Alaska Natives, Alaska Kids’ Corner, State of Alaska

Anthropologists believe that today’s Alaska Natives originated in Asia, either crossing over the Bering land bridge from Siberia or traveling by watercraft along the shorelines. While it is clear from archeology and Native history that people have lived in parts of Alaska for 10,000 years, there is some evidence that colonization first took place many thousands of years earlier. As our knowledge of archeology, Native oral history, and geology grows, so does our understanding of Alaska’s first peoples.

Please note that this is a very brief overview of the history of the Alaska Natives. You will need to do further research by clicking on the links listed at the bottom of this page .

In Alaska
today, there are five distinct groups:

• Northwest
  Coast Indians
• Inupiaqs
• Yupiks
• Aleuts
• Athabascans

The
following brief summaries about Alaska Native
cultures are written in the past tense only
because they refer specifically to life
prior to contact with Russians and people
of European descent; this should not suggest,
however, that the content is necessarily
outdated.

In Southeast
Alaska, a region of lush forests, mild climate,
abundant fish, game, and edible plants,
the Tlingit (pronounced Klinkit),
Haida, and Tshimshian Indians
thrived. Their highly developed culture
produced totem poles, ceremonial costumes,
and exquisite blankets. The Tlingits were
also fierce warriors. When the first Russians
tried to settle in Sitka, the Tlingits drove
them out, despite the guns and cannons possessed
by the intruders.

The Athabascan
Indians of interior Alaska and Canada faced harsher
living conditions and were more often faced with famine
than their neighbors on the coast. Close relatives of
the Navajos and Apaches, the Athabascans were accomplished
hunters. They followed herds of caribou and moose for
long distances, fished for salmon and other river fish,
and gathered roots, berries, and edible plants. Their
fringed and beaded skin garments were highly prized
by other Natives and, along with furs and other items,
were often traded with neighboring Tlingit, Yupik, and
Inupiaq. Athabascans were divided into many different
tribes with distinct dialects.

The Inupiaqs settled
along the north coast of Alaska and Canada, (where they
are known as Inuits), and the Yupiks settled
in Southwest Alaska. Both groups hunted, fished, and
gathered the berries and roots that grew during the
brief, cool summers. Inupiaq and Yupik hunters harpooned
whales from small covered canoes called umiaks. Depending
on their location, walrus, seals, and polar bears were
also taken along with the caribou that migrated across
the frozen tundra.

The smallest group of
Alaska Natives, the Aleuts, made their living
from the rich sea that surrounded their home on the
Aleutian Islands. Their food, clothing, shelter, heat,
and tools came from creatures living in the ocean or
along its shorelines. Exceptional mariners, the Aleuts
sometimes paddled hundreds of miles in skin-covered
canoes, (kayaks), called baidarkas to trade, visit,
hunt, or stage daring raids on enemy villages. Ducks,
otters, whales, and fish were among the animals used
by the Aleuts.

Today, Alaska’s diverse
Native peoples remain a strong presence in Alaska, comprising
approximately 16% of the state’s population. Rapid changes
in communications, transportation, and other services
to remote villages have dramatically changed Native
life. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971
gave Natives rights to about 10% of Alaska and nearly
$1 billion dollars and effectively ended their ability
to live a complete subsistence lifestyle. Even the most
remote villages, which may be hundreds of miles from
the nearest road, are connected to modern technology
and have television, phones, and Internet access, (at
least in the local school), and snowmobiles have largely
replaced sled dