Haida Culture

Raven continued to fly, fascinated by the sights and sounds below. One day he saw a giant clamshell which made strange noises. After much coaxing, Raven convinced the shy creatures inside to leave the shell. These proved to be the first Haida human beings. They would not be the last.

This research examines the changes in culture experienced by the Haida Indians along the northwest coast through the perspectives of several ethnographers. The study will focus on one dominant cultural trait in particular-the cultural value of achievement. Achievement as an emphasis of study was chosen because it guides an entire value system that affects the core structure of Haida culture. The impact of this value of achievement will be documented for traditional Haida culture and its evolving role in contemporary Haida society will be charted.

The Haida are the native people living primarily on the Queen Charlotte Islands off the mainland coast of British Columbia. There is also a group that migrated to southeastern Alaska sometime in the

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h century, the Hudson's Bay Company set up trading centers throughout the area. By the middle of the century, British Columbia became a colony under the English crown, and In 1871 it joined the Canadian Confederation. The Queen Charlotte Islands were the site of Haida/European contact. The English crown initially did not attempt to exert much political authority over the Haida Indians. This began to change with the Incorporation of British Columbia into the Canadian Confederation. In 1682, the Indian Department of the Canadian Confederacy started creating reserves for the Haida. When asked which lands the Haida Indians would want to claim for their exclusive use, the Masset Haidas selected only 16 village sites that had been set up by various lineages. These reserves were designated as Masset Haida tribal lands. All other lands and fishing and logging resources were seen as the property of the Canadian Confederacy. Around 1900 a new era began when large scale commercial fishing reached the Charlottes and surrounding properties. Within a decade, agricultural colonization was encouraged by the government. The Queen Charlotte Islands became sufficiently important that an Indian Agency set up office in the region. In the
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Approximate Word count = 2641
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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