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CHAPTER V

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

In the earliest times of which we have record the Sekani were divided
into bands, each of which possessed its own hunting territory. Sometimes
the individual families scattered and hunted separately, sometimes they
wandered in groups of two or three; yet just as frequently, perhaps, they
held together for mutual support and moved as a unit from one place to
another within their domain. There were no, family hunting grounds, no
districts of which a family or small group of families claimed exclusive
possession. Family rights to special hunting grounds have come only in
recent times, after the fur trade induced the Indian to return year after
year to the same trapping district and to conserve its supply of beaver.
Even today the change from band to family ownership of districts is not
complete; the entire band claims the final possession of every district
within its area, and if for any reason one family fails to occupy, its usual
trapping ground another does not hesitate to take its place.

Each band had a leader, who was neither hereditary nor elected, but
acquired his position through force of character, skill in hunting, and sane
judgment. His authority, therefore, was merely nominal; he was a leader,
not a chief, and if he presumed to issue orders, he had no means of
enforcing them. When the hunters discussed their affairs over the evening
fires and laid their plans for the morrow, the voice of the leader carried
more weight, but no more actual authority, than that of the youth who
had just entered the ranks of manhood. At any time a new leader might
arise to supersede him, and his influence inevitably waned with advancing
years. Parties that separated off from the band to fish, to hunt, or to
raid neighbouring tribes selected their own leaders.

The only laws, therefore, were the regulations prescribed by custom.
Since every family was coequal with every other, and often depended on
its neighbours for support, it was necessary to consider all food as common
property whenever two or more families lived side by side. The hunter
who killed an animal useful for food would not even retain its hide, but
presented it to some other man in the camp, lest he should be accused of
unsociability and niggardliness. The only exception was the skin of the
groundhog, because it had little or no value. He might retain the skins
of animals whose meat was useless, such as the marten, fisher, and fox,
though even these he often gave away to relatives. After the establishment
of the fur trade, with its totally different estimate on the value of skins,
the Sekani ceased to give away the furs of the beaver and lynx, and many
of them now retain also the hides of the caribou and moose. The old
regulations, however, prevented a family from amassing any of the