The legitimation of beliefs in a hunter‐gatherer society: Bearlake Athapaskan knowledge and authority

Abstract

Anthropologists sometimes suggest that northeastern Athapaskan‐speaking Indians have distinctive ideas about the relationships among individual autonomy, knowledge, and power. One feature of northeastern Athapaskan culture, as realized among the Bearlake Athapaskans, is the significance attributed to experiential knowledge and primary epistemic reasons in the justification of beliefs. Individual authority is based on and legitimated by primary knowledge. The epistemological and political significance of such knowledge derives from the Bearlake hunter‐gatherer mode of production. [knowledge, authority, hunter‐gatherers, Athapaskan]