The traditional legal system of the Tlingit Indians, who occupy Southeast Alaska on the Northwest Coast of North America, is based on ideologies and practices that recognize communal ownership of both tangible and intangible or intellectual property. Tlingit jurisprudence and property law are grounded in the metaphysical, and the application of sanctions to violations of legal norms involve both social and supernatural repercussions. This study focuses on a discrete component of a tribal society's legal system. Its basic objective has been to understand the ideologies and norms that govern a tribal society's interrelationship and their rights to property of economic, social and spiritual value. This study specifically examines the social and ideological basis of communal claims of ownership to property among the Tlingit and the interrelationship between its metaphysical ideologies and infrastructure, and Tlingit legal norms governing property. To do so, it analyzes the Tlingit concept of at.oow which is central to Tlingit law and property. This study also examines the traditional judicial institutions that were utilized in the dispute settlement process prior to the adoption of Western court systems.
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