This sketch is a brief account of the culture and society of the Tôlte people. It is intended to accompany the Feorran Reference Grammar. As with the grammar, it is based upon fieldwork conducted in Antarctica in 1995-96. A more complete ethnography is now in preperation. All readers desiring more information about the native peoples of Antarctica should begin with Gleach's (1994) monumental 4 volume monograph on the subject.
The Tôlte have been called The Peaceful People, while
they are
surely that, a more accurate name might be The Practical People.
Antarctica is the most hostile environment ever colonized by
humankind and any behavior that gets in the way of surviving is
simply not tolerated. Death comes very suddenly on the ice and
there are rarely second chances. The lifestyles and culture of
the Antarctic Peoples have remained largely unchanged since the
time of first contact in the early 19th century. The Tôlte
were
first contacted by the British explorer, Sir James Clark Ross in
1841. Contact remained sporadic over the next hundred years or
so. Population density is so low that a major expedition could
come and go with no real contact having been made. The United
States and New Zealand both became more active in the Victoria
Land and Ross Ice Shelf area after World War II and this greatly
increased the amount of contact. New Zealand has taken the lead
in protecting these gentle people from those who might exploit
them. Such exploitation, has as a whole, been rather scarce in
Antarctica. The native peoples live in widely scattered
settlements, in a very harsh and uninviting environment, with few
accessible resources worth coveting. Simply put, they were not
worth the trouble! The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 included
provisions preventing interference with native life and this has
since been renewed.
The most basic family unit is the nuclear family, seoqha, consisting of a husband, wife, and children. Often the household will include an elderly parent of the husband or wife, an unmarried sibling of one of the spouses, and perhaps an adopted child. If a man is killed, his brother will usually marry his wife, even if he is already married. Similarly, a man who looses his spouse my join his brother in a polyandrous marriage. All three partners must always agree in any case. If a woman is unmarried past a certain age (which is not defined other than being too old), her sister's husband will often take her a second wife. The difficulties of providing for the household increase for males with more than one wife just as the extra pair of hands eases the burden for women and no man would be allowed to take a second wife if he can not provide for her.
Marriage and divorce are handled simply. The prospective spouses meet with a shaman who attempts to divine their future happiness. If he agrees, and s/he usually does, they announce their marriage at the next band gathering. The shaman is always present to insure that his approval is a matter of public record. The families of both spouses then arrange to begin building a gëspu for the couple the following spring. Until then, they live with the father of the groom if space allows, or in the clanlodge if it does not. Divorce is just as easily accomplished. The spouse who desires to end the marriage meets with the shaman and a village elder. After discussion, they all three go to the next band gathering and announce the dissolution of the marriage. If children are involved, they will usually stay with the father's family but exceptions are made.
Beyond the family is a group variously referred to in the
literature as the clan or band (Andrews 1983:20-23). This unit,
called a berô, consists of a number of patrilineally
related families who have a common totem. The berô is an
autonomous political unit as well as being kin. Thus, they take
on elements of both clan and band (the words will be used
interchangeably below). Most villages consist of 2 or more
berô at any given time but the berô come and go on
their own schedules and do not move together. For example, the
Killer Whale Clan and the Skua Clan share a summer village at
Cape Haskell. But then, as winter approaches, the Killer Whale
Clan moves back to their winter village near Mt. Erebus which
they share with the Driftwood Clan. Meanwhile, the Skua Clan has
moved to a site near the foot of the Transantarctic Mountains
where they will share a village site with the Weddell Seal Clan
and the Adélie Penguin Clan. While in villages together,
the elders and shamans share decision making power and all groups
interact amicably. These groups tend to be maximally
differentiated in terms of kinship. Each berô shares a
village, whether winter or summer, with a group that is beyond
their incest taboos. I asked the Shaman Soqhai, my advisor on so
many things about the Tôlte, if this was done
intentionally. He said no, these arrangements change when people
get tired of seeing the same faces all the time.
The berô vary in size but 50-75 is common. I was
unable to gather a full list and some groups share clan totems,
whether related or not, but there seem to be at least 20
different groups. This tallies well with an estimate of 9 summer
and 8 winter villages.
