Kasini society : some aspects of the social organization of an Athapaskan culture between 1900-1950 ...

• Main Author: McDonnell, Roger Francis
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2010
• Subjects: Northern Athapaskan; Yukon
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0093615; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0093615

This study provides a description and analysis of the Kasini, a small group of northern Athapaskan Indians. Though it presents a considerable body of ethnographic material from a previously unstudied area, its main concern is to elucidate a form of organization that prevailed, between 1900-1950, in the southeastern Yukon. Kasini social relations were subject to change and the general character of social organization was not predicated on a fixed normative order. Accordingly, I have focused on individual experience and emphasized the emergent quality of social relations in particular contexts instead of assuming a fixed institutional framework and attempting to understand the order of Kasini social life in its terms. This study seeks to discover the reasons for changes in Kasini relations, the means they had for recognizing changed relations, and the methods used to portray different kinds of relationship. Social relations are examined from the perspective of activities and ideas. Chapters three and four ...