrior would wear a forearm guard and try to show only one side of himself to the enemy, keeping his other arm free to wield a weapon. Because the armor limited a warrior\u2019s ability to move, his back was his most vulnerable part. Once uncles determined boys\u2019 roles, armored warriors would have two men they\u2019d trained with since that point at their backs, Monture said. Those men, sometimes direct blood relations or maternal cousins, would help the armored warrior if he fell or if he was attacked by too many enemies at once.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Philosophy<\/strong><\/p>\n The uncles didn\u2019t only train their nephews in war tactics and strength, however. They also trained them in the Tlingit perspective and philosophy of living.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the same time as these boys were being trained so rigorously every day, they were also constantly being taught social lessons by their uncles,\u201d Monture said.<\/p>\n Parables and stories were a big part of that. An uncle might tell a story, for example, about a bear, describing its personality and characteristics.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause Tlingit people believe everything is alive and has its own intelligence and personality\u2026 these stories wouldn\u2019t be so much as talking about an animal in analogy as literally describing how that animal\u2019s people and culture works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Critical thinking was paramount, as well, \u201cespecially when the uncles would give examples of what you want to avoid in life,\u201d Monture said. \u201cThey would talk about some of the worst traits, which would harm not only you, but your clan. Laziness, selfishness, anything that could actually compromise your chance of survival in Alaska.\u201d<\/p>\n Uncles would quiz their nephews on what lessons could be drawn from the stories. If a nephew couldn\u2019t answer well, he\u2019d hear the story over and over, until he could.<\/p>\n They\u2019d also hear about the concept of klatseen<\/em> (strength both of character and action) and Tlingit heroes \u2014 like, post-contact, the warriors who in 1805 destroyed the Russian fort in Yakutat when the Russians cut off access to their fishing grounds, among other grievances, according to \u201cThe Tlingit Indians in Russian America, 1741-1867.\u201d<\/p>\n Monture said he believes the destruction of the Russian fort is the reason Tlingit culture persisted so well in Yakutat. And because other warriors in Sitka, Angoon, and other kw\u00e1ans resisted as well, \u201cthat is why Tlingit people are still alive today, and why we now have a beautiful clan house in the middle of downtown Juneau,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Warriors today<\/strong><\/p>\n Most young Tlingit men may no longer begin each day with a swim in the ocean, but now there are warriors of a different kind, said Sealaska Corporation president and CEO Anthony Mallott when introducing Monture.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s absolutely modern-day warriors for our culture,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a long history of social and policy warriors\u2026 (the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood) carried it forward for 100 years of fighting for the rights of our Native people.\u201d<\/p>\n Monture gave the talk on \u201cThe Way of the Warrior\u201d as part of a lecture series celebrating Native American Heritage Month. He could speak only for his clan, he said, as individual clans may differ; his grandfather, George Ramos, an expert on warrior culture, passed the knowledge on to him.<\/p>\n During his presentation, Monture traced his ancestry back to the K\u2019in\u00e9ix Kw\u00e1an\u2019s arrival in the area, thousands of years ago.<\/p>\n Knowledge of warrior culture, and armor creation like Sitka carver Tommy Joseph is doing, \u201cis an important part of our cultural revitalization, because the philosophy of Tlingit warriors not simply just about battle,\u201d Monture said. \u201c(You were) raised with a whole life philosophy that shaped everything you did\u2026 we had harsh laws or protocols, but that\u2019s what made us one of the strongest tribes in Southeast\u2026 to achieve the honor and humility of your ancestors is the biggest goal of the warrior.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2022 Contact Capital City Weekly editor Mary Catharine Martin at maryc.martin@capweek.com. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No matter the season, every day from age six began the same way for a young K\u2019in\u00e9ix Kw\u00e1an man training to be a warrior in pre-contact Yakutat \u2014 by wading into the ocean and staying as long as he could without passing out. \u201cThis was environmental training,\u201d Kai Monture, a Tlingit and Eyak member of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":21433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[74],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-arts-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21432"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}