Russian Resistance to Human Sacrifice

among the Tlingit Indians (1819–1867)

Andrei V. Grinëv
Translated by Richard L. Bland

Abstract. Sacrifice of slaves among the Tlingit Indians, who lived in southeastern Alaska, had a
ritual character and was part of their traditional culture. Slaves were sacrificed during special
ceremonies—potlaches. Initially, the Russians, coming into the lands of the Tlingit at the end of
the 18th century, did not interfere in their customs or try to prevent ritual slayings. Only at the
end of the 1810s, when rather well-educated and humane naval officers took command in the
Russian colonies in America, were attempts undertaken to ease the lot of the doomed slaves.
Russian missionaries also played a definite role in keeping the Tlingit from ritual slaying. Of
course, the Russians’ campaign, as well as the ransom of the slaves and prohibition against kill-
ing them at the walls of the colonial capital Novo-Arkhangel’sk, exerted influence primarily on
the Tlingit living in the vicinity of the community of Sitka. Nevertheless, due to the endeavors
of the Russians, several dozen people were saved from death. Resistance to human sacrifice
among the Tlingit became one of the specific aspects of the social policy of the colonial adminis-
tration, influencing in some ways the character of Russian-Tlingit relations.

The Russian resistance to human sacrifice among
the Tlingit Indians, up to now, has not been an ob-
ject of detailed study in Russian or American his-
toriography, though some information about this
theme has occasionally entered the pages of schol-
arly works and published sources (Petrov 2010:
151). The Tlingit themselves entered the orbit of
Russian colonization of the New World at the end
of the 18th century, when, in pursuit of furbearing
animals, representatives of various merchant com-
panies began to penetrate the shores and islands of
southern and southeastern Alaska, which were
discovered in 1741 by Vitus Bering and Aleksei
Chirikov during the course of the Second
Kamchatka Expedition. Following this, it took the
Russian promyshlenniki—procurers of furbearing
animals—more than 40 years to gain control of the
Aleutian Islands and subordinate the local resi-
dents, who were obligated to pay yasak (a tax of
furs) to the royal treasury, as well as to hunt sea
otters, fur seals, foxes, and Arctic foxes, whose
pelts then fell into the hands of the Russians. In
1784, the well-known merchant Grigorii Shelikhov
founded the first permanent Russian settlement in

Andrei Val’terovich Grinëv, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, ul. Polytechnicheskaia,
29, St. Petersburg 197183, Russia; agrinev1960@mail.ru

Richard L. Bland, Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403;
rbland@uoregon.edu

ARCTIC ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 22–34, 2020 ISSN 0066-6939 e-ISSN 1933-8139
ª 2020 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
Russian Resistance to Human Sacrifice among the Tlingit Indians (1819–1867)
America on the large island of Kodiak, laying in
this way a firm base for Russian colonization. The
local Koniagmiut or Qikertarmiut Eskimos (“peo-
ple of the island”)1 were subjugated by force of
arms and began to be recruited, as were formerly
the Aleuts, into baidarka hunting flotillas—
“parties”—led by Russian promyshlenniki. Their
main goal was sea otters, the skins of which were
very highly valued in China.
In pursuit of sea otters, which were ruthlessly
being exterminated, the baidarka flotillas went
ever farther southeast from Kodiak along the main-
land coast into the region of the Alexander Archi-
pelago, which was inhabited by militant Tlingit,
whom the Russians called “Kóloshi” (“Káloshi,”
“Kólyuzhi”).2 The latter at this time had already
acquired firearms from British and American mari-
time traders who had arrived there on their ships
for the purchase of furs. Their way had been
paved by the famous English mariner James Cook,
who passed with his expedition along the whole
Northwest Coast of America from Vancouver
Island to Cook Inlet in Alaska in 1778.
The Tlingit, Their Slaves, and the
Practice of Ritual Sacrifice
The Tlingit were, at this time, not only the largest
Indian tribe in Alaska but also the most highly de-
veloped in social and cultural regard. Their soci-
ety had a complex structure and was deeply
stratified: the top of the social pyramid consisted
of the wealthy nobility (aankaawu, aanayadi), be-
low were the commoners (tlingit), and at the
very bottom of the social ladder were the disen-
franchised slaves (gookh) (de Laguna 1972:462;
Oberg 1967:210–215). Slavery among the Tlingit
was hereditary, which points to the antiquity of
this social institution in native society. The sour-
ces of slaves were captives seized in raids on the
sea, received as a generous gift at festivals, or pur-
chased from other tribes. The children of female
slaves automatically became slaves, since matrilin-
eal calculation of kinship reigned among the Tlin-
git. A Tlingit could not keep a person from his
own clan as a slave, but he was permitted this re-
garding members of other clans (Olson 1967:53).
And since relatives usually tried to ransom their
enslaved kinspeople, most slaves among the Tlin-
git were members of other tribes and their descen-
dants. Most often, these were Kwakiutl, who were
supplied by Haida and Tsimshian Indians at the
intertribal market and who lived to the south along
the Northwest Coast and carried out devastating
raids on the tribes to the south.
Slave labor was used in all heavy and dirty
domestic work, in fishing and hunting, and with
the transport of freight (porters and paddlers)
23
(Averkieva 1974:151). Nevertheless, slaves were
not the primary workforce in Tlingit society, and
their number was relatively low—less than 10% of
the population in the opinion of American anthro-
pologist Ronald Olson (1967:53). Slaves served as
one of the symbols of wealth and prestige of chiefs
of Tlingit clans, which was shown just at sacrifices
of captives during special festival ceremonies,
which acquired the name “potlatches” in the eth-
nographic literature (see Kan 2016).
Most often, the potlatch was arranged in
commemoration of deceased relatives and accom-
panied by the distribution of accumulated wealth
to members of clans of the opposite phratry. Be-
sides, slaves were usually sacrificed for the souls
of dead relatives, and there could be several of
them, especially if the deceased belonged to the
wealthy aristocracy. After observance of all funeral
and commemorative rituals, they killed slaves in
accordance with the death of the deceased: if he
died by drowning, then a slave was also drowned;
if he died of illness, a slave was strangled; if he
died in battle, a slave was killed with a dagger. In-
cidentally, captives at a potlatch were not always
killed but sometimes set free instead, which the
Tlingit agreed upon in advance (Veniaminov
1840:101, 105).
Another, far less frequent occasion for human
sacrifice was the construction of a new clan house
or major reconstruction of an old one. In this case,
the owner of the house often went entirely broke,
giving away or destroying his property, including
slaves (Veniaminov 1840:103). Additional occa-
sions for the ritual slaying of slaves among the
Tlingit was the erection of a totem pole or acquisi-
tion of a new totemic object. For example, the
Russian missionary Archimandrite Anatolii
(Kamenskii) reported that in honor of a ceremonial
hat and staff of the chief of the Kaagwaantaan clan,
four slaves were put to death (Anatolii 1906:22).
