32 Alaskan Science Conference 



sonalities and on the training and development of children. 

 Some material on adults can be gleaned from ethnographies 

 and myth collections, but there is a dearth of information on 

 the training of small children. 



Practically nothing has been done in the field of physical 

 anthropology. An inventory of publications reveals a few skull 

 measurements, general descriptions of physical type and blood 

 types of about a hundred and twenty-five Tlingit. 



Investigation of the relationship of Alaska Indians to their 

 resource areas, undertaken in 1944 and continued into 1946, 

 stemmed from different sources than any of the research cited 

 above. 



At the time of the Alaska purchase no reservations were set 

 aside for the natives and no treaties were made with them. The 

 whole question of rights to land and other resource areas was 

 held in abeyance. From time to time the question of whether 

 natives have any rights at all has arisen and has been both 

 denied and affirmed. In 1935 Tlingit and Haida tribes were 

 authorized to bring suit in the U. S. Court of Claims for com- 

 pensation for "lands and other tribal or community rights" 

 (53). Claims were filed by a few Tlingit communities or tribes, 

 but were not allowed by the court. The question again arose 

 as a result of a section of the Alaskan Fisheries Regulations, 

 first promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior in 1942. The 

 regulation provided that "no trap should be established in any 

 site in which any Alaska natives have any rights of fishery by 

 virtue of any grant or of aboriginal occupancy." The Depart- 

 ment of the Interior held hearings in Tlingit and Haida villages 

 in 1944 "to determine fishing and other occupancy rights of 

 these communities," in response to petitions from communities 

 dated April 1942 and July 1944. Individuals testified concern- 

 ing the kinship groups to which they belonged and the areas 

 they were traditionally privileged to use by reason of kinship 

 affiliations. Witnesses were closely questioned to determine 

 locations of camps, smokehouses and other sites in use. Much 

 information was gathered on traditional utilization of resource 

 areas, inheritance of rights and the degree to which the Indians 



