Chapter 6: (800 AD to 900 AD)
The ninth century was a century of consolidation, further development, and solidification of the inventions and innovations of the eight century.
During the ninth century, the Tlingit tribes began to engage in what later historians called as intricate proto political power plays that demonstrated that the Tlingit tribes were beginning to consolidate and develop into nations and governments.
These intricate proto political power plays were instrumental in in deciding how the Tlingit socio-political-cultural sphere changed, and how it affected the Tlingit tribes in the future.
Another development that came about in the tenth century was Tlingit mariners and boat owners began to sail along the coast of the Alexander Archipelago (later people would call the islands that name) that bordered the sea. By slowly learning how to sail a boat along the coast that bordered the Pacific sea, Tlingit mariners and sailors gained valuable experience in learning how to handle canoes and boats open large stretches of water, particularly boats with sails.
Tlingit navigational guild in particular benefitted from this experience because they gradually learned how to tell if land was nearby on the sea. This experience gradually broadened Tlingit geographical knowledge of the Alexander Archipelago, and for the Tlingit tribes, the world got larger and larger.
The third innovation, one that would radically change the Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest, was not so much an innovation as it was diffusion of technology. This innovation was the Haida gaining the outrigger canoe, around 850 AD.
From 850 onwards, the Haida began to be plugged into the growing Pacific Northwest Trade network that had been growing for some time and extend this trade network as well as the innovations the Tlingit tribes had developed all over the Pacific Northwest, helping to make their mark on the Native American Pacific Northwest tribes. (Down below, I will go over these innovations in detail and explain how they changed the Pacific Northwest):
Intricate proto political power plays: The Tlingit tribes were no stranger to tribal territorial disputes and to tribal warfare. Indeed, the period of 350 AD to 505 AD had seen the Tlingit tribes become much more willing to use limited scale warfare to settle their grievances and disputes with one another.
However, such warfare as had existed back then was mainly raids for captives, who could be ransomed back in return for submissions of defeat, and tribute, mainly in the form of food that the Tlingit tribe that were defeated had to chive up to the victor. This naturally made the defeated Tlingit tribes even more martial and warlike, as they fought very hard to avoid being defeated in battle.
However, because these territorial battles were primarily motivated by a growing Tlingit population that had to be fed, these battles rapidly decreased once agroforestry, rice farming (as well farming in general), and the catamaran were invented. But clashes between different groups of the Tlingit tribes did not go away entirely, though.
Instead, they just became more ritualized, a degree of ceremony attached. When two Tlingit tribes that disagreed with each other could not settle their disagreements peacefully, they would usually host a potlatch, where neighboring tribes would attend, including the two Tlingit tribes who where quarreling, and then when the feasting was done, the two Tlingit tribes would announce their rivalry with each other, and their intention to battle.
After that, the two Tlingit tribes would work out a time and place where they could fight it out. Battles in this ritualized system consisted of lining up a bunch of men, with women and children watching to yell support, and diving them into two groups, all on the waterfront.
These groups of men would then engage with each other by rowing close to each other’s boats and ramming them with their boats and attacking the opposite crew, with bows, clubs, maces, while wearing wooden body armor, or body armor made out of elk, caribou, or moose hides. The dispute would be considered settled when one Tlingit boat crew had rammed the other crew’s boat and thrown most or all of the other crew into the water (because of this factor, practically all of the battles took place in shallow parts of the ocean).
Then the Tlingit tribe that had been defeated would admit defeat, and had to serve the victorious Tlingit tribe in some way, most often through giving up captives or material tribute in some form. This type of warfare helped settle disputes and keep tensions from rising too rapidly, but during this century, warfare began to change. The Tlingit Tribes still fought over territory or disputes, but now a new motive was added: trade.
With the rise of sails on sailing ships, Tlingit merchants and traders could now sail more quickly to different ports belonging to different Tlingit tribes, and therefore it became common for Tlingit tribes that had grievances with each other to wage economic warfare by persuading other Tlingit tribes to not engage in commerce with the Tlingit tribe they had grievances against.
Because of this, the economy of the Tlingit tribe on the end of this type of trade embargo often resorted to warfare to end said embargo, which consisted of raiding the other Tlingit tribe’s port facilities, overcoming its guards and getting loot to transport back home, while being very careful to not harm any traders and merchants from other Tlingit tribes, to maintain goodwill.
As a result of these raids, differing Tlingit tribes began to form alliances with each other, and territory belonging to different Tlingit tribes began to be considered as belonging to different tribal alliances. This behavior laid the foundation for more centralized Tlingit polities to emerge in the Pacific Northwest.
Sailing along the coast of the Alexander Archipelago: Prior to the ninth century, Tlingit merchants and traders had only sailed on the rivers that surrounded the Alexander Archipelago on their outrigger canoes and catamarans. But now, with sails and the fact that outrigger canoes and catamarans were spreading to the Tlingit tribes which lived near the coast of the ocean, Tlingit merchants and traders, along with Tlingit navigational guilds, began to experiment with sailing boats and ships on the proper sea.
Because of how much the Tlingit tribes were used to sailing on the rivers, this experimentation consisted of staying at a certain distance from the coast, typically a short one at first, and then sailing the vessel the Tlingit navigators were in to a certain point on the bank. Gradually, as time passed on, the Tlingit navigational guilds got bolder and bolder and began to sail longer distances further away from the coast.
It was in this century that Tlingit navigators learned a very useful navigational tool: how to use plants and birds and clouds to see where land was. You see, out in the ocean, Tlingit navigators noticed that fishing birds, ones like the red breasted Merganser, once they had finished eating, would go back and fly to land where their nests were.
Plants also had a tendency to drift off the shoreline into the ocean, where they drifted gently, being pulled and pushed by the ocean drifts. Meanwhile, clouds formed over the top parts of the Alexander Archipelago, which could be easily spotted.
As a result, the Tlingit navigational guilds realized that they could identify where land was by these signs, and accordingly added them to the naval learning and lore Tlingit apprentices in the navigational guilds were supposed to learn.
This expansion of naval learning was just one of the many parts of learning which were to radicalize Tlingit seafaring in the next century, but for now, seafaring on the ocean became way easier.
The Haida starting to be plugged into the Pacific Northwest trade network: This was not so much a technological evolution as it was a example of technology naturally diffusing, but it would radically help change the Pacific Northwest in many ways to come: the Haida finally began to obtain outrigger canoes around 850 AD.
Starting from 850 AD, Tlingit merchants and traders introduced the outrigger canoe to the Haida tribes which lived on the southern tip of the Prince of Wales Island. The Haida eagerly adopted started to adopt outrigger canoes into their culture, as they could see the advantages of the outrigger canoe.
In fact, Haida culture and society was well positioned to take advantage of the outrigger canoe: the Haida were already well known as fierce raiders, raiding other Native American tribes in order to gain captives in return for ransoms for things like songs, crest images, and other things, while Haida sea skills were already very advanced, which helped with the Haida raids.
As a result, starting from 850 AD, Haida raids began to increase in frequency on other Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest, while the outrigger began to spread rapidly in the Haida world. However by 900 AD, the outrigger canoe still was just newly acquired by the Haida, and it took the following century for the outrigger canoe to truly transform the Haida tribes.
This is the state of the Tlingit and Haida peoples around 900 AD.
(Hi again! I finally posted again! Sorry for being so late! I had to deal with college and other things, but I promise I will try not to be so late again. And as always, enjoy this timeline!)