Usually, the slaying of slaves at potlatches oc-
curred in parallel with destruction or distribution
of other property, during which the Natives broke
or dropped into the sea especially valuable copper
plates, gave away or cut into strips tanned deer
hides (after the beginning of European coloniza-
tion these were replaced with wool blankets),
poured fish oil on the fire, and so on. The Tlingit
believed that the spiritual equivalent of the items
destroyed and given away as gifts would go to the
souls of their ancestors as a symbolic offering. By
sacrificing slaves, the Natives thereby showed re-
spect to the deceased relatives, believing that in
this way, they provided them with servants in the
afterworld. Such human sacrifices at funeral feasts
and construction of important buildings were
widespread in the past among peoples of the
world—it suffices to remember accordant archaeo-
logical finds at excavations of Scythian kurgans,
24
burials of Scandinavian kings, and so on. In the
New World, especially large-scale human sacri-
fices were characteristic of the Aztecs, when dur-
ing the festivities, hundreds and thousands of
people lay down on the altar. It was not a massa-
cre or murder for the sake of killing: it was a reli-
gious ritual associated with the spiritual culture of
the Indians (see Baglai 2005:86–89; Carrasco 1999;
Tokarev 1999:29–30).
The Beginning of Russian
Colonization in Southeast Alaska
The appearance of the Russians in the country of
the Tlingit (Tlingit-aani) did not especially please
the Natives since the uninvited, new arrivals tra-
ded little with them but rather preferred to engage
in the procurement of sea otters in the territorial
waters of Indian communities using baidarka flotil-
las of dependent Natives (Eskimos and Aleuts).
Despite the Natives’ dissatisfaction, the Russians,
led by the head of the “Shelikhov” Company Alex-
ander Baranov, established their settlements on
the Indians’ lands. In 1796, a fort was built at Ya-
kutat Bay in the north of Tlingit territory, and not
far from it, a small village of Russian exiles,
Slavorossia (Novorossiisk). In 1799, Baranov
established another fortified settlement of Sv.
Arkhistratig Mikhail (Fort Mikhailovskii) in the
very heart of the Alexander Archipelago on Sitkha
(Baranof) Island. The year of the founding of the
new fort corresponded with the formation on the
base of several merchant associations of the mo-
nopolistic Russian-American Company (RAC),
placed under the protection of the emperor.
The Russians, who had established them-
selves on the lands of the Tlingit, did not interfere
in the latter’s customs since they were well-armed,
numerous, and militant. The naval officer Gavriil
Davydov (1810:200), who visited Russian America
at the beginning of the 19th century, compared the
Tlingit with the Iroquois Indians: “These people
are generally ill-tempered, inclined to war and
murder, consider it enjoyable to torture captured
enemies, and in almost everything are similar to
people living in northeastern America.” A contem-
porary of Davydov, head of the Kodiak office
of the RAC, Ivan Banner, attested to the same
in 1803:
One cannot help thinking about what kind of peo-
ple we intend to be acquainted with, and impossi-
ble to imagine that it is possible to bring them into
proper obedience and submission and to subdue
them to the scepter of Russian power voluntarily.
It is noted in their manners that they cannot bear
the yoke of laws; perfect independence and re-
venge are their main passions, according to which
they are inconvenient for social life, seeing in us
Arctic Anthropology 57:1
some order of governance and obedience of subor-
dinates, they despise us (Blinov et al. 1957:130).
The presence of slavery among the Tlingit at
that time did not disturb the Russians since they
had already encountered it when taking control of
the Aleutian Islands and southern Alaska, where
the elders of the local Aleuts, Eskimos, and Indi-
ans kept prisoners and orphans as slaves. More-
over, the Russians themselves practiced slavery
through the institution of kayurstvo, which existed
until the beginning of the 1820s (Gringv 2000).
Former native slaves, purchased or taken from
Aleut or Eskimo elders, were called kayury3 in the
Russian colonies; the contingent of kayury was re-
plenished with criminals and malicious debtors.
Also, a substantial part of the kayury was periodi-
cally taken from the dependent Natives “by order”
during the period of the summer work season.
They were employed in all heavy work: they col-
lected wood for heating, caught and cleaned fish,
hunted foxes, served as paddlers in baidary, and
so on (Davydov 1812:120–121). Kayury did not re-
ceive anything for their work except meager cloth-
ing and food. Only occasionally were they given a
sniff of tobacco or presented large or small beads
or such other things as a reward. In distinction
from Tlingit slaves, who had individual masters,
kayury were the collective property of the
Shelikhov Company, and subsequently the RAC.
This group was the most oppressed and disen-
franchised part of the population of Russian Amer-
ica for the whole period of its existence.
It is not surprising that in observing the rela-
tionship of the Russians and kayury, the Tlingit
slaves did not at all aspire to change masters. For
their part, the Tlingit periodically became very ir-
ritated when, at the shores of their native ancestral
lands, baidarka hunting parties of Eskimos led by
Russian promyshlenniki decimated sea otters by
the hundreds, the skins of which the Indians
themselves received many of their needed goods
from English and American ships. This factor and
other reasons led to a large-scale uprising of the
Tlingit in 1802 that ended with the seizure
and destruction of the Russian fort on Sitkha
Island and the rout of two RAC hunting parties
(Zorin 2016:50–58). Part of the Koniagmiut and
Chugach Eskimos, who fell captive, were sacri-
ficed at the funerals and wakes of noble Tlingit
who had died in battles with the Russians. In a
preserved archival document, it is reported that at
the burial of a Tlingit chief, four Kodiak Eskimos
were killed, while a fifth—a Chugach Eskimo sen-
tenced to death—was able to escape, kill one Tlin-
git, and hide in the woods (ARGO, 113, 53 ob.).
It was not until the fall of 1804 that Governor
Baranov was again able to establish himself on
Sitkha after a battle driving the local Tlingit from
Russian Resistance to Human Sacrifice among the Tlingit Indians (1819–1867)
their fort. They fled to the eastern shore of the
island, where they built a new fort. On the place
of the village abandoned by the Tlingit, Baranov
founded the future capital of Russian America—
Novo-Arkhangel’sk. However, in the following
year, the Indians struck a new blow—the fort and
village in Yakutat Bay were seized and burned.
The Russian and dependent Natives located there
were, in part, killed or taken captive, with only 15
people managing to escape by fleeing with great
difficulty to Kodiak (Gringv 2005:139–145).
After these large-scale armed clashes at Sit-
kha and Yakutat, the administration of Russian
America refused to attempt any significant inter-
ference in the internal affairs of the independent
Natives. Moreover, the 15-year period of a kind of
“cold war” between the Russians and Tlingit that
followed these dramatic events in no way contrib-
uted to stimulating mutual contacts.
