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Alutiiq Villages were typically located at the mouths of streams to take advantage for the salmon run and the fresh water as they continue today. Tools such as , wooden hooks, kelp, nets, traps and sinew lines were used for fishing. They also gathered berries as apart of their diet.
The Alutiiq form of whaling was a unique practice where, “whalers summoned spiritual power for the hunt through special songs, talismans, and complex, secret rituals” (Crowell et al., 2001, p. 166)
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The Alutiiq people spent their time traveling to go fishing in a skin covered iqyax/qayaq or bairdarka(Russian) . Larger groups fished from a larger skin covered boat called a angyaq or a "baidar" as named in Russia.
The ability to live off of the land is still a huge tradition that the Alutiiq people encounter today. “Observational skills had to be accompanied by a storing of those patterns in memory and by a skill at comparing those stored patterns, in their incredible diversity, with the ever-changing patterns of the day at hand” (Ross, 1992, p. 74). To be a great hunter , like the Alutiiq people, one must understand the weather, and the tides. Animals give themselves, and the people of the Alutiiq culture must appreciate and
Today; black bear, brown bear, deer, caribou, octopus, shellfish, sea lion, salmon and halibut remain to be the main components of Alutiiq subsistence
Life’s passages were marked by ritual, often involving symbolic separations of the individual form society followed by ritual cleansing and reintegration into community life.
Winter homes or Ciqluaq
• They were made out of driftwood, plank, sod, thatched.
• The floors that were somewhat below ground with drains to channel away water.
• Floors were covered with grass or planks
• The dwelling had several room, a central room with several private room contacted to the central room.
• These private rooms were used for sleeping, storage, or bathing were connected to the central room through low openings
• skins or boards were used for privacy
• stone lined wood-burning hearth were used for cooking and heating.
• Stone lamps filled with seal or whale oil was used for light.
• The top of the house was used for both storage as well as a sitting area where one could watch the sea and sky for weather.
• 18 residents, consisting of several related families.
• Large settlements might include 10 to 15 of the houses, with a total population of 200 to 300.
A girl lived for several weeks or months in a separate room or hut after her first menstruation, followed by a bathing and a celebration to mark her reappearance in the village as a young woman.
Excerpt:
The occupants were principally women, with a few old men; the young men had all gone out hunting the sea otter, in the Russian service. Those at home seemed to be quite happy and contented, and were all employed in making water-proof garments form the entrails of sea –lions, for their husbands and sweethearts. We bought of them a number of articles of manufacture-curious and vary neat work- such as pocket-books, baskets, and paid them in tobacco and beads.
-John D’Wolf (invited into a Alutiiq home.
A boy’s first successful hunt marked his transition to manhood. All the meat was given away while he required to fast.
Mothers and their newborn infants were segregated for a time after birth, followed by a ritual steam bath for both.
partners chose each other, but parents had to approve, marriage was followed by a period when the couple lived with the bride’s family and the groom served her father,
o Chugack dwelling in Prince William Sound were of a style that was more typical of Northwest Coast Indians.
o Rectangular structures with joined wooden frames, walls of vertically placed boards, grass or bark-covered roofs, and a round doorway at each end.
o Summer houses: above ground
o Winter houses: partially below ground level.
o Inside: open hearth for cooking, and a opening above for smock escape. Decorations of hunting séances
o Each family had an enclosed sleeping room
o Bedding: mountain goat skins, bear skins, and cormorant blankets.
o Steam bathing chambers next to front door
Alutiiq population size estimates vary greatly between sources. Russian estimates of population say that at least 8,000 Alutiiq lived along the southern Alaska coast, with the most people concentrated in the Kodiak archipelago. Recent archaeological research has lead some archaeologists to believe that the actual population size was somewhere around 20,000 - 25,000. There were also a number of people living on the Alaska Peninsula, the Kenai Peninsula and in Prince William Sound.
Grew up learning the many skills they would need as adults
The Alutiiq society also supported specialist of various kinds such as Whalers, Shamans, Weather Forecasters, Healers/Midwives. These positions were learned through apprenticeships.
Provided advice to sea traveler
Pursued their difficult and hereditary art with the aid of complex and secret rituals
Divined the future and the spiritual causes of diseases, and kassat (wise man) composed religious song, dances, and poetry.
o Girls: played with dolls and toys versions of stone knives and other women’s tools and began learning to weave baskets, process skins and sinew, and sew when vary young.
o Boy: played with toy boats, baddles and spears. They began training to handle kayaks at age 14 and by 16 were hunting at sea with their fathers and kinsman.
o Transvestites / Ahnaucit : some Alutiiq boys were raised as girls, learned female skills, and ware feminine clothing and tattoos these boys often became shamans.
Used expert knowledge of herbal cures and other healing techniques
It appears that wealth and political leadership were concentrated among certain high-ranking lineages; however, this is unclear do to the lack of historical records.
Each village was ruled by a Headman or chief who inherited this positron as a member of the elite families. Some chiefs were recognized as leaders of more than one village. ( in Kodiak they were called Angaquqaq)
Kodiak Island: the chieftainship is passed down from man to nephew not father to son. This is evidence suggests that the membership in the elite family was traced through the mothers side.
Prince William sound: the son was first in line to inherit the chieftainship; however, it could also be passed down to the brother or nephew.
Men held most position of political leadership, women became shamans and healers.
Chugack Elders in the 1930s remembered that the population of the Sound was formerly organized into eight local groups, each with its own chief and a territory that includes a main winter village and various seasonal camps.
