White Dove's Native American Indian Site Haida

White Dove's Native American Indian Site Haida

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The Haidas comprise an international tribe whose principal residences are in Masset and Skidegate, British Columbia; and in Hydaburg, Alaska. There are also many Haidas in various urban areas in the western United States and Canada. Before contact with Europeans in the late eighteenth century, the Haidas lived on what are now the Queen Charolette Islands and the Alexander Archipelago off the northwest coast of North America. The locally reliable supplies of halibut and salmon, which formed the basis of their diet, supported the Haidas well. They lived in large cedar-plank houses and built fifty-foot-high totem poles at the fronts of the buildings. The Haidas' system of potlatch reinforced a social hierarchy based on rankings of both hereditary status and wealth. The northern and southern dialects of the Haida language are unrelated to any other known tongue.
———The Haidas of Alaska traditionally lived in three villages on the west coast of Prince of Whales Island and in one village in the island's east coast. In 1911, with the encouragement and support of the U.S. government and the Presbyterian Church, the three Haida villages of Cordova Bay consolidated at Hydaburg. On June 19, 1912, President William Howard Taft signed Executive Order no. 1555, establishing the Hydaburg Reservation for the protection and civilization of the Haidas. Hydaburg was modeled on what would be known as the Metlakatla Plan, whereby the natives would be the developers and proprietors of the community and its enterprises, and would be treated as citizens of the United States while at home.
———TheHaidas have been involved in three distinct processes of adjudicating their aboriginal claims. In 1935, the Tlingit and Haida Indians brought suit against the United States in a court of claims case that awarded the Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska $7.2 million for the taking of aboriginal lands by the United States when it established the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve (now known as the Tongass National Forest) in 1902. The Tlingit and Haida Central Council was designated as the administrator of funds and programs derived from the court of claims case.
———In April 1938, the Hydaburg Cooperative Association became the first economic enterprise organized under the terms of the Alaska Reorganization Act. Shortly thereafter the association filed a petition with the Department of the Interior for a reservation and submitted to an adjudicative process for its creation. The reservation was subsequently established, but in 1952 the agreement that led to its creation was declared null and void by the U.S. District Court.
———In 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was signed into law, authorizing the creation of for-profit corporations for each of the native villages in Alaska. Village corporations with significant Haida shareholders include Haida Corporation in Hydaburg, Kavilco in Kasaan, and Shaan-Seet in Craig. These village corporations incorporated under the laws of Alaska and received a total of 23,040 acres of land, much of it forest lands. The corporations are looking at ways to enter into various business opportunities on Prince of Whales Island such as forest-products, hospitality, charter-fishing, oil-products, and rock-crushing operations.
———In contrast to the Haidas in Alaska, Haidas in the towns of Masset and Skidegate in the Canadian reserves were administered by the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs. In the twentieth century, Haidas in Musset continued to make their livings from fishing. Men worked as fishers and boatbuilders, while employed women worked in a cannery in nearby New Musset. Residents of Skidegate found work in the logging camps on their reserves. During the 1960s, when the Canadian authorities encouraged greater Indian participation in self-governance, the Messet and Skidegate Haidas renewed their traditional arts, including the erection of totem poles, the revival of dance, and the building of canoes. In the 1980s, the two villages formed the Council of the Haida Nation to support their political interests.
———The issue most important to the modern Haidas continues to be the establishment of a governing body that will have political and economic control of their ancestral homelands. Problems with defining their role of an officially recognized Haida tribe are complicated by the Indian Reorganization Act, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and the institutions created under those laws. »«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»« ADRIAN LECORNU (Haida)
Craig, Alaska »«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«back to contents
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