The First Freed Tlingit Slaves and
the Attitude of the New Colonial
Administration toward Sacrifice
The situation in the colonies began to change no-
ticeably after the resignation of Baranov from the
post of governor of Russian America in January
1818. The naval officers who began to govern the
colonies started to pursue a different policy with
regard to both the dependent and independent na-
tive population. In 1819, three slaves doomed to
become the next sacrifices at a potlatch managed
to hide in Novo-Arkhangel’sk. The governor, Lieu-
tenant Semgn Yanovskii, did not return them to
the Tlingit, and his successor, Captain Lieutenant
Matvei Murav’ëv, reported to St. Petersburg in
January 1821:
During the time of my predecessor a man, a wo-
man from the Kolosh, and a boy whose father was
Russian and named Larionov, came running into
the fort.4 With the capture by the Kaloshi of our
village in Yakutat, when the Russians were almost
all cut down, he with his mother fell captive. This
was known for a long time, but there was neither
the possibility of ransoming nor of exchanging for
him. These fugitives asked for protection in the
fort because they were intended for sacrifice. My
predecessor accepted them and did well, because
Russians not just in Europe must protect the un-
fortunate.5 Now, as I hear, the Koloshi learned of
this and want to ask for them back, but I will not
give them and will not change the promise of my
predecessor. If it is necessary to pay something for
them, then, to save blood I will do it, but not by
humiliating my dignity. But if this does not help,
I am ready for anything . . . . I sent the two Koloshi
to Kodiak and in the spring will send them to the
kotovyya [Seal] islands.6 And Larionov lives with
his brother and has already gone to sea. He is 15
25
years old, he does not speak a word of Russian,
but his white face and amazing similarity with his
brother show his origin (Bolkhovitinov 2005:102).
Murav’ëv evidently managed to settle his
business with the Tlingit, paying them ransom
(European fabrics and blankets were usually used
for this) for the escaped slaves, including young
Larionov, who with baptism received the name
“Dmitrii.” As his brother Ivan, who lived for a
long time in Novo-Arkhangel’sk, Dmitrii Larionov
was called a “Creole,” as in Russian America, they
called Mestizos—descendants of marriages and li-
aisons of Russians and other Europeans with
Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian women. His fortunes
were possibly reflected in one of the Tlingit leg-
ends about a young Russian-Tlingit Mestizo by the
name Dzhivak (Nu’snih), who lived in Yakutat but
fell captive as a result of an interclan war. His In-
dian relatives would not ransom him, and he was
sold to the Tlingit of the community of Sitka and
then resold to a chief of the Deisheetaan clan at
the village of Kootznoowoo (Angoon). Dzhivak,
according to legend, fled from his master to Novo-
Arkhangel’sk, where he was accepted by the Rus-
sians and later married in an Orthodox ceremony a
noblewoman of the Kiks.ádi clan (Olson 1967:54–
55). Dmitrii Larionov, in reality, married in Novo-
Arkhangel’sk in 1826. However, his bride was not
a Tlingit woman but rather a Creole named Anna
Likhachëva, who was the daughter of the boat-
swain Stepan Likhachëv and Domna Sergeeva, a
baptized Tlingit woman. The latter is mentioned
in documents as “Koloshenka Domna” who
worked as an interpreter for the RAC in the 1810s.
Dmitrii Larionov, after serving as a sailor on com-
pany ships, followed in her steps. For many years,
he was an interpreter in negotiations of the Rus-
sians with the Tlingit since he knew their language
well (Grinëv 2009:158, 292, 294–295). From the
point of view of the Tlingit, he and his wife were
almost their relatives, because the mothers of
Dmitrii Larionov and Anna Likhachgva were Native
American women, and in traditional Tlingit soci-
ety, a matrilineal account of kinship dominated.
Concerning the slaves who fled with Dmitrii
Larionov (a man and a woman), it has not been
possible to establish their fate since, after being dis-
patched to Kodiak, they were in all probability
baptized there and added to the local dependent
Eskimos. The RAC administration later often acted
similarly, removing former slaves from Novo-
Arkhangel’sk to avoid possible incidents with the
Tlingit, who continued to practice human sacrifice.
It is natural that the naval officers, who stood
at the head of the colonies and were well edu-
cated, possessed a broad world view, and were rel-
atively humane, considered the sacrifice custom
of the Indians a manifestation of “savagery” of
26
primitive peoples who were in their spiritual in-
fancy. In this light, it is impossible not to quote an-
other part of a letter by Murav’ëv to the directors
of the RAC; in it, he condemned the barbaric cus-
toms of the Tlingit and advocated the implementa-
tion of a policy of enlightenment:
Among the peoples inhabiting the shores of north-
western America are generally called Kolyuzhi,
though among themselves they have many different
names based on clans or place of their residence,
there is the custom that upon moving to a new resi-
dence one or more individuals are sacrificed to
their gods, as we once had the custom when laying
out a house or ship of placing several coins under
the foundation or keel. These victims can be more
or less: one, two, three, and more, depending on the
importance of the clan leader, called by the name
ankau,7 and according to his wealth, and their im-
portance consists of a large number of relatives, and
the wealth—in a large number of slaves, called here
kalgi. These kalgi are in large part captives. They,
by right of ownership, pass by means of purchase
from one master to another just as our Larionov
passed from hand to hand, and since his last master
paid for him, he thinks that we have appropriated
his property. It is difficult to convince them, and
even more difficult to change the customs of a wild,
stubborn, warlike people. It is at least necessary to
try to achieve through all the methods we can in or-
der to enlighten our neighbors by the briefest
means possible.
All the Kaloshi perform this ungodly rite.
In my being there as governor, one ankau, pre-
cisely Katlean,8 moved to another dwelling and,
when he declared this to me, I asked, does he con-
sider sacrificing a kalga, and I wanted to show
him the abomination of this sacrifice, then he an-
swered with a sneer: I know, Russians do not like
this and I’m not so rich as to do this. You can see
that poverty alone is holding him back. But how
many are the barbarian customs among peoples
who have already lived for a long time in a soci-
ety, which for a long time comprised a strong
state, which for a long time having laws and
knowledge of art and enlightenment. I am talking
about Hindustan, where the wife is burned to-
gether with the corpse of her dead husband. Peo-
ples in infancy go groping, like little children, and
it costs the grandparents dearly to enlighten their
grandchildren (Bolkhovitinov 2005:103).
Intending to improve relations with the Tlin-
git, Murav’ëv permitted them in 1821 to build
their village at the walls of Novo-Arkhangel’sk.
