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The Alutiiq people (pronounced in English; from
Promyshlenniki The ''promyshlenniki'' (russian: промышленники, singular form: russian: промышленник, translit=promyshlennik), were Russian and indigenous Siberian artel- or self-employed workers drawn largely from the state serf and ...
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries * Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and p ...
Алеутъ, "
Aleut The Aleuts ( ; russian: Алеуты, Aleuty) are the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleut people and the islands are politically divided between the U ...
"; plural often "Alutiit"), also called by their ancestral name ( or ; plural often "Sugpiat"), as well as Pacific Eskimo or Pacific Yupik, are a southern coastal people of
Alaska Natives Alaska Natives (also known as Alaskan Natives, Native Alaskans, Indigenous Alaskans, Aboriginal Alaskans or First Alaskans) are the indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a num ...
. Their traditional homelands include
Prince William Sound Prince William Sound (Sugpiaq: ''Suungaaciq'') is a sound of the Gulf of Alaska on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located on the east side of the Kenai Peninsula. Its largest port is Valdez, at the southern terminus of the ...
and outer
Kenai Peninsula The Kenai Peninsula ( Dena'ina: ''Yaghenen'') is a large peninsula jutting from the coast of Southcentral Alaska. The name Kenai (, ) is derived from the word "Kenaitze" or "Kenaitze Indian Tribe", the name of the Native Athabascan Alaskan tribe ...
(), the
Kodiak Archipelago The Kodiak Archipelago (russian: Кадьякский архипелаг , translit = Kad'yakskiy arkhipelag) is an archipelago (group of islands) south of the main land-mass of the state of Alaska (United States), about by air south-west of A ...
and the Alaska Peninsula (). In the early 1800s there were more than 60 Alutiiq villages in the Kodiak archipelago, with an estimated population of 13,000 people. Today more than 4,000 Alutiiq people live in Alaska.


Terminology

At present, the most commonly used title is (singular), (dual), (plural). These terms derive from the names (, ) that Russian fur traders and settlers gave to the native people in the region. Russian occupation began in 1784, following their massacre of hundreds of Sugpiat at Refuge Rock () just off the coast of
Sitkalidak Island Sitkalidak Island (russian: Ситкалидак) is an island in the western Gulf of Alaska in the Kodiak Island Borough of the state of Alaska, United States. It lies just off the southeast shore of Kodiak Island, across the Sitkalidak Strait fro ...
near the present-day village of Old Harbor (). Given the violence underlying the colonial period, and confusion because the Sugpiaq term for Aleut is , some Alaska Natives from the region have advocated use of the terms that the people themselves use to describe their people and language: (singular), (dual), (plural) — to identify the people (meaning "the real people"), and , or to refer to the language. All three names (Alutiiq, Aleut, and Sugpiaq) are used now, according to personal preference. Over time, many other
ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
s were used to refer to this people.


Culture


Fishing and housing

The people traditionally lived a coastal lifestyle, subsisting primarily on ocean resources such as
salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus ''Oncorhynchus' ...
,
halibut Halibut is the common name for three flatfish in the genera '' Hippoglossus'' and '' Reinhardtius'' from the family of right-eye flounders and, in some regions, and less commonly, other species of large flatfish. The word is derived from '' ...
, and whale. They supplemented these maritime foods with rich land resources, such as berries and land mammals. Before contact with Russian fur traders, they lived in semi-subterranean homes called ''ciqlluaq.'' Today, in the 21st century, the Alutiiq live in coastal fishing communities in more modern housing. They work in all aspects of the modern economy, while also maintaining the cultural value of subsistence.


Language

In 2010 the high school in Kodiak responded to requests from Alutiiq students and agreed to teach the
Alutiiq language The Alutiiq language (also called Sugpiak, Sugpiaq, Sugcestun, Vocabulary comparison The comparison of number terms and month names in the two dialects: References Further reading * Bass, Willard P., Edward A. Tennant, and Carl Anahona ...
. It is one of the
Eskimo–Aleut languages The Eskaleut (), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of w ...
, belonging to the Yup'ik branch of these languages. The Kodiak dialect of the language was being spoken by only about 50 persons, all of them elderly, and the dialect was in danger of being lost entirely.


