Hän

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Hän

Gwich'in and other Alaskan Athabaskans

The Hän, Han or Hwëch'in / Han Hwech’in (meaning "People of the River, i.e. Yukon River", in English also Hankutchin) are a

].

Etymology

The name Hän or Han is a shortening of their own name as Hwëch'in / Han Hwech’in, and of the

word Hangʷičʼin for the Hän, both literally meaning "People of the River, i.e. the Yukon River". This word has been spelled variously as Hankutchin, Han-Kootchin, Hun-koo-chin, Hong-Kutchin, An Kutchin, Han Kutchin, Han-Kutchín, Hăn-Kŭtchin´, Hän Hwëch'in, and Hungwitchin.

The Hän were often mistaken for just another

. The Hankutchin were then known as Gens de Bois or Gens des Bois, in association with their forested territory.

History of the Hän

The Hän were one of the last Northern Athabascan groups to have contact with European peoples. In 1851 Robert Campbell from the

resulted in the Han shifting from their traditional fishing-hunting economy to a fur-trapping economy, as they grew increasingly reliant on such European goods as guns, clothing, and canvas from 1887 to 1895.

Bishop William Bompas established the first

mission in Hän territory, and gradually the people shifted away from traditional religion. They also combined it with Christianity in a syncretic fashion. The Han suffered high mortality during several epidemics of new infectious diseases, to which they had no immunity.

Culture

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2008)

Food

Historically, fish, especially salmon, comprised the main part of the Hän diet.

. Salmon was dried and stored for winter consumption.

Between the salmon runs from June–September, the river camps were abandoned. The Han men sought other fish, moose, caribou, birds, bears, and small game. Men hunted game (once after the salmon run and later for caribou in February and March) while women fished (for fish other than salmon.) The women traditionally cooked by stone boiling in woven spruce-root baskets.

Housing

A square half-recessed house was made of wooden poles and moss insulation (called a moss house). This served as the main type of housing.

The people erected temporary domed houses made of skin stretched over tied branches when they were traveling.

Language

The

In media

• Members of the group are encountered on a number of occasions in
  Athabasca Landing
  in Alberta in 1897-99.

See also

• Tr'ochëk

References

Bibliography

• Crow, John R.; & Obley, Philip R. (1981). "Han." In J. Helm (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Subarctic (Vol. 6, pp. 506–513). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
• McPhee, John. (1977). Coming into the Country. New York: Farrat, Strauss, and Giroux.
• Mishler, Craig and William E. Simeone. (2004). Han, People of the River: Hän Hwëch'in. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.
• Osgood, Cornelius. (1971). The Han Indians: A compilation of ethnographic and historical data on the Alaska-Yukon boundary area. Yale University publications in anthropology (No. 74). New Haven, CT.

External links

• Chief Isaac's people and history web site