The well-known mariner Fëdor Litke, who later
visited the capital of Russian America, wrote on
this occasion:
The governor, M. I. Murav’ëv, having calculated
that, having under his cannons their wives and
children and all their property, it will be much
easier to keep them in check and learn all their
plans, permitted them to establish a large village
Arctic Anthropology 57:1
right beside the fort. The assumption is completely
justified. The Koloshi have become much more
courteous since then, and moreover, connections
of their women with Russians provide the possi-
bility of learning everything that occurs among
them. And previously, the plans of the Koloshi
have been repeatedly revealed through the wo-
men, and many Russians have been saved from
hostile actions (Litke 1948:50).
Though notable improvements in Russian-
Tlingit relations were achieved, Murav’ëv did not
make any progress in the business of freeing the
doomed Tlingit slaves at this same time. His noble
fervor markedly diminished after receiving from
St. Petersburg the “Rules” (charter) of the Russian-
American Company, adopted in 1821 and ap-
proved by the Russian government. Not only did
they regulate the activities of the RAC, but they, in
fact, proclaimed full independence for the Tlingit
and other tribes of the coast of the American
mainland. Thus, in §§ 57–59 of Section III of the
“Rules,” it said that the company “should not
attempt to subjugate peoples inhabiting those
coasts,” and to build their villages only with the
consent of the local residents, as well as to “use all
possible methods to keep their good disposition,
avoiding everything that might arouse in them the
suspicion of an intention to violate their indepen-
dence.” The RAC was forbidden to demand from
“independent nonRussians” yasak, tribute, or any
other payment or to forcibly take hostages during
peacetime (PSZRI 1830:852). Similar provisions
were later entered in the new company charter (§§
280–282) that was approved by the emperor in
1844 (PSZRI 1842:638).
Thus, from a legal standpoint, the authorities
of the Russian colonies did not have the right to
suppress Indian sacrifices, and this position con-
tinued to be kept until the sale of Alaska to the
United States. It is not surprising that, before the
beginning of the 1830s, no mention of the Rus-
sians freeing Tlingit slaves is encountered in the
literature. Under the law, the administration of
Russian America was forced to limit itself only to
verbal persuasion and admonishing, which had lit-
tle influence on the Tlingit, who continued to ad-
here to their traditional beliefs, according to which
human sacrifice was an obligatory act of respect
toward the ancestors and a necessary means of
maintaining the high social status of clans and the
prestige of their chiefs.
The Situation with Tlingit
Sacrifices in the 1830s–1840s
A definite change occurred in the first half of the
1830s when Captain of 1st Rank Baron Ferdinand
von Wrangell became the authority as governor in
Russian Resistance to Human Sacrifice among the Tlingit Indians (1819–1867)
Russian America. He was very determined to im-
prove the life of colonial society and relations with
the Tlingit, and not only the Sitkan people (the
Sitka qwaan) who lived at the walls of Novo-
Arkhangel’sk but also the Tlingit from other com-
munities. Besides purely humanistic and practical
considerations, Wrangell was motivated by the de-
sire to strengthen the influence of the Russians
among the Tlingit because of increased competi-
tion with the British from the Hudson’s Bay Com-
pany, which was moving its trading posts ever
closer to the boundaries of the Russian colonies in
Canada. To counteract the English, Wrangell tried
to expand trade between the Tlingit and the RAC
maximally and attract the Indians to his side. To
do so, he introduced the sale of rum and vodka
(something the company had abstained from in ev-
ery way).
Of course, initially, the relationship between
Wrangell and the Tlingit could not be called
cloudless. In a letter to his old friend Fgdor Litke
he reported in 1833:
I can say, I was not lenient with the Koloshi, at
first often quarreling, but now, after 1-1/2 years,
neither the cry of a scoundrel nor thefts in the vil-
lage is heard from them, and they are so subdued
that they do not argue with me when any kalga
(slave), doomed to die on the occasion of the death
of his toyon,9 happens to be held in the fort; I have
now taken into company service two of those kalgi
who have escaped brutal execution. How glad I
will be if I manage to entirely eradicate this evil
custom among them (Bolkhovitinov 2005:269).
At the insistence of Baron von Wrangell, the
missionary Ivan Veniaminov, after very successful
missionary work among the Aleuts on Unalaska
Island, was transferred to Novo-Arkhangel’sk for
more successful Christianization of the local Indi-
ans in 1834. Evidently, the governor hoped that
the experienced priest would achieve through
preaching and conversion to Orthodoxy, if not a
complete rejection of human sacrifice by the Tlin-
git, then at least partial progress in this business.
In fact, due to the persuasion of Veniaminov, one
of the influential chiefs of the Stikine community
by the name of Kuatkhe (Kuatkha, Kuatkau) re-
fused the ritual execution of two of his slaves in
1838. The missionary himself fully understood the
significance of such sacrifices, writing on this oc-
casion: “Their custom of killing kalgi is not their
whim or simple desire, but rather a fulfillment of
their faith and proof of their love of relatives”
(Veniaminov 1840:123, 134–135).
The fate of the slaves freed by Kuatkhe was
different: he placed the adult slave in the service
of a poor elderly Tlingit, and the second—a young
boy—the chief gave to the Russians with the wish
that “he would be a Russian” (Veniaminov
27
1840:134–135). The boy was delivered to Novo-
Arkhangel’sk, where Captain of the 1st Rank Ivan
Kupreyanov, who replaced Wrangell at the post of
governor of Russian America, ordered that he be
placed in the local school with full maintenance
from the RAC and provided with special care. In
Novo-Arkhangel’sk, the former slave was baptized,
receiving the first name “Mikhail” and the sur-
name “Platonov,” obviously in honor of his godfa-
ther, the teacher Platon Votskii (Grinëv 2009:424).
Kupreyanov wrote: “Perhaps with time this boy
will serve as an important intermediary between
us and the Koloshi for the gradual introduction of
meek, Christian customs into this barbaric people”
(Bolkhovitinov 2005:360).
Since the episode with Kuatkhe was almost
the first case of voluntary abandonment by the
Tlingit aristocracy of the ritual slaying of slaves,
the colonial administration petitioned the throne
to award him with some valuable gift to encourage
such actions in the future. Captain Kupreyanov re-
ported to the RAC Board of Directors in May 1838:
With my permission, a Kolosh boy, four years old,
was brought now on the brig Aktsiya from Stikine,
whom the Koloshi there designated for slaying at a
funeral in the month of January of this year. The
Stikine chief Kuatkhe, as a consequence of our ad-
vice and Christian desire to avert as many as pos-
sible human killings usually carried out by the
Koloshi in commemoration of their deceased rela-
tives (which I have repeatedly suggested to the Ko-
loshi during their gatherings at my house and
indicated that instead of killing the Kalgi to sell
them and better, to make any other sacrifice with
the received goods), he, Kuatkhe, remembering
such our advice, instead of killing the Kalgi, first
gave himself as an example (which even the Sit-
kan Koloshi do not do yet) and released them to
freedom, among whom was the designated boy,
making other offerings in exchange for this bloody
custom, which clearly proved his friendship and
respect for the Russians. For such an unprece-
dented act among the Koloshi before this time, I
was not able to distinguish Toyon Kuatkhe in any
other way than to issue him a certificate (Protocol
of 6 February of this year, No. 18) in commemora-
tion of my gratitude, since I had already awarded
him a silver insignia “Soyuznye Rossii” [“Allies of
Russia”] for commitment and diligence to the Rus-
sians. In my opinion, his last act deserves special
distinction, which I ask the Board of Directors to
petition for him from the supreme government,
and such distinctions for all, equal to him, for sim-
ilar acts, through which it could be possible to
avert forever among them this barbarity and
achieve a well-intentioned goal (Bolkhovitinov
2005:360).
