Kenai Fjords A Stern and Rock-Bound Coast: Historic Resource Study

Warfare and Trade

As mentioned above, Wrangell maintained that the people of the outer coast originated in Kodiak. In the early and middle 1700s, prior to Russian contact, intertribal fighting alienated the Chugach faction to Prince William Sound and "west as far as the entrance to Cook's Inlet." [27] This meant that settlement along the fjords on the Pacific coast was relatively recent at the time of Russian exploration. The Athapaskan Dena'ina to the north invaded and occupied the southern and coastal region surrounding Cook Inlet and Kachemak Bay, forcing the Eskimo south. Another theory maintained that the Chugach occupied Prince William Sound prior to Dena'ina settlement in Cook Inlet. [28] There were also territorial pressures from the Koniag on Kodiak Island to the southwest, and the Tlingit and Eyak to the southeast of Prince William Sound. [29]

Many Chugach stories told of conflict with the Koniag and the Tlingit, recounting the intensity and nature of intertribal raids. [30] As Birket-Smith documented in the story "The Fight with the Dena'ina," in the years prior to Russian contact many villages throughout the Kenai and Prince William Sound areas banded together to fend off a common enemy. In one decisive battle, men from the villages of Tatitlek, Nuchek, Chenega, Montague, Day Harbor, and Qutatluq (near Seward) defeated the Dena'ina in Cook Inlet. [31] Another story focused on atrocities committed against the wives of seal hunters on Kodiak.

When a group of men went seal hunting, they left their wives at Johnstone Point [on Hinchinbrook Island] for safety. A war party from Kodiak Island came. The women, not wanting to reveal that no men were present, donned mustaches of bear fur. One woman leaned over the edge and dropped her mustache, alerting the war party to the women's ruse. The Kodiak Eskimos then climbed the rock and captured or killed the women. Months later the seal hunters successfully avenged the Kodiaks. [32]

Despite enmity and natural geographic boundaries that kept the Athapaskans and Koniag at somewhat of a distance, the Chugach traded extensively with all their neighbors, acquiring caribou skins and copper from the Ahtna and snowshoes, hatchets, and wedges from the Eyak. [33] Intertribal trade with the Koniag, Dena'ina, and Tlingit provided an exchange of sea and land mammal pelts. Kodiak residents also sought dentalium shell beads and spoons from the Chugach. [34]

A group of Natives by a barabara, 1901, above Seldovia. Anchorage Museum of History and Art, photo B91-142.