The Tôlte's treatment of the elderly and the disabled
must be mentioned here because it has been the cause of much
criticism and debate (see e.g. Heckman 1953). It has been
reported that the Tôlte kill everyone who reaches a certain
age or has a broken limb (Breyer 1933.). This is no longer true
if indeed it ever was. A person with a broken arm, or leg, the
able elderly, or someone is partially crippled, will be nursed
back to health or helped along the way during migrations. Those
people who are unable to fend for themselves and who become too
great a drain on the limited resources of the community are
somewhat of a different story. The family who can no longer
support this type of loss will approach a shaman and/or village
elders to discuss the situation. Decisions of this sort are not
made easily nor quickly. If after long consultations the elders
and the shaman concur, the shaman and a close friend will
approach the disabled person and attempt to persuade him/her to
'go to the sea' as the phrase goes. If s/he agrees, and most do,
a last farewell dinner is held on the night before the band moves
on to the next village. The next morning, when the berô
moves on, the shaman and the friend stay behind and escort the
person out to the sea. Soqhai claims they never push anyone in,
it is always a voluntary leap, or fall, or roll into the icy
water and the embrace of Gauku, who in the end, reclaims all his
errant children (see below.)
Religion shapes the world view of the Tôlte in every dimension and aspect. The Tôlte believe that the world is a giant disc, surrounded by oceans. At the center of the disc, lies Gauku, the malevolant god who created all the world. Gauku is a god of the cold, the ice and the snow. He created animals to worship and praise him, allowing them only such warmth as they could carry inside themselve. Because Gauku was a jealous god, he also created Meorre, the spirit of the sun and Lëlkin, the spirit of the moon. Together they were to roam the skies and ensure that all animals everywhere worshipped and praised only Gauku. Meorre decided that he too would like to be praised and worshipped, so in secret he took some of the animals, some say they were Emperor Penguins, some say they were seals, and took away their fur and blubber. He taught them how to cover themselves with animal skins to be warm outside, how to build shelters, and how to make fire. Since he was responsible for all of this, he alone would be deserving of their praise. All humans are descended from these Ur-people.
Gauku remains jealous and continually strives to sieze back the humans, to punish them with cold, ice, and wind. Only by building their small fires, by entering into the sacred sweat lodges, and by praising Meorre, is Gauku kept from a complete victory. Gauku only takes the humans now when they die for all dead animals and people go to dwell with him.
The world around the Tôlte is filled with spirits and demons of the ice, snow, wind, the sea, and for the various animals. Spirits, which are mostly animals, are considered to be neutral, the demons, which are mostly natural forces, are malevolent and are agents of Gauku. Shamans work to please spirits and to neutralize or ward off the demons.
Similar beliefs with various modifications are found along
much of the Antarctic Coast (Thompson 1947:125). The Tôlte
and
most peoples of Antarctica have been kept free from the
interference
and destruction of missionaries. This is in large part due to
the wave of revulsion felt around the world in 1938, when a newly
discovered people, the Ko, were wiped out within weeks by a virus
accidently introduced by recently arrived missionaries. Today
little is known about the Ko but to their credit, the
missionaries were so distraught over the disaster they had
precipitated, that they left almost immediately. Now the
Antarctic Treaty of 1961 requires that tribes approve of anyone
coming to visit them and that such requests must be filtered
through both tribal leaders and shamans.
Shamans, star, fill an important niche in Tôlte society because they act as intermediaries between humans and the supernatural world. Shamans may be either male or female but are expected to remain unmarried although not celibate. Sexual favors are often part of the price of their services. Female shamans give any children that result up for adoption and the children of shamans are valued highly. Shamans are expected to lead people in rituals as well as performing others privately. They make fetishes for people in need of luck or who fear they have offended a spirit. And they are the healers of the sick and injured. One apprentices to a practicing shaman for many years although there is no set period. Prospective shamans must be called by Meorre, a process involving a vision-quest and about which I was told very little (see also Franklin 1967:1-2).
Shamans spend long periods alone in particularly holy places. The Dry Valleys, faleo, Ross Island, fakik anle, and Mt. Erebus, meorreq noki, are considered to be sacred to Meorre and it is said that he made the First Woman in one of the Dry Valleys. Most shamans maintain gëspu in these places and they will gather there to carry out rituals that must not be seen by profane eyes, unfortunately including mine.
Shamans do not hunt, a band supports him/her collectively and through payments for services rendered. Although they do not hunt, they will often accompany hunting expeditions, especially those going after Emperor penguins. These expeditions are very dangerous, both from objective dangers such as weather but also spiritually as Gauku's agents are still very active.