The RAC Board of Directors in St. Petersburg
and the royal government responded to Kupreya-
nov’s wish, and the emperor himself agreed to
grant Kuatkhe “honorary clothes,” consisting of a
28 Arctic Anthropology 57:1

brocade caftan, a belt, and a hat for the amount of place a stick on his neck, press on both ends, the
1,056 rubles 50 kopecks silver.10 However, he did sufferer’s feet jerk once or twice, as if from the ac-
not receive these gifts since he discredited himself tion of galvanic flow,11 and after a minute draws
in the eyes of the Russians by the wanton murder his last breath.
of his female slave and his brother Ikaaz in the
Captain of the 1st Rank Mikhail Teben’kov,
spring of 1840 (Gringv 2005:172, 294–301).
who replaced Etolin in 1845, attempted to put an
Captain of the 2nd Rank Adolf Etolin, who
end to Tlingit sacrifices, at least among the Indians
occupied the post of governor of Russian America
who lived at the walls of Novo-Arkhangel’sk. The
in this same year, found himself in an awkward
reason for the ban was a grand potlatch arranged
position. He himself was a clear opponent of ritual
by members of the Tluknahadí clan striving to
killings among the Tlingit. In July 1840, he man-
equal the prestige with the old-timers of Sitkha
aged to persuade two Indian chiefs to abandon
from the Kiks.ádi clan. Teben’kov reported to St.
sacrifices: they traded the slaves intended for sac-
Peterburg in a dispatch of May 12, 1847:
rifice to other Tlingit for furs, which they then sold
to the Russians (NARS 1840:169–170). After some The barbaric inhumane customs and practices of
hesitation, Etolin decided to award the royal gifts to the Koloshi are, of course, not unknown to the
the baptized Sitkan toyon (chief) Mikhail Kukhkan Board of Directors of the Company. With all the
of the Kiks.ádi clan, who was loyal to the Russians, pressure from our side for about half a century to-
instead of Kuatkhe. With his help, the RAC hoped ward softening this barbaric people, our influence
to strengthen its influence over the independent in this case is still very little noticed. It is known
Natives and petitioned for the establishment in the that the Koloshi are divided into clans, consider-
colonies of the position of “chief Kólosh toyon.” ing their origin from birth either a Raven or a
This position was sanctioned by the emperor on Wolf, Eagle, or other. Each clan in its tradition
knows the place of its birth and the village that is
December 8, 1842 (PSZRI 1845:189–90). On Octo-
considered ancestral. After a certain period of time
ber 10, 1843, Mikhail Kukhkan was elevated to (eight years) the whole clan gathers in its ancestral
this rank in the Novo-Arkhangel’sk cathedral in village and arranges a so-called game.12 There they
the presence of all the colonial leadership and the remember the affairs of the past, confer about fu-
noblest Tlingit chiefs. Then he received the gifts ture undertakings, summon guests from other
originally intended for Kuatkhe. clans, drink, eat, dance, and give away at ran-
However, this pompous action did not lead dom.13 In this last, vanity sometimes comes to
to the desired results, since Kukhkan’s influence such insanity that the Kolosh carries to the strand
among the local Sitkan Tlingit was weak, and the (shallows) all his possessions, cuts to pieces his
Indians of other communities generally did not best furs or materials, throws away beads,
tobacco—everything that he has, and finally, in a
recognize his authority. Etolin noted that Kukhkan
frenzy of lavishness arrives to the place that he
could not be very influential since he was rather immediately commits (with his family) the death
poor. Therefore, to support the prestige of his ap- of his slaves (kalgi), taking in this case the slave as
pointee, the governor ordered that Kukhkan be gi- an object. This inhumane custom, the root of
ven “reciprocally” goods for the amount of 2,327 which is vanity, cannot be said to be a necessity of
ruble assignatsiya (banknotes) for the purchase of this festival, which sometimes occurs without hu-
slaves in 1844, since the number of slaves, wrote man blood, but quite often a furious impulse of
Etolin to the RAC Board of Directors, “not only in vanity comes instantly in this case to the con-
the eyes of the Natives but also the Russians is ceited, and the miserable victims fall under blows
considered the greatest wealth of Kolosh Toyons or the dagger or a long stick placed on the neck.
The whole clan is supposed to participate in the
and mainly gives weight among them” (NARS
festival, and if for some reason a Kolosh of this
1844:213). On the means received from the com- clan could not be at this time at the festival in
pany, Kukhkan purchased six slaves (three men the ancestral village, then he should do almost the
and three women), but even after this, it was diffi- same act in the village where he lives. Thus, the
cult to compare him with the most prosperous Koloshi of the Raven clan, having its ancestral vil-
chiefs (Petrov 2010:136). lage in Icy Strait, and living under our walls in Sit-
This example graphically illustrates the fact kha, were now supposed to be celebrating this
that the Russians did not grapple with slavery, as epoch or their clan festival. The frenzy of the cele-
such, but instead only with ritual killing of slaves brants reached exactly as I mentioned, to the point
at potlatches. Aleksandr Markov (1856:68), a RAC that many took all their belongings to the strand
and scattered them in shreds, and some, who had
steward who served in the colonies in 1838–1846
slaves, began to stab and choke them. This was at
attested: the beginning of March and because the villainy
was so secretly committed eight souls (all females)
It is impossible to watch without regret these un- had already been killed when we learned about it.
fortunates, when they crush them in honor of a de- I immediately sent the interpreter to declare that
ceased toyon: they throw the kayur to the ground, such was not to happen under our walls; if there is
Russian Resistance to Human Sacrifice among the Tlingit Indians (1819–1867)
vanity in this—and nothing to be spared—then it
is better to sell the Kalgi to us, take the goods, and
scatter them as they want. This worked on the Ko-
loshi, and in this way we acquired a one-year-old
boy (taken to be educated by the former accoun-
tant Kondakov) and two adult girls (Petrov
2010:150).