Notable Alutiit

*
Alvin Eli Amason Alvin Eli Amason (born 1948) is a Sugpiaq Alaskan painter and sculptor. He was raised in Kodiak and is of Alutiiq ancestry. He received his Master of Fine Arts from Arizona State University and taught for several years at Navajo Community Colleg ...
, painter and sculptor *
Linda Infante Lyons Linda Anne Infante Lyons (born 1960) is a Native American visual media artist from Anchorage, Alaska. She is Alutiiq, with her mother's family descending from Kodiak Island, and Estonian. The island's natives experienced two waves of colonization ...
, painter and muralist * Cungagnaq, also known as Peter the Aleut, an Eastern Orthodox saint, reportedly from Kodiak Island. * Loren Leman, Lieutenant-governor of Alaska, 2002-2006 *
Sven Haakanson Sven Haakanson, Jr. (born 1967) (Alutiiq) is an American anthropologist who specializes in documenting and preserving the language and culture of the Alutiiq. He served, from 2000-2013, as Executive Director of the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, Alas ...
, executive director of the Alutiiq Museum, and winner of a 2007
MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...
.


See also

*
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 spea ...
* Awa'uq Massacre * Alutiiq Museum


References


Further reading

* Braund, Stephen R. & Associates. ''Effects of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill on Alutiiq Culture and People''. Anchorage, Alaska: Stephen R. Braund & Associates, 1993. * Crowell, Aron, Amy F. Steffian, and Gordon L. Pullar. ''Looking Both Ways; Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People''. Fairbanks, Alaska: University of Alaska Press, 2001. * Harvey, Lola. ''Derevnia's Daughters, Saga of an Alaskan Village''. A story about the Old Village of Afognak up to and including the strongest earthquake ever recorded on the North American continent and the resulting tsunami of March 27, 1964. 1991 * Lee, Molly. 2006. ""If It's Not a Tlingit Basket, Then What Is It?": Toward the Definition of an Alutiiq Twined Spruce Root Basket Type", ''Arctic Anthropology''. 43, no. 2: 164. * Luehrmann, Sonja. ''Alutiiq Villages Under Russian and U.S. Rule''. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2008. * Mishler, Craig. 1997. "Aurcaq: Interruption, Distraction, and Reversal in an Alutiiq Men's Dart Game", ''The Journal of American Folklore''. (Vol. 110, no. 436): 189–202. * Mishler, Craig. 2003. ''Black Ducks and Salmon Bellies: An Ethnography of Old Harbor and Ouzinkie, Alaska''. Donning Company Publishers. Distributed by the Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository, Kodiak, Alaska. * Mishler, Craig, and Rachel Mason. 1996. "Alutiiq Vikings: Kinship and Fishing in Old Harbor, Alaska", ''Human Organization : Journal of the Society for Applied Anthropology'' (Vol. 55, no. 3): 263–269. * Mulcahy, Joanne B. ''Birth & Rebirth on an Alaskan Island; The Life of an Alutiiq Healer''. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001. * Partnow, Patricia H. ''Making History Alutiiq/Sugpiaq Life on the Alaska Peninsula''. Fairbanks, Alaska: University of Alaska Press, 2001. * Simeonoff, Helen J., and A. L. Pinart. ''Origins of the Sun and Moon Alutiiq Legend from Kodiak Island, Alaska, Collected by Alphonse Louis Pinart, March 20, 1872''. Anchorage, Alaska (3212 West 30th Ave., Anchorage 99517-1660): H.J. Simeonoff, 1996. * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


Alaska Native Language Center: Alaska Native Languages Map

Alaskan Orthodox Christian texts (Alutiiq)

Alutiiq Museum
*
List of Native American peoples in the United States This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...
{{Authority control Alaska Native ethnic groups Eskimos Native American language revitalization