Alaska Natives (indigenous peoples of Alaska)

Alaska Natives are indigenous peoples who reside in the US state of Alaska. According to the 2020 US Census, the Alaska Native Alone population grew to 133,311—an increase of 10.9% since the 2010 census. This comprised 15.7 percent of the state’s total population. Alaska Natives are generally divided into three distinct groups: Native Americans, Eskimos, and Aleuts. These three groups are comprised of eleven different cultures that speak about twenty languages. Native American groups such as the Athabascan inhabit the interior of Alaska, while several Native American people of the Northwest Coast Culture live in the state’s southeastern panhandle. Eskimos such as the Inupiat, Yup’ik, and other peoples live in the northern and southwestern regions. The Aleuts, who are closely related to the Eskimo cultures, live along the southern coast and the Aleutian Islands.

Background

Scientists believe the first humans to arrive in North America migrated from Asia sometime between 15,000 and 25,000 years ago. They likely traveled across a land bridge that at the time connected northern Siberia with Alaska, or followed a sea route, sailing along the coastal areas of Siberia, Alaska, and down the shoreline of the Pacific Northwest. The Northern Hemisphere was still in the grip of the last ice age prior to about 11,500 years ago, so most of the new arrivals continued southward to warmer climates and spread out across the Americas. As the ice sheets began to recede, Native American peoples followed migrating herds of caribou and muskoxen northward and began to settle in the Alaskan interior.

About five thousand years ago, a nomadic people known as the Tuniit crossed over the Bering Strait from Siberia into northern Alaska. While some settled in Alaska, others spread out over the Arctic regions of Canada and Greenland. The Tuniit were able to adapt to the northern climate by developing an innovative way to make clothes from animal hides. They may also have been the first people in North America to use a bow and arrow for hunting.

About two thousand years ago, a new group of people migrated across the Bering Strait and displaced the Tuniit. This culture was called the Thule, named after an archeological site in Greenland. The Thule were accomplished seagoing hunters, using harpoons and hide boats called umiaks to hunt seals, walruses, and bowhead whales. About 1000 CE, the Thule began spreading across Arctic Canada and into Greenland, becoming the ancestors of the modern Eskimo and Inuit peoples.

The ancestors of the Aleuts settled the Aleutian Islands and the southern coast of Alaska about four thousand years ago. Although they were related to the indigenous peoples of Siberia, it remains unknown if they arrived from Siberia or migrated from the Alaskan mainland.

Overview: Eskimo

In Alaska, the term Eskimo is used as a broad categorization of the descendants of the Thule who live in the northern and southwestern regions of the state. The name itself comes from the French pronunciation of the word esquimaux. Linguists disagree as to whether the word—which is of Native American origin—means “eater of raw meat,” or “netter of snowshoes.” In Canada and Greenland, Eskimo is considered a derogatory term and has been replaced with the name Inuit. However, many Native Alaskans do not find the term objectionable and use it to refer to Eskimo cultures in general. When referring to a specific people, Native Alaskans use the name of that culture, such as the Yup’ik or Inupiat.

According to the US Census, the Yup’ik (YOO-pik) are the largest indigenous group in Alaska with a 2010 population of 33,889. The Yup’ik, and their linguistic relatives the Cup’ik, live in western and southwestern Alaska from Bristol Bay to Norton Sound along the Bering Sea. A small group of Yup’ik also live on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait. The St. Lawrence Yup’ik speak a dialect of their language closer to that spoken in Siberia than their counterparts on the Alaskan mainland.

The name Yup’ik means “genuine people.” The Yup’ik were traditionally semi-nomadic, moving seasonally to hunt sea mammals, moose, and caribou, to fish for salmon, or to gather plants and berries. The Yup’ik would hunt and gather food from spring through fall and spend the winters in permanent communities holding festivals and religious ceremonies. The people lived in homes primarily made of wood, some with underground entrances to guard against the cold. Men and women had separate structures, with the men living in a sort of community center and the women focusing on child-rearing and cooking. Today, the Yup’ik live in permanent villages with more modern housing. They remain deeply connected to their traditional culture, with many still practicing subsistence hunting and fishing.

The Inupiat (in-NOO-pee-at) are an indigenous people who live in the Arctic regions of Alaska from Norton Sound to the northern US-Canadian border. The Inupiat, which also means “genuine people” in their language, numbered 33,360 in the 2010 Census. The Inupiat are primarily Inuit who live on the Alaskan side of the border with Canada.

Similar to the Yup’ik, the Inupiat also relied on hunting, fishing, and gathering plants and berries for their survival. However, they established more permanent settlements, traveling between temporary camps with the seasons. Traditional Inupiat homes were often built from a whale bone or wooden frame and covered with sod. While these homes were called iglus, the name referred to a house built out of any material. The iconic “igloo” house made out of packed snow was a product of the Canadian and Greenland Inuit and not made by the Inupiat. Many modern Inupiat still rely on hunting and fishing, but to many people, these practices are more than just for subsistence purposes. They represent a way of life and strong respect for hard work, family, and nature.

Native Americans

The Athabascan people are the largest single group of Native Americans in Alaska. The Athabascans, who call themselves the Dena (“the people”), are comprised of eleven linguistic groups—the Ahtna, Deg Hit’an, Dena’ina, Gwich’in, Hän, Holikachuk, Kolchan, Koyukon, Lower Tanana, Tanacross, and Upper Tanana. The name of the tallest mountain in Alaska and all of North America, Denali, comes from the Koyukon dialect and means “the great one.” The Athabascan people inhabit the Alaskan interior from the Brooks Mountain Range in the north down to the Kenai Peninsula. In the 2010 US Census, 22,484 people identified as Alaskan Athabascan.

The Athabascans were traditionally nomadic, traveling along the region’s five major waterways trapping small game, fishing for salmon, and hunting moose and caribou. The Athabascans moved in small groups, usually about twenty to forty people, staying in fishing camps during the summer and base camps in the winter. Most Athabascan societies were matrilineal, meaning a child was considered part of the mother’s clan and lineage was passed down through her side of the family. Their nomadic lifestyle brought them into contact with other Native Alaskan people, leading to the development of a lucrative trading network. The Athabascan people exchanged items such as furs for oil, blankets, and copper.

Several Native American peoples live on the southern coastal regions and along the southeastern Alaskan panhandle. The largest of these groups is the Tlingit (KLINK-it), a name meaning “people of the tides.” In the early twentieth century, the Tlingit joined with the neighboring Haida (HIGH-duh) people to form the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. Although they are two distinct peoples, the Tlingit-Haida are counted together for census purposes. In 2010, their population numbered 26,080. Other Native American groups in the region include the Tsimshian (SIM-shee-ann), with a 2010 US population of 3,755, and the Eyak (EE-yak), who numbered just over 120.

These four groups are part of the Northwest Coastal Culture, indigenous peoples who inhabit the Pacific coast regions from southeastern Alaska to northern Oregon. Despite some language and cultural differences, the people of the Northwest coast share several common elements. The coastal forests of their homelands provide salmon, halibut, crab, and clams for fishing and seal, moose, and deer for hunting. They are also skilled craftspeople, especially when it comes to woodworking. The people of the region are famous for their large, intricately carved canoes, which are made from the area’s giant cedar trees.

The trees are also used to create totem poles, large wooden monuments carved with a unique pattern of animals, humans, and supernatural beings. The totem poles are meant to tell a story about a people, family, or clan, with images representing a specific aspect of the story or history. The Haida are known for building the largest totem poles, with some standing more than 100-feet (30.5-meters) high. The Haida also constructed the largest wooden canoes, some approaching 70-feet (21-meters) long and able to hold about sixty people.

The Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and Eyak structure their societies along a dual-clan system consisting of two moieties. The moieties are the Raven and the Eagle, although the Tlingit sometime refer to the Eagle as the Wolf clan. Their societies are also matrilineal, with children becoming members of their mother’s clan. Marriages were typically arranged between members of opposite clans. Similar to the other Northwest Coast Cultures, the indigenous people of southeastern Alaska took part in the traditional potlach ceremony. A potlach is a community feast in which gifts are exchanged as a way of showing social status and redistributing wealth.

Aleuts

The Aleut (al-ee-oot) people live on the southern coast of the Alaskan peninsula and the Aleutian Islands, an island chain that stretches for about 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) into the Bering Sea. The Aleuts are culturally and linguistically similar to the Yup’ik and Inupiat and the indigenous people of Siberia. The people are divided into two language groups, the Aleut and the Alutiiq, terms that were given to them by Russian fur traders in the eighteenth century. The Aleuts refer to themselves as the Unangax (Oo-nun-gahx) and the Alutiiq as the Sugpiaq (Soog-pyack). In their respective dialects, both names are a variation of “coastal people” or “seasider.” The Aleuts live primarily on the Aleutian Islands and the Pribilof Islands, while the Alutiiq live on Kodiak Island and the coast of Prince William Sound. According to the US Census, the 2010 Aleut population was 19,282.

The Aleuts are a maritime people who primarily rely on the sea for their survival. Traditionally, Aleut men hunted sea mammals such as whales, otters, sea lions, seals, and walruses. They sailed the coastal seas and waterways in one- or two-person hide-covered kayaks called baidarkas, and their culture spread and flourished throughout the island chain. Some baidarkas were used for hunting, while others were used to transport goods between communities. Aleut women caught fish, birds, and shellfish and gathered berries and plants. Aleut women are also renowned for their basket-making ability.

The traditional Aleut home was a long, partially underground shelter made of whale bone or wood and covered with grass. The entrance to the home was placed on top and accessed by a ladder. Aleut hunters wore ceremonial clothes designed to honor the spirits of the animals they killed. Other aspects of Aleut clothing, such as hats adorned with feathers or sea lion whiskers, was intended to demonstrate a person’s social status or skill as a hunter.

The Aleuts were one of the first Alaskan Natives to make contact with Europeans when Russian explorers landed on the Aleutian Islands in 1741. Russian fur traders treated the Aleuts like indentured servants, relocating many villages and forcing them to use their hunting skills to harvest furs. As a result, the traditional Aleut way of life was decimated and their population nearly wiped out. At the time of first contact, an estimated twenty-five thousand Aleuts lived in the region; by the end of the nineteenth century, that number had fallen to about two thousand.

The Aleut population has rebounded in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with many people still practicing their traditional hunting and fishing lifestyles. The influence of Russian contact remains apparent in modern Aleut culture. The Aleut language has incorporated several Russian words, and many people are members of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to legend, an Aleut boy named Chunagnak converted to the Russian Orthodox religion in the early nineteenth century and took the name Peter. He was later tortured and killed by Roman Catholic Spaniards. In the Eastern Orthodox faith, he is venerated as a martyr and known as Saint Peter the Aleut.

The impacts of global climate change are particularly acute in the polar regions of the Earth. Alaska Native communities are thus at the forefront of new and adverse climatic conditions. One of the most significant changes is the receding of sea ice and its impacts on traditional Native food sources of both plants and animals. The erosion of the Alaska landmass, a result of rising sea levels, has also become a worrisome issue. The experiences and the measures adopted by  Alaska Native nations will become increasingly significant to other global communities as they devise adaptive measures to new climatic realities.

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