Many hunting peoples conceive of hunting as a process of reciprocal exchange between hunters and other‐than‐human persons, and anthropologists have tended to view such accounts as purely symbolic or metaphorical. To the extent that our theories deny the validity of northern hunters' conceptions of animals and the ontological assumptions on which they are based, however, we legitimize agents of the state when they dismiss the possibility that aboriginal knowledge and practices might serve as the factual basis for making wildlife management policy. In this article, I argue that our refusal to consider aboriginal accounts of hunting as perhaps literally as well as metaphorically valid has both contributed to the marginalization of aboriginal peoples and foreclosed important avenues of inquiry into hunting societies and the nature of human–animal relations. I focus on human–animal relations as a form of reciprocal exchange and argue that the development of a theoretical framework that can accommodate northern hunters' ontological assumptions is warranted theoretically as well as politically.

ABSTRACT. The integration of science and traditional knowledge (TEK), a cornerstone of contemporary cooperative management, entails translating First Nation people's life experiences into forms compatible with state wildlife management (e.g., numbers and lines on maps), with all the risks of distortion inherent in any translation process. Even after such a translation, however, knowledge-integration remains fraught with difficulties, many of which seem on the surface to be technical or methodological. Surprisingly, despite these difficulties, the literature is full of accounts of successful co-management. I call for a more critical and nuanced analysis of co-management, one that takes different perspectives into account and calls into question what we mean by "success" in the first place. To this end, I examine the case of the Ruby Range Sheep Steering Committee (RRSSC), a co-management body in the southwest Yukon that some have held up as a model of success. Over the course of three years, RRSSC members gathered information about Dall sheep (Ovis dalli dalli) from many sources and managed to express it all in forms compatible with scientific wildlife management. Yet, even then-with a single exception-RRSSC members failed to integrate their knowledge about sheep. Although there were numerous technical and methodological obstacles to knowledgeintegration, the underlying reasons for this failure were ultimately political. Thus, a focus on the political dimensions of knowledge-integration is essential to an understanding and assessment of co-management.Key words: traditional knowledge, cooperative management, space, time, trust, power, Dall sheep, wildlife, First Nations, Yukon RÉSUMÉ. L'intégration de la science et du savoir écologique traditionnel (SET), une pierre angulaire de la cogestion pratiquée de nos jours, nécessite que soit traduit le vécu des gens des Premières nations sous des formes compatibles avec la gestion gouvernementale de la faune (p. ex., chiffres et lignes sur les cartes), avec les risques de distorsion inhérents à toute opération traduisante. Mais même après une telle traduction, l'intégration du savoir reste truffée de difficultés, dont un grand nombre semble être de prime abord d'ordre technique ou méthodologique. Curieusement, malgré ces difficultés, la documentation regorge de témoignages de cogestion réussie. Je réclame une analyse plus critique et plus nuancée de la cogestion, une analyse qui tienne compte de différents points de vue et remette en question ce que l'on entend tout d'abord par «réussite». À cette fin, j'examine le cas du Comité directeur du mouflon de Ruby Range (RRSSC), organisme de cogestion situé dans le sud-ouest du Yukon et qui est cité par certains comme un modèle de réussite. Au cours d'une durée de trois ans, les membres du RRSSC ont collecté de l'information sur le mouflon de Dall (Ovis dalli dalli) auprès de sources multiples et ils sont parvenus à l'exprimer entièrement sous des formes compatibles avec la gestion scientifique de la faune. Pourtant, même là -à ...

Recent debates over the stereotype of the ''ecologically noble Indian'' have helped illuminate some of the ambiguities and complexities that characterize the relationship between indigenous peoples and environmentalism. But, while scholars engaged in this debate have examined the cultural assumptions underlying Euro-American notions of indigenousness, they have paid relatively little attention to the equally problematic concepts of environmentalism and conservation, and how use of these terms necessarily frames indigenous people's beliefs and values in Euro-North American cultural terms. This essay examines the cultural assumptions underlying these concepts and highlights political consequences of their use.The American Indians' cultural patterns, based on careful hunting and agriculture carried on according to spiritual perceptions of nature, actually preserved the earth and life on earth. . . . Indian conceptions of the universe and nature must be examined seriously, as valid ways of relating to the world, and not as superstitious, primitive, or unevolved. . . . Perhaps the most important insight which can be gained from the Indian heritage is reverence for the earth and life. -J. Donald Hughes, American Indian Ecology Save a whale, harpoon a Makah. -Slogan used by protesters opposing the hunting of whales by Makah Indians in Washington State As the above quotations suggest, relations between indigenous people and environmentalists are deeply ambivalent. 1 Over the past few decades, environmentalist thinkers have increasingly looked to indigenous peoples for inspiration and guidance (e.g., Booth and Jacobs 1990;Callicott 1982;Hughes 1983). Subscribing to a view like that presented by J. Donald Ethnohistory 52:2 (spring 2005)

AbstractThe Canadian government recently concluded a series of land claim and self-government agreements with many First Nations in the Yukon Territory. A result of First Nation claims to land and sovereignty in the region, these modern treaties grant First Nations some real powers of self-governance. They are framed in the idiom of sovereignty, but they also compel First Nation people to accept—in practice if not in theory—a host of Euro-American assumptions about power and governance that are implicit in such a framing. This article focuses on a central premise of the sovereignty concept: territorial jurisdiction. The Yukon agreements carve the Yukon into fourteen distinct First Nation “traditional territories.” Although many assume that these territories reflect “traditional” patterns of land-use and occupancy, indigenous society in the Yukon was not composed of distinct political entities each with jurisdiction over its own territory. Thus, the agreements do not simply formalize jurisdictional boundaries among pre-existing First Nation polities; rather, they are mechanisms for creating the legal and administrative systems that bring those polities into being. The powers these agreements confer come in the territorial currency of the modern state, and territorialization processes they engender are transforming First Nation society in radical and often unintended ways. One significant aspect of this transformation is the emergence of multiple ethno-territorial identities, and corresponding nationalist sentiments. I examine these processes by focusing on two cases of contemporary boundary making among Yukon First Nations.