the Chipewyan hunting unit

• Published in: American Ethnologist
• Main Author: SHARP, HENRY S.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1977
• Subjects: Anthropology; Chipewyan
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ae.1977.4.2.02a00100; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1525%2Fae.1977.4.2.02a00100; https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/ae.1977.4.2.02a00100

Canadian Athapaskan societies have proved difficult to analyze and classify because of the apparent lack of corporate features in the band. This apparent lack of band corporateness is in fact an accurate assessment of the ethnographic reality. Within Canadian Athapaskan society a restricted cognatic descent group, here called the hunting unit, exists that functions as a corporate group. The social boundaries of hunting units are not coextensive with those of the band, and what appear to be bands are simply residential aggregations of unallied hunting units.