Abstract:
Yup'ik and Inupiat villages in Alaska (the territory and the state) experienced a process of legal socialization that was strongly influenced by serious constraints in the allocation of resources. These constraints resulted in legal socialization into what was in essence a second legal state system and provided an opportunity for cultural autonomy by Eskimo villages, even though this de facto situation did not recognize these groups as sovereign tribes. The actual implementation of a single full-blown legal system in village Alaska in the mid-1970s has resulted in a loss of control and serious efforts by Alaska villages to reinstitute village law ways as tribal legal process.