Lincüt Foragers

Lincüt People
The Lincüt [pronounced Link-oot] foragers permanently reside in the northern circumpolar region, specifically Lapak Island, Alaska, with bands throughout the island and northern parts of Alaska. The island is 15 miles by 22 miles, located 50 miles west of Barrow, Alaska, and surrounded by the Chukchi Sea. The Lincüt foragers engage in hunting, fishing, and gathering to sustain their way of life. Hunting, fishing, and trapping are the main work activities of the Lincüt men. According to the American archeologist Lewis Binford (1990), the lower the climate temperature the more reliance on fishing (p. 134). Due to the proximity of the Chukchi Sea, a large part of the Lincüt diet consists of seals, walruses, polar bears, caribou,
Additionally, they will not marry anyone with the same last name. The incest taboo for the Lincüt means not marrying or having sexual relationships with kin up to and including your second cousin, so exogamy keeps the possibility of marrying kin minimal. Anik and Ila Yazzie married nine years ago when Ila was 15 and Anik was 25. The couple currently lives with Anik’s family in a small, close knit village of Snowsquall, approximately 100 people, located on the island’s eastern sea coastline; the village includes approximately ten extended households. An extended household contains more than one family unit that are related. In Anik and Ila’s circumstance, they live with their two children, Anik’s father and mother, and Anik’s brother’s family. In the Lincüt custom, nearly all adult couples living in Lincüt villages are in a monogamous marriage, which consists of two people. Following the pattern of other foragers, such as the Ju/’hoansi, Hazda, and Aleut-Inuits, who believe in the practice of polygyny, but have a low rate of polygyny marriage, which is a marriage involving one man with multiple wives (Walker, Hill, Flinn, & Ellsworth, 2011, p. 4). Anik and Ila lived in the housing complex with her parents during the first years of their marriage. They lived with Ila’s parents, so Anik could provide his negotiated four years of
The couple has two children; Sauri, who is 11, and Upusi, who is 6. The couple’s decision to only have two children was weighed by the amount of labor the children can contribute to the extended household versus how much each child costs in terms of the amount of sustenance needed and available to sustain