Ahtna
At a glance:
- Series: American Indians Ready Reference
- Categories: Civilizations, Cultures
- Subcategories: Native Americans, American Indians
- Curriculum: American Indian History
- Geographical Location: Alaska
The Ahtna were divided into Lower, Middle, and Upper autonomous bands, with a warlike stratified society of chiefs, nobles, commoners, and slaves organized into matrilineal clans and moieties. Their subsistence base was diversified with fishing, hunting, trapping, and gathering; their major food source was fish. They engaged in extensive trade with neighboring groups and distant Eskimo, and they utilized the potlatch to recognize status change, life crises, and for redistribution of traditional forms of wealth.
The first Ahtna-white contact was with Russian explorers in 1783, who...
[The entire page is 190 words long]