PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
ED  - Krupnik, Igor
ED  - Pratt, Kenneth L.
AU  - Erica Hill
TI  - The Nonempirical Past: Enculturated Landscapes and Other-than-Human Persons in Southwest Alaska
AID  - 10.1353/arc.2012.0021
DP  - 2012 Sep 19
TA  - Arctic Anthropology
PG  - 41--57
VI  - 49
IP  - 2
4099  - http://aa.uwpress.org/content/49/2/41.short
4100  - http://aa.uwpress.org/content/49/2/41.full
SO  - Arctic Anthropol2012 Sep 19; 49
AB  - In 1971, Ernest S. Burch identified “nonempirical phenomena” as variables in travel and settlement decision-making among Iñupiaq Eskimo of Northwest Alaska. This article parses the term “nonempirical” and advocates the use of Hallowell’s (1960) term “other-than-human” to describe the extraordinary persons known to Yupiit and Inupiat of Alaska. I discuss the ways in which place names and oral narratives can contribute to an understanding of the relational, intersubjective nature of Yupiit interactions with other-than-human persons and describe how such relations were anchored in enculturated landscapes. Finally, I address how archaeology is uniquely positioned to contribute to reconstructions of prehistoric ontologies that materialized relations between “real people” and the other-than-human persons with whom they shared the animated, dynamic landscapes of Southwest Alaska.