The Eyak (

Eyak The Eyak ( Eyak: ʔi·ya·ɢdəlahɢəyu·, literally "inhabitants of Eyak Village at Mile 6"Krauss, Michael E. 1970. ''Eyak dictionary''. University of Alaska and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1963-1970) are a Native American indigenous ...

: ʔi·ya·ɢdəlahɢəyu·, literally "inhabitants of Eyak Village at Mile 6"Krauss, Michael E. 1970. ''Eyak dictionary''. University of Alaska and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1963-1970) are a Native American

indigenous group Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

historically located on the Copper River Delta and near the town of

Cordova, Alaska Cordova ( ) is a city in Chugach Census Area, Alaska, United States. It lies near the mouth of the Copper River, at the head of Orca Inlet on the east side of Prince William Sound. The population was 2,609 at the 2020 census, up from 2,239 in ...

. Today, Eyak people live in Cordova, Yakutat, across Alaska, and the U.S. Many of them do not qualify to be tribal members in the native village of Eyak, a federally recognized

Alaska Native tribe This list of Alaska Native tribal entities names the federally recognized tribes in the state of Alaska. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 explains how these Alaska Native villages came to be tracked this way. This version was upda ...

which was established through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. This is due to the enrollment qualifications that extend tribal membership only to those who reside in the town of Cordova for the majority of the year.

Territory

The Eyak's territory reached from present day Cordova east to the

Martin River The Martin River is a stream on the Kenai Peninsula in the U.S. state of Alaska. Beginning at Portlock Glacier in the Kenai Mountains, it flows north for into Kachemak Bay. The upper river lies within Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The river mou ...

and north to

Miles Glacier Miles Glacier is a -long glacier in the U.S. state of Alaska. It flows west to its terminus at Miles Lake, north of Katalla. It was named in 1885 after U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Nelson A. Miles Nelson Appleton Miles (August 8, 1839 – May 15, 1925 ...

. There were four main villages: *Alaganik, near Mile 21 of the present day Copper River Highway *Eyak, located near Mile 5.5 *unnamed, 800 yards south of Eyak *Orca, located within present day Cordova In addition to these villages the Eyak would seasonally occupy fish camps at

Point Whitshed Point Whitshed (previously Witshed, Whitshet, and Punta de Orevilla) is a peninsula of Prince William Sound near Cordova in the U.S. state of Alaska. Geography Whitshed is a low, wooded peninsula, presenting a cragged appearance to the sea, and r ...

and Mountain Slough. The now-common name ''Eyak'' for both the ethnic group and its language is an

exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

and comes from the Sugt'stun (Alutiit'stun) dialect of

Chugach Sugpiaq Chugach , Chugach Sugpiaq or Chugachigmiut is the name of an Alaska Native people in the region of the Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound on the southern coast of Alaska. The Chugach people are an Alutiiq (Pacific Eskimo) people who speak ...

, a group of

Sugpiaq The Alutiiq people (pronounced in English; from Promyshlenniki Russian language, Russian Алеутъ, "Aleut people, Aleut"; plural often "Alutiit"), also called by their ancestral name ( or ; plural often "Sugpiat"), as well as Pacific Esk ...

("real people," better known as

Alutiiq The Alutiiq people (pronounced in English; from Promyshlenniki Russian Алеутъ, "Aleut"; plural often "Alutiit"), also called by their ancestral name ( or ; plural often "Sugpiat"), as well as Pacific Eskimo or Pacific Yupik, are a sout ...

) for an Eyak village as Igya'aq' at the mouth of the Eyak River. The Eyak refer to themselves as dAXunhyuu ("the people") and the present-day Eyak Native Village as iiyaaGdaad' ("at Eyak Native Village") - but the now officially recognized tribe as iiyaaGdAlahGAyuu ("People from Eyak Native Village"), as the tribe consists of descendants of Chugach Sugpiaq, Eyak, and Tlingit.

History

The Eyak initially moved out of the interior down the Copper River to the coast. There they harvested the rich

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

fishing grounds. When the Russians arrived they recognized the Eyak as a distinct culture and described their territory on their maps. They also traded with the Eyak and sent them

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

. Because of their small population, they were often raided and their territory boundaries were under pressure from the

Chugach Chugach , Chugach Sugpiaq or Chugachigmiut is the name of an Alaska Native people in the region of the Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound on the southern coast of Alaska. The Chugach people are an Alutiiq (Pacific Eskimo) people who speak ...

to the west. The

Tlingit The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),

on the east side, had better relations with the Eyak leading to intermarriage and the assimilation of most Eyak. The Eyak's territorial boundary was pushed further contributing to the Eyak's decline. When the Americans arrived they opened

canneries Canning is a method of food preservation in which food is processed and sealed in an airtight container (jars like Mason jars, and steel and tin cans). Canning provides a shelf life that typically ranges from one to five years, although un ...

and competed with the Eyak for salmon. The integration and novel diseases which were introduced by non-native settlers led to the further decline of the Eyak. As populations decreased the remaining Eyak began to congregate near the village of Orca. In 1880 the population of the village of Alaganik was recorded at 117 and by 1890 it had declined to 48. In 1900 total population was estimated at 60. As more settlers arrived the last village became the town of Cordova. As of 1996, there were 120 partial Eyak descendants in the town. The last full-blood Eyak,

Marie Smith Jones Marie Smith Jones (May 14, 1918January 21, 2008) was an American national who the last surviving speaker of the Eyak language of Southcentral Alaska. She was born in Cordova, Alaska, was an honorary chief of the Eyak Nation and the last remaining ...

, died on January 21, 2008.

Language

The Eyak spoke a distinct language closely related to the

Athabaskan languages Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...

. Pressure from neighboring ethnic groups and the spread of English resulted in a decline of the Eyak language. Marie Smith Jones (1918–2008) was the last native speaker. Michael Krauss is known first and foremost as an Eyak language specialist.

Shamanism

Notable Eyak people

, last fluent speaker of traditional Eyak language

References

External links

Eyak Preservation CouncilEyak Revitalization ProjectEyak CorporationAlaska Native Heritage Center
{{authority control Alaska Native ethnic groups Native American tribes in Alaska