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Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The House Full Of Otters: Recalling Human–Sea Otter Relationships On An Indigenous Oregon Coast, Douglas Deur, Peter Hatch, Hannah Wellman
The House Full Of Otters: Recalling Human–Sea Otter Relationships On An Indigenous Oregon Coast, Douglas Deur, Peter Hatch, Hannah Wellman
Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations
Sea otters have held a special role in the cultural, spiritual, and economic life of Native American communities throughout recorded time. Along the coast of what is now Oregon, Native oral traditions recall a rich history of human encounters with sea otters, and speak of the species’ ubiquity, significance, and sentience. Native people also hunted sea otters, fashioning their uniquely dense fur into chiefly robes and using the pelts in ways central to community life — presaging the species’ later role in the global fur trade. Archaeological evidence of sea otter use can be found in sites of diverse antiquity …
Glimpses Of Oregon’S Sea Otters, Cameron La Follette, Douglas Deur
Glimpses Of Oregon’S Sea Otters, Cameron La Follette, Douglas Deur
Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations
Sea otters are an iconic species in the history of what is now known as Oregon. Their pelts brought great wealth in late eighteenth and nineteenth century China, motivating some of Oregon’s earliest exploration, trade, and contact between Native American and Euro-American people. Over time, hunting eliminated the species from Oregon’s coastal waters. This article provides a broad introduction to the history of Oregon’s now-extinct sea otter population, describing the emergence of the Chinese market that created and sustained the hunt, the British discovery of profits to be made by trading for the pelts, and the rise of American traders. …
The Invisible Slaughter: Local Sea Otter Hunters On The Oregon Coast, Cameron La Follette, Richard Ravalli, Peter Hatch, Douglas Deur, Ryan Tucker Jones
The Invisible Slaughter: Local Sea Otter Hunters On The Oregon Coast, Cameron La Follette, Richard Ravalli, Peter Hatch, Douglas Deur, Ryan Tucker Jones
Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations
Most accounts of the extirpation of sea otters from the Oregon coast focus on the well-documented international maritime fur trade of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The historical record shows, however, that sea otters persisted much later. The final extirpation in Oregon occurred as a result of household-scale hunting by Native Americans and Euro-American settlers, from the mid-nineteenth century until around 1910. Especially on the south coast, a cottage industry of sea otter hunting flourished for decades — a pattern similar to the neighboring states of Washington and California. This article summarizes this long-ignored history, drawing from the …