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.