334. ACCULTURATION IN SEVEN AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES

presented here. In many respects the problem of Alkatcho Carrier
acculturation represents a continuum, from the period of integra-
tion of the potlatch-rank system of the Northwest Coast to the
present period of disintegration of this system.

RELATIONS WITH THE COAST TRIBES AND THE ADOPTION OF
THE POTLATCH-RANK SYSTEM

Prior to the adoption of the potlatch-rank system from the tribes
of the Northwest Coast, Alkatcho Carrier culture must have re-
sembled more or less closely the Northeastern Athabascan type.
This may be inferred from present similarities between Alkatcho
Carrier and “simple” Athabascan and from the general considera-
tion that wherever any Athabascan group is differentiated from
the Northeastern Athabascan type, as exemplified by the Chipe-
wyan, Slave, Dogrib, Yellowknives, etc., the differentiation paral-
lels closely the cultural forms of the neighboring groups. The
Tahltan, for example, show definite Tlingit influences, the Sekani
and the Upper Carrier tribes have adopted the social forms of the
Tsimshian, and the Sarcee are barely distinguishable from the
Plains Algonquian.

All Alkatcho Carrier informants are agreed that “in the old
days” there were no chiefs. The relatively cohesive social unit was
the extended family consisting of a group of siblings, their wives
and children. This group known as the sadeku recognized the
limited authority of a headman—detsa, “first one,” the first-born
of the sibling line. The detsa regulated the joint hunting and trap-
ping activities of the group. There seem to have been no sanctions
preventing the fragmentation of the sadeku into individual fami-
lies. Members of the same sadeku inhabited semi-permanent win-
ter villages, dwelling in the typical semi-underground house of the
Plateau, as indicated both by testimony of some of the older na-
tives and archaeological evidence.? The presence of a considerable
number of these dwellings suggests that a number of family lines
lived together in the same winter village.

No evidence is available on aboriginal land property arrange-
ments, but before White contact the sadeku utilized a common

2 Harlan I. Smith, Fieldnotes on Alkatcho Carrier Material Culture.