As healers shamans perform the more mundane tasks of healing the all too frequent burns, frostbite, and broken limbs. Unfortunately, nature has provided them with few of the ethnobotanical tools they need and they must make do with those lichens and mosses whose properties they have discovered. More serious illness is remarkably rare (Smits 1979:87) and is usually treated with sweat baths and disease specific rituals. The Tôlte believe diseases are caused by tiny spirits called tisrë who are employed by Gauku to kill people. Only by invoking the stronger spirit of Meorre may they be resisted. Healing rituals involve chanting, the presence of a sacred lamp and occasionally the 'sucking' out of the fupeqis.
Formerly witchcraft was a serious problem among the
Tôlte but
it is difficult to get a clear grasp of its historicity (Gleach
1989:50). It appears to have a short lived outbreak that
temporarily wreaked havoc as accused and identified witches were
bound and thrown into the sea from the edge of the Ross Ice
Shelf. Everyone I spoke to about witches was unconcerned and a
typical answer was "zeqë satus aq so zeqë satuthir
da aq"
('they were here but they are not here now.') Shamans were
active in detecting witches but they share the general
nonchalance of the average Tôlte. Ghosts,
rôrre, on the
other
hand are a quite different story. Ghosts are sent by Gauku,
especially during the winter darkness. Ghosts are considered to
be lonely for the friends and family they have left behind and
they call to them from outside the gëspu, trying to get the
living to join them. Shamans practice rituals which strengthen
the will of the living not to answer the call and provide
fetishes to be placed in the entrance tunnels of the lodges. The
fetishes confuse the ghosts who no longer call out names but only
wail in their loneliness and anguish. Ghosts are described as
being a ghastly white, almost transparent and very tall and thin.
Early accounts of European-Tôlte contact often mention that
the
Tôlte were terrified of these strange white people they
thought might be ghosts.
The Tôlte lack both bows and spears, a fact which
reflects the
lack of acceptable materials for their construction. The primary
hunting weapons are bolas, slings, nets, and snares. The bolas
is used almost exclusively on penguins although I have seen a
hunter use one to take a leopard seal! The sling is the all-
around hunting weapon. By the time a small boy is 8 or 9 years
old, he can knock a lowflying bird out of the sky with an
expertly hurled stone. Adult hunters can project a moderately
heavy stone with sufficient force to kill smaller game and to
stun seals. The latter are then finished off with knifes or
special clubs made of a carved, single piece of stone, ,
in English, a penguin-killer. Nets
are mostly used for penguin chicks and birds but in the right
terrain, a hunter will chose a net even for seals. Snares are
placed in seal breathing holes. When a seal rises to breathe,
the snare is pulled tight and the seal is allowed to strangle
before being pulled out of the water. This takes considerable
practice to perfect as it must be done by ear alone and involves
a hunter lying motionless on the ice for often long periods of
time.
The Adélie Penguin is harvested in larger numbers and
throughout the summer months. Although outsiders disdain penguin
flesh as being excessively oily and fishy tasting, all the
Antarctic peoples relish it. The Tôlte themselves compose
long
poems and songs to the Adélie and its delectable flesh.
It is
also a valuable source of oil which is burned in lamps as well as
being drank before hunting expeditions. An especially prized
food is a kind of soup made from the partially digested contents
of Adélie penguin stomachs. I could not bring myself to
try as
it both smells and looks terrible
The parka or rôkim is the key to survival. It also has an outer layer of sealskin but two layers of Emperor penguin chick skins are quilted to together and worn under it. The rôkim has an attached hood made in the same manner. The hood is designed so that it can be worn open and protruding out from the face for several inches or drawn down tight around the face, leaving only eyeslits and a small area for the nose. A penguin skin face mask is often worn with this to provide protection against the wind. In very cold conditions, a balaclava-like hat made again of penguin chick pelts is worn as well. The rôkim has drawstrings about its hem and midsection which may be loosened or tightened as necessary for warmth or cooling.
A double layered mitten, the theosam is worn. It has an outer of double-layered sealskin, usually with a penguin chick pelt sewn between them. The outer mittens are joined by a string that runs up the sleeves and around the neck. The inner layer is made of sealskin and may have the first two fingers seperated to add dexterity. The rôkim also has a handwarmer pocket and hunters will often pull their hands out of the outer mitten and put them in the handwarmers while they are waiting by seal breathing holes or marching to penguin rookeries.