The latter were baptized in Novo-Arkhangel’sk
(Natal’ya Katakhel’ and Irina Khaske) and sent on
the brig Promysel as workers on Urup Island in the
Kuril Archipelago in 1848, where at this time
there was an RAC hunting base (NARS 1847:241–
241 ob.). Concerning the infant boy: he was also
baptized and received the name “Stepan” and the
surname of his adoptive father—Creole Pëtr Mi-
khailovich Kondakov (1788–1850). After his de-
mise, the adopted son “from the Kolosh” Stepan
Kondakov became a RAC foster child and was sent
from Novo-Arkhangel’sk to the Kodiak Department
on the schooner Tungus in 1854 (Grinëv 2009:217,
250, 567).
Having received Teben’kov’s report about
Tlingit sacrifice and saving three people, the RAC
Board of Directors sanctioned the use of up to 500
rubles silver annually for ransoming Tlingit slaves
in 1848 (NARS 1848:116 ob.). The sum allocated
by the directors of the company was adequately
significant for this time. Unfortunately, we do not
have information on how effectively the allotted
funds were spent.
Besides the already mentioned slaves, Te-
ben’kov saved from certain death two Tlingit wo-
men accused of witchcraft in 1847—one young girl
and a married woman who had four children. The
governor paid five blankets for the girl using funds
collected by subscription among the venerable res-
idents of the city. The Indians released the woman
for free, but she required treatment by Russian
doctors as a result of a knife wound in her abdo-
men. After treatment in the Novo-Arkhangel’sk
hospital, Teben’kov sent her and her family to
Kodiak, away from her brutal fellow tribesmen.
Finally, Teben’kov managed to rescue another
Tlingit slave doomed to death at a memorial
potlatch—whom he sent into RAC service at the
Mikhailovskii Redoubt in Norton Sound in the far
north of the Russian colonies (Petrov 2010:151).
After describing all these events in his report
to St. Petersburg, the governor petitioned for an
award for the baptized Tlingit Niktopoleon Gedeo-
nov, who had worked for many years as an inter-
preter in Novo-Arkhangel’sk, for his active
assistance in freeing Indian slaves (see the docu-
mentary appendix at the end of this article). For
long service, as well as for saving Tlingit slaves
doomed to death during potlatches, Gedeonov was
awarded a silver medal inscribed with “Za user-
die” [“For Zeal”] on a ribbon of the Order of St.
Anna by the Emperor Nikolai I on October 19,
29
1848, which he received in December 1849 (NARS
1849:334). In this same year, the Tlingit slave Vasi-
lii Denisov, who had been baptized as early as
1835, was accepted under the patronage of the
RAC, for whom the company had paid his master
a ransom of wares worth 50 rubles (Grinëv
2009:120–121, 152).
The Saving of Tlingit Slaves by the
Russians in the 1850s–1867
The active measures of the colonial administration
together with the efforts of Orthodox missionaries
evidently began gradually to bear fruit, and the
Tlingit who lived in the neighborhood of Novo-
Arkhangel’sk tried not to flaunt the killings, but ra-
ther, at times, set slaves free who in the old days
would certainly have been sacrificed at a potlatch
(see the documentary appendix at the end of this
article). Thus, in the words of one Tlingit, in the
1850s, four slaves doomed to death were released
to freedom after the chief of the Kaagwaantaan
clan touched them at the potlatch with his ritual
staff. Slaves who received freedom in this way im-
mediately went to the Russians since they were no
longer allowed to live among Indians (Anatolii
1906:23). These freedmen were expelled from
Tlingit society and had, as it were, symbolically
“died” for it. In its turn, the administration of Rus-
sian America usually sent such people to other
parts of the colonial possessions. For example, a
former Tlingit slave named Aleksandr Platonov,
who was baptized into Orthodoxy and accepted to
be maintained by the RAC, was brought up on Ko-
diak until he reached adulthood. After turning of
age, he entered into the company service there
without pay in 1858, apparently working off the
money spent on his maintenance. Only two years
later did he begin to receive a salary of 180 rubles
assignatsiya per year with a food ration for the
duty of medical student (nurse) at the local hospi-
tal (Grinëv 2009:424).
According to the testimony of the govern-
ment inspector Captain Lieutenant Pavel Golovin,
who visited Alaska in 1860–1861, due to the con-
stant efforts of the colonial leadership, ritual kill-
ings by Tlingit chiefs of their slaves were almost
stopped in their village at Novo-Arkhangel’sk. The
Tlingit gave the slaves away to the Russians as a
gift or for a small ransom. However, in neighbor-
ing communities, the sacrificing of slaves at po-
tlatches was business as usual (Golovin 1863:286).
In fact, when the brother of the principal chief of
the Stikine community died in the summer of
1862, his relatives decided to kill three slaves in
his memory: two men and an older woman. Only
due to the persuasion of engineer Pgtr Andreev,
who accidentally found himself in the Indian
30
village, was the number of victims reduced to just
the older woman (Andreev 1887:688–689).
Sergei Kostlivtsov, the government auditor
and councilor of state, who visited Alaska with
Golovin, supposed that to suppress ritual sacri-
fices, it was necessary to relieve all Tlingit of
slaves, especially given the abolition of serfdom in
Russia. To do this, wrote Kostlivtsov in his official
report, would be quite simple: it would be suffi-
cient to announce to the Indian tribes, who are liv-
ing in the colonies, that all the slaves can come to
Novo-Arkhangel’sk and, those who surrender un-
der the patronage of the governor will become
free people (Doklad 1863b:70–71). The Special
Committee on the Organization of the Russian-
American Colonies concluded in 1863 that the use
of naval cruisers would be very useful in this case:
Finally, with the aid of cruisers alone decisive
measures will be possible to free the Indians’
slaves, so-called kalgi, who find themselves in the
most brutal oppression and are inhumanely put to
death at various ceremonies, or simply at the will
of their owners (Doklad 1863a:250).
However, Kostlivtsov’s opinion and that of
St. Petersburg officials were not shared by the RAC
leadership in St. Petersburg. The directors of the
company believed that eradication of the custom
of killing slaves during potlatches should be
achieved not by decisive actions but rather by soft-
ening the morals:
The prevention of this evil, that is, the killing
of kalgi, is not so easy as this seems at first
glance. . . . To stand fully armed between the To-
yons, that is, their owners and the kalgi-slaves,
means to embitter the former and initiate war with
them. In addition, where will we go with the
slaves? Leaving them in Sitkha is impossible; to
send them to the islands means to show the Ka-
loshi that we are taking the kalgi for ourselves.
Time, and only time, can fix everything, and
meanwhile it is necessary to be content with the
measures taken by the Colonial Leadership in this
regard. There has been no example of a Kalosh,
owner of a kalga doomed to death, who did not re-
lease him for a ransom of 50–70 rubles assigna-
tsiya (Doklad 1863b:490).
