Cultural Persistence

Continuity in Meaning and Moral Responsibility Among the Bearlake Athapaskans

• Author(s): Scott Rushforth, James S. Chisholm,
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Pages: 187
• ISBN_10: 0816512418
  ISBN_13: 9780816512416
  
• Language: en
• Categories: History / Canada / General , History / North America , Social Science / General , Social Science / Anthropology / General , Social Science / Ethnic Studies / American / Native American Studies , Social Science / Sociology / General ,

Description:... The Bearlake Athapaskan-speaking Indians of Canada's Northwest Territories have valued industriousness, generosity, individual autonomy, and emotional restraint for many generations. They also highly esteem "control" in human thought and behavior. The latter value integrates the others in a coherent framework of moral responsibility that persists as a central feature of Bearlake culture. Rushforth here provides an ethnographic description and analysis of these beliefs and values, which considers their relationship to examples of Bearlake social behavior.