The boot, or jerer, is also made in layers. A tough layer of seal skin is used to make the sole. The body of the boot consists of a double layer of sealskin with penguin chick skins sewn between them. The boots are nearly knee high, lace up for a snug but not too snug fit and are designed so that the trousers are tucked into them for extra-warmth. In very cold conditions, an Adélie penguin chick sock, äkso, is added.
Clothing for the Tôlte is strictly for practical purposes and little attention is paid to ornamenting individual pieces. Within the stonelodge, clothing is worn as necessary for warmth or discarded as needed.
Like the Arctic peoples, it is common for the Tôlte to
sleep
nude. They make sleeping bags which consist a of sealskin bottom
and a double layered penguin chick skin top. Husband and wife
usually share a bag as do small children. Larger children and
single adults sleep in single bags that are proportioned to their
size. The top of all sleeping bags is shortere than the bottom
and a single layered penguin chick cape is attached near the head
of the bag. In very cold weather, this is loosely draped over
the sleepers heads.
Larger structures are built, the clanlodge daimo, may be 8-10 meters in diameter. Although still relying on arches for support, there are also several supporting columns, posra, on the interior. The clanlodge is warmed by at least 2 stoves and is used as a communal meeting place.
Stonework is still widely practiced and fathers continue to teach their sons the art. Practicality is the rule here, they will use their steel tools, but if one is lost or broken, they cannot easily replace it while stone is usually easily available. The Tôlte prefer to knap flint or obsidian but will also work a variety of sedimentary and igneous stones. They make some extraordinarily beautiful knives and scrapers and more so than any other Antarctic people, seem to be the heirs of the socalled Fluteleaf Blade Culture of Antarctic prehistory (Harumi 1981:35).
Driftwood is a rare and valuable commodity to the Tôlte
and
generally considered to be a gift from Meorre. They prize it for
its utility and beauty in a wide variety of tools. Most knives
are hafted with wood and some driftwood finds its way into
firedrills. It is most common as a snow saw, used in the making
of snow lodges (see below.) The origin of driftwood was formerly
the subject of long debate around the kolqi (Burrows 1938:85-87)
but I found that most people today accept the idea of trees,
albeit with some degree of incomprehension.
Because this part of Antarctica undergoes long periods of darkness and daylight, the people of any one village tend to fall out of sync with other villages. There are no words which truly mean tomorrow or yesterday. There are rather, terms such as feo, 'today, this waking period' and nau, 'tonight, next sleeping period' (see also the grammar section dealing with Natural Adverbs. When I first arrived, I realized rather quickly that my midnight was the village's early morning! In any case, time-of-day loses a lot of its meaning for these people and there is often something going on at any given time.
The Tôlte love feasts and any excuse for getting together to eat, sing, and joke is welcome. Music is an important part of their lives and they will gladly make up a new song for almost any occasion or theme. Their only musical instruments are whistles, thispi, bone flutes, hewe, bone panpipes hehewe, and a tambourine like flat drum, bôqom. It quickly becomes apparent that making a lot of noise is at least as important as holding a tune and I must admit to failing miserably at my attempts to transcribe Tôlte music.
One other group activity that occurs is coal mining. There
are several open seams of anthracite coal in Victoria Land and at
any given time during the summer, one berô or more is
camped out near them. They dig out the coal with stone tools,
break it into smaller chunks and haul to their village caches in
large sealskin bags. Its bulk and the intensive labor required
to move coal means that is only used for carefully selected
purposes and is jealously guarded. Commonly 2 or more berô
(usually if not always distantly related) lay claim to the same
coal seam. Rather than being a cause of conflict, the chance
meeting of the two groups provides yet another reason to exchange
gifts, have a feast and sing songs.
About every 2 years, some groups go the opposite direction,
along the Oates Coast, trading with the Heron and peoples of
Wilkes Land. From them they received sealskins and often
whalebone implements. These groups are also peoples with whom
the Tôlte exchanged unmarried women. The numbers are never
large, perhaps at most 5-10 women from each side stay behind each
visit. Women are not forced to stay, rather they are encouraged
to look for prospective spouses among the other people.
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