The governor of Russian America in 1859–
1863, Captain of the 1st Rank Ivan Furugel’m (Jo-
han Furuhjelm), did considerable for the freeing of
Tlingit slaves. Thus, in October 1861, he reported
to St. Petersburg that, under the influence of his
persuasion, the Koloshi chiefs gave to the RAC or
released to freedom 19 slaves (three men and 16
women) intended for ritual sacrifice. All those
freed were settled in Novo-Arkhangel’sk under the
protection of the Russians (NARS 1861:121 ob.).
Based on the testimony of Furuhjelm’s wife, Anna,
almost all the slaves (primarily sick older women,
Arctic Anthropology 57:1
worn out from work) were ransomed by the RAC,
and one of the slaves received freedom through
means raised by subscription among the residents
of Novo-Arkhangel’sk—700 rubles assignatsiya (or
200 rubles silver) (Petrov 2010:362).
At this time the Tlingit who lived in the vi-
cinity of the capital of Russian America had
evidently almost given up ritual slayings of their
slaves at potlatches. This probably concerned pri-
marily chiefs who had accepted Orthodoxy. A
naval officer who visited the colonies in 1864 de-
scribed his visit to an Indian village close to
Novo-Arkhangel’sk thus:
I was told that recently a baptized toyon died in
this village, and all his servants moved to another
person, not one of them was put to death, nor gi-
ven to the Russians—this act now serves as a good
example (Bartoshevich 1866:40).
However, the ensuing transfer of Alaska into the
hands of the United States (1867) interrupted the
process of freeing the Tlingit slaves with the assis-
tance of the colonial authorities. The new Ameri-
can administration picked up this baton. However,
in several communities, the Tlingit continued
for some time to secretly practice sacrifice until
through the joint efforts of authorities and mission-
aries, this custom finally completely disappeared
(the last slave in Yakutat was freed at a potlatch in
1910) (de Laguna 1972:216, 470).
Conclusion
Summing up the overall results of the study, it is
possible to draw the following conclusions. Rus-
sian opposition to ritual killings of Tlingit slaves at
potlatches had, for several objective and subjective
reasons, a somewhat limited and inconsistent
character. Here should be mentioned the fact that
the actual independence of the Tlingit over the ex-
tent of the whole history of Russian America, the
presence of legislative acts that prohibited the co-
lonial authorities from interfering in their internal
affairs, the inadequacy of economic and military
means for such intervention, and the reluctance of
some governors and the RAC leadership in St. Pe-
tersburg to actively influence the Indians to eradi-
cate human sacrifice led to this limited response.
Therefore, the primary means of Russian opposi-
tion to ritual killings of slaves were propaganda,
persuasion, and ransom. Chronologically, the
primary part of the slaves, saved from death at
potlatches, acquired the right to live in the con-
cluding stage of the existence of Russian America,
and the overwhelming majority of them were for-
mer captives of the Tlingit of the community of
Sitka, who lived in the vicinity of the capital of
the colonies—Novo-Arkhangel’sk—where Russian
influence was most influential.
Russian Resistance to Human Sacrifice among the Tlingit Indians (1819–1867)
Representatives of other European powers
also tried, if possible, to eradicate the rituals of hu-
man sacrifice in their colonies. Thus, in India dur-
ing British rule, some administration officials and
missionaries attempted to fight the cruel sati cus-
tom, which ordered an Indian wife to go onto the
funeral pyre after her husband died. However, the
East India Company tried to adhere to a policy of
noninterference in the life of the local society. It
was only in 1929 that a law was passed, under the
governor-general William Bentinck, prohibiting
the practice of sati throughout British India (Lid-
dle and Joshi 1985:523; Singh 2015).
The struggle of the Russian colonial adminis-
tration and Orthodox missionaries with human
sacrifice among the Tlingit can unambiguously be
regarded as a positive aspect of Russian coloniza-
tion. At the same time, having received the right to
life under the patronage of the Russian authorities,
the former slave did not automatically receive full
freedom because he or she was forced to work in
the RAC, though without a threat of death.
Establishing the precise figure of slaves saved
by the Russians does not seem possible because of
the incompleteness of the documentary base, but of
course, it is a matter of several dozen people. With
this, it is essential to emphasize that slaves doomed
to death were not always given to representatives of
the colonial leadership. Some of them were al-
lowed to live among the Indians as people of low
rank. In some cases, Tlingit chiefs influenced by the
persuasion of the Russians did not kill their slaves
but instead sold them to other Tlingit, which did
not exclude the prospect of these slaves being sacri-
ficed at subsequent potlatches.
On the whole, opposition to human sacrifice
among the Tlingit Indians became one of the spe-
cific aspects of social policy of the colonial admin-
istration in Russian America and a noteworthy
side of Russian-Tlingit relations.
Documentary Appendix
NARS. RG 261. RRAC, roll 17, pp. 116–117.
15 March 1848, № 338.
Board of Directors of the Russian-American
Company
to Governor of the Russian Colonies in America
Captain of 2nd Rank Mikhail Dmitrievich
Teben’kov
The orders and measures set out in the dis-
patch of Your Excellency, of 12 May 1847, No.
370, for deliverance of slaves doomed to death
from the Kalosh, as well as the commendable zeal
in this case of the Interpreter Niktopoleon Gedeo-
31
nov, it is brought to the attention of M[r.] Minis-
ter of Finances with the petition to award
Gedeonov a silver //P. 116 ob./ medal for saving
the perishing.
Notifying Your Excellency about this, the
Board of Directors of the Russian-American Com-
pany considers it a duty to express to Your Ex-
cellency, and as well as to other respectable
residents of Novo-Arkhangel’sk, our complete ap-
preciation for the active participation in the ran-
som of slaves, and at the same time finding the
Company’s aid itself in this affair quite appropri-
ate, provides Your Excellency the annual use of up
to 500 rubles silver at the expense of the Company
for the ransom among the Kolosh of slaves, for the
most part doomed by them, at various cases //p.
117/ to death, and the people ransomed in this
way to settle at the discretion of Your Excellency,
in those places of the Colonies, where the Koloshi,
according to their usual way of life, can find the
most means for food and become useful to the
Company.
