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This work is a republication of a traditional land use study (TUS) by anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt and his associate Theodore H. Haas in 1947. Walter Goldschmidt is one of the greats of twentieth-century anthropology and professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. The quality of documentation contained in this cultural land use and occupancy study made it an important resource in settling the land claims of the Tlingit and Haida of southeastern Alaska in 1971.
At that time, American policy was moving from assimilation and missionary endeavour toward preservation and revitalization of traditions of First Peoples. Natives in southeast Alaska though threatened by white intrusion, spoke their own language and were able to give place names, and indicate how their parents and grandparents moved through their territories from the winter villages to hunt and fish, build traps and caches, and gather bark, roots, and berries. They were aware of historic sites and gravesites, and awesome places where spirit power was sought. They were still part of a tradition that had been underway for thousands of years.
Maps and reports in Haa Aani concern the traditional territories of the Klukwan, the Chilkat...