Palugik and other villages in the outer sound were the wealthiest because of their access to large numbers of sea otters.
The riches villages took turns hosting an annual Feast of the Dead, part of the Chugack winter cycle of fest and hunting ceremonies.
Chiefly and wealthy families represented the upper ranks of traditional society, while ordinary families made up the class of free, common people, the lower end of society was slaves and orphans.
Story:
War between the Chugack and the Koniag: Pg 53
The Kenai Peninsula consisted of mostly glacial fjords and tall mountains. The fewest amount of people lived here, though there were abundant resources.
The Kodiak Archipelago is a group of islands in southwest Alaska. The northern hills of the islands are covered with spruce trees, while the south is more of a treeless tundra. These islands were where the greatest concentration of Alutiiq people lived. This is largely due to its rich resources. With so much coastline the Alutiiq people had access to many marine animals. There were also rivers on the southwest side of Kodiak Island that supported large salmon runs.
Along the southern coast of Alaska reside the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq people. Suqpiag which means 'The Real People' were heavily affected by the Russian's in the 18th century. The Russian influenced the villages to the Russian Orthodox way of life. Beginning in the Russian colonial times, Alutiiqs refered to themselves as Aleuts, although the languages between Aleut and Aluttiiq were quite different. Some archaeologists believe that the ancestors of the present-day Native Alaskan residents of the Alutiiq culture area have continuously inhabited the area for at least 7,000 years (Jordan and Knecht 1986).
Why?
The Alutiiq people inhabited around 650 miles from Stepovik Bay on the Alaska Peninsula to eastern Prince William Sound. There were four main areas where the Alutiiq resided. They included the Kodiak archipelago, the Kenai Peninsula, the Alaska Peninsula and Prince William Sound.
Before the western contact the people of this culture called themselves Sugpiat then the Russian fur traders introduced the name "Aleut" which by the Sugpiat translation it means Alutiiq.
Sugpiaq Artist Helen Simeonoff explains that "when the Russians came, they called everybody in Alaska 'Aleuts,' and that's a name for indigenous people in Siberia. And so, since we looked like the people in Siberia, dark skin, dark hair, most everybody here in Alaska ended up with the name Aleut, and so there was a division of what we should call ourselves,so they settled on Alutiiq. But our real name s Sugpiaq, and it means the real people"
Alutiiq people lived in villages that had homes built under ground and covered with sod. These homes were called ciqlluaqs.
Their primary food sources were marine mammals, fish, and migratory birds that were hunted from kayaks with atlatls (throwing boards).
And each person held a position within the community and was responsible for some aspects of life, be it hunting, fishing, cooking, sewing or gathering.
- dmaeroberts.com/cominghome/history.html
Before After
Then the Russian Orthodox became part of the culture. They had ceremonies called "starring" or Slawiq where participants sing hymns in Slovonic Russian, Alutiiq, and English while carrying a "Star of Bethlehem" from house to house. This custom is originally from Ukraine and it represents the journey of the Three Wise Men.
When the Russians arrived they forced the Alutiiq people to work for Russian fur companies and over time the Russian colony became less harsh and the Alutiiqs gradually accepted the russian customs, Orthodox religion, and their language. Later in 1867, United States took control of Alaska and forbid the Alutiiq language and forced them to learn English.
Winter hunting ceremonies were part of Alutiiq spiritual life until the 1800s. With masked dancing, songs, and whistles, Alutiiq people invited spirits from the sky and undersea worlds to come to the ceremonial house. Each dance began with the purifying smoke of burning herbs. Songs were song to honor the ancestors and dancing followed, to the beat of drums and puffin beak rattles. Each dance portrayed a spirit as it traveled through the universe and helped with hunts of whales and other animals.
In traditional belief, the universes had five sky worlds, one above the other, and five underworlds, each inhibited by different beings.
Every object and creature had a suk or susa which means a human "owner".
Examples: Lam Su is the person of the universe which was considered the purest and most powerful
Prince William Sound is heavily forested and receives heavy rain and snowfall. It is surrounded by glaciers and the mountains of the Chugach Range. It is also rich in marine resources with most of the small population living on the coast.
The Alaska Peninsula consists of a chain of volcanoes. There were minor eruptions and earthquakes that the Alutiiq people had to deal with. Lakes and rivers covered the lowlands on the north side of the mountains while the rough Gulf of Alaska coast was to the south. The population of the peninsula was small, probably due to the rough terrain. Most people lived along rivers or in resource rich bays on the Gulf coast.
- www.mhl.si.edu/lookingbothways/text/beliefs.hml
- www.mnh.si.edu/lookingbothways/text/history.html
• The area of Alaska occupied by Alutiiq people in historic times spans some 650 miles form Stepovik bay on the Alaska peninsula to eastern Prince William Sound, including well over 6000 miles of actual shoreline
• Villages were traditionally situated on narrow fringes of land at the foot of rugged coastal mountains and glacier.
• Areas of abundant maritime resources, such as Kodiak Island, supported larger villages and grater concentrations of people.
Questions?
Anna, Skyla, Elana, Alicia
http://www.mnh.si.edu/lookingbothways/data/pages/people.html
http://ankn.uaf.edu/ANCR/Alutiiq/Rachel_Mason
Looking Both Ways Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People By Crowell. A, Steffian. A, Pullar, G
Making History Alutiiq/ Sugpiaq Life on the Alaska Peninsula By Partnow. P.H