Chairman Wrangell
Members [of the Board of Directors]:
V. Politkovskii
A. Etolin
N. Kusov
For member [unintelligible]
NARS. RG 261. RRAC, roll 57, p. 41
26 March 1851, № 71.
CERTIFICATION
This is given to the nephew of the late Ko-
losh Akve Toyon Chagu, Kaat-sa-tty, for the fact
that he Kaat-sa-tty of modest behavior, meek tem-
per, was never in any hostile relations with the
Russians and not noticed in anything reprehensi-
ble; on the contrary, at the suggestion of the
Russians to the Koloshi: not to kill Kalgi, he
Kaat-sa-tty, in the performance of this served as an
example to his countrymen, setting free at no cost
two of his Kalog women, who with his consent
were, by order of the Colonial authorities, sent to
the Aleutian Islands, for free living there—that his
late uncle Toyon Chagu also was a good man and
devoted to the Russians //P. 41 ob./ for which a
silver medal was given to Toyon Chagu by the
Governor of the Colonies, Baron Wrangell, for
wearing on the neck on a scarlet ribbon, at the
awarding of which medal he was also given a Cer-
tificate of the 1st of September 1832 for No. 336
signed and sealed by the Governor of the Colonies,
which Certificate Kaat-sa-tty, at the death in 1848
of his uncle Toyon Chagu, inherited together with
the other property of the deceased, but the
32
aforesaid in this Certificate silver medal was lost
by Chagu himself, during a shipwreck on a trip
through the straits. – In confirmation of the
above-mentioned, he, of the Lituya clan, the very
Nephew of the deceased Kolosh Toyon Chagu,
Kolosh Kaat-sa-tty, has been given the Certificate
with my signature and with application of the seal
of the Governor of the Colonies. Port of Novo-
Arkhangel’sk, etc.
[Captain of 2nd Rank N. Ya. Rozenberg]
Endnotes
1. The modern name of the native residents of Ko-
diak, and the closely related Chugach Eskimos
who live on the shores and islands of Prince Wil-
liam Sound, is Alutiiq or Alutiit (pl.), derived from
the ethnonym “Aleut.” During the period of Rus-
sian America, not only the Aleuts proper were
called “Aleut” but, in general, all native workers,
regardless of their ethnic origin (Crowell 1997:10).
Also, modern Natives of Kodiak are called by their
ancestral name Sugpiaq (pl. Sugpiat) or Koniag.
2. The first time the ethnonym “Kolyushi” ap-
peared in Russian documents was in 1783 and la-
ter used mainly in two forms: “Kóloshi” and
“Kólyuzhi.” There are two versions of the origin of
this ethnic name: 1) from the Russian verb “ko-
lot’,” (i.e., “to prick,” “to prickle”) (perhaps this
was connected to the custom of Tlingit women to
pierce the lower lip and insert a labret into it); 2)
from the Aleutian word “kalyukakh,” which de-
noted wooden utensils because the Tlingit labrets
were vaguely reminiscent of wooden bowls or
spoons. The Russians used the word Kóloshi not
only for the Tlingit and Haida Kaigani living in
Alaska but also for all the Indians of the Northwest
Coast of America (see, for details, Gringv 1986).
3. The word “kayur” or “kaiur” (pl. kayury) is of
Kamchadal (Itelmen) origin and denotes “dog han-
dler, dogsled driver,” or, in a more widespread
meaning, “servant, hired worker.” This term, as
also some other words from the languages of peo-
ples of Siberia (“barabara,” “toyon,” “bat,” and
others) were brought to America by Russian pro-
myshlenniki (see, for details, Gringv 2000).
4. Stepan Fëdorovich Larionov, an Irkutsk mer-
chant of the 3rd guild, participated in the expedi-
tion of Grigorii Shelikhov in the conquest of Kodiak
Island in 1783–1786. He was the head of the Rus-
sian fort at Yakutat and was killed during its cap-
ture by Indians in August 1805 (Gringv 2009:294).
5. Matvei Murav’ëv probably refers to Greeks and
other Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Empire,
who were suffering from Turkish oppression.
Arctic Anthropology 57:1
6. These are the Pribilof Islands, rich in fur seals.
7. Here and further, the original document is em-
phasized. It is similar to other citations given in
this article.
8. The famous chief of the Kiks.ádi clan, who took
an active part in battles against the Russians in 1802
and 1804 (see, for details, Gringv 2005:116–139).
9. Elders of the local Natives were called in Rus-
sian America by the Yakut word “toion,” “toyon,”
or “toen.”
10. One silver ruble equals 3.5 banknote rubles
(assignatsiya).
11. Galvanic refers to an electric current.
12. Here, game refers to holding a potlatch.
13. In this case, Teben’kov is completely wrong:
only members of the opposite phratry received
gifts at the potlatch in strict accordance with their
rank in the clan hierarchy.
Archival Materials
ARGO—Arkhiv Russkogo Geograficheskogo obschestva
[Archive of Russian Geographic Society]. Razr.
99. Op. 1. D. 113. L. 53 ob. (L. A. Chernoviki,
Zagoskina [Draft Copies of L. A. Zagoskin]).
NARS—National Archives and Record Service. Wa-
shington, D.C. RG 261. RRAC, roll. 44:169–170.
Donesenie A. K. Etolina v GP RAK ot 27 sen-
tyabrya 1840 g. za № 138 [Report of A. K. Etolin
to the RAC Board of Directors of 27 September
1840, № 138].
NARS—National Archives and Record Service. Wa-
shington, D.C. RG 261. RRAC, roll. 48:211–213
ob. Donesenie A. K. Etolina v GP RAK ot 8 maya
1844 g. za № 273 [Report of A. K. Etolin to the
RAC Board of Directors of 8 May 1844, № 273].
NARS—National Archives and Record Service. Wa-
shington, D.C. RG 261. Records of the Russian
American Company, Correspondence of the
Governors-General, roll. 52:241–241 ob. Posla-
nie M. D. Teben’kova upravlyayushchemu os-
trovom Urupom Stepanu Govorovu ot 20
aprelya 1847 g. za № 109 [Message of M. D. Te-
ben’kov to manager of Urup Island Stepan Go-
vorov of 20 April 1847, № 109].
NARS—National Archives and Record Service. Wa-
shington, D.C. RG 261. Records of the Russian
American Company, Correspondence of the
Governors-General, roll. 17:116–116 ob. Depesha
GP RAK M. D. Teben’kovu ot 15 marta 1848 g. za
№ 338 [Dispatch from the RAC Board of Direc-
tors to M. D. Teben’kov of 15 March 1848, №
338].
Russian Resistance to Human Sacrifice among the Tlingit Indians (1819–1867)
NARS—National Archives and Record Service. Wa-
shington, D.C. RG 261. Records of the Russian
American Company, Correspondence of the
Governors-General, roll. 55:334. Svidetel’stvo tol-
machu koloshenskago yazyka Niktopoleonu Ge-
deonovu ot 22 dekabrya 1849 g. za № 530
[Certificate for interpreter of Tlingit language Nik-
topoleon Gedeonov of 22 December 1849, № 530].
NARS—National Archives and Record Service. Wa-
shington, D.C. RG 261. Records of the Russian
American Company, Correspondence of the
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V. Furugel’ma v GP RAK ot 9 oktyabrya 1861 g.
za № 424 [Report of I. V. Furuhjelm to the RAC
Board of Directors of 9 October 1861, № 424].
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