Eyak people

The Eyak people are an Indigenous group who lives in a small area along the Copper River in Alaska. The Eyak people’s ancestors first settled in the area about ten thousand years ago. No full-blooded Eyak survive, and the last Indigenous speaker of the Eyak language died in 2008. The group had always been small, but the effects of European colonization reduced its size to only about sixty people by the 1910s. Since the mid-1900s, efforts have been made to preserve the Eyak’s culture and language, which were nearly lost because of forced assimilation and other hardships. In the twenty-first century, the Eyak people still live near their ancestral homeland.

Background

Before Russian settlers began a wave of European colonization in Alaska, many Indigenous groups lived and thrived in Alaska. Together, these groups are known as Alaska Natives. Individual groups had their own culture and language. Anthropologists often include the Eyak’s culture with a larger group called the Northwest Coast Culture, which includes the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian. These Indigenous peoples traditionally lived from Alaska down into present-day Oregon. The traditional Eyak culture and that of other Alaska Natives were greatly influenced by and dependent upon the area’s natural resources. The various cultures that developed in the area interacted with one another, and the Eyak people served as intermediaries among various groups that traded in the region.

Overview

The Eyak people developed a culture that was unique among the Indigenous groups living near the Copper River. The Eyak and the Alutiiq were the main groups in the area, with the Tlingit and Athabascan people living alongside them. The Eyak people’s territory has changed over time. They have lived as far north as present-day Prince William Sound and as far south as what is called the Italio River in Alaska. To hunt seals, the Eyak people also traveled to Middleton Island and possibly other islands. The region where the Eyak people live is a temperate rainforest, receiving 100 to 200 inches (254 to 508 centimeters) of rain per year.

The Eyak language is unique among Indigenous languages in the region and only distantly related to other Athabascan languages, which were predominant among Indigenous communities. Their language is also distinct from those of the nearby Alutiiq and Tlingit peoples. The last fluent Indigenous speaker of Eyak, and the last full-blooded member of the Eyak people, died in 2008. In the mid-2020s, the language survives but is only spoken by around fifty people.

The Eyak people built homes from local wood sources, including hemlock, spruce, and cedar. Their houses were large and held multiple families. They had central fireplaces and smoke holes in the roofs. A clan of about twenty to fifty people usually lived in a home. Villages often had three hundred to five hundred members. They also used trees to make totem poles, tools, ceremonial objects, and other instruments. The Eyak people also used wood fibers to make clothing and bedding. They braided these fibers to make mats for sleeping and wove wood fibers and grasses to make baskets. The Eyak people also used other materials from nature to make what they needed. For example, they used shells to create tools and oil from fish to make candles. They also used animal furs to make clothes. They began using cotton, wool, and iron to make objects after they started trading with colonizers. The Eyak people depended on streams, rivers, and the ocean to harvest fish and other animals for food. They created fences and traps to catch salmon and other fish. They also collected clams, berries, and seaweed for food and hunted seals during specific times of the year.

The abundant wildlife and resources of the Copper River and surrounding areas were attractive to European colonizers, whose settlement in the area proved destructive to traditional Eyak communities. The first Europeans to settle in the area were Russian, followed by later Spanish and English groups. The Russians created a trading post at Nuuciq, where they collected furs and enslaved Indigenous people. The US took control of Alaska in 1867, which brought new waves of immigration from Europe and Asia to Alaska. Their cultures began blending with the Indigenous cultures of the region. When oil was discovered near the settlement of Cordova in 1909, the Eyak people’s population was only about sixty people. The immigration and change that came about because of oil discovery further eroded Eyak culture. Many Indigenous children in Alaska and throughout North America were sent to boarding schools, where students were forced to adopt European-American clothes and practices, punished for using their Indigenous languages, and cut off from their culture. Indigenous people were also discriminated against by being denied rights given to European settlers.

In the 1970s, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act helped spur an interest in preserving Alaska Native cultures and languages, though much cultural destruction had already happened. Communities began holding festivals to celebrate Indigenous cultures. People also began constructing dictionaries and other resources to help preserve Indigenous languages. The Ilanka Cultural Center was opened in Cordova, which was the location of the original Eyak village. The Native Village of Eyak Traditional Tribal Council is the modern governing body of the Eyak people. Council members come from the Eyak community and help make decisions affecting the entire community. The council helps to provide social and government services but also promotes the well-being and spiritual health of the community. However, although descendants of the Eyak people live throughout Alaska and the lower states, to qualify as Indigenous members of the Native Village of Eyak, one must live in Cordova for the majority of the year.

Bibliography

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Barnes, LaRue. “Eyak.” Smithsonian Institution, alaska.si.edu/culture‗eyak.asp?continue=1. Accessed 6 Apr. 2021.

“Eyak Culture.” The Eyak Preservation Council, 2021, www.eyakpreservationcouncil.org/culture/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2021.

“The Eyak Language Project.” The Eyak Preservation Council, www.eyakpreservationcouncil.org/culture/eyak-revitalization-project. Accessed 15 May 2024.

“Habitat Protection.” The Eyak Preservation Council, 2021, www.eyakpreservationcouncil.org/conservation/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2021.

“IiyaaGdaad about Native Village of Eyak.” Native Village of Eyak, www.eyak-nsn.gov/about-us. Accessed 15 May 2024.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. “Last Words.” New Yorker, 29 May 2005, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/06/06/last-words-8. Accessed 15 May 2024.

“Languages - Eyak - Alaska Native Language Center.” University of Alaska Fairbanks, www.uaf.edu/anlc/languages-move/eyak.php. Accessed 15 May 2024.

“Overview of the Eyak Language.” The University of Alaska Fairbanks, www.uaf.edu/anla/collections/eyak/about/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2021.

Smith, Jen Rose. “Genealogy project documents lineage of more than 400 Eyak people.” The Cordova Times, 20 Nov. 2019, https://www.thecordovatimes.com/2019/11/20/genealogy-project-documents-lineage-of-more-than-400-eyak-people/. Accessed 6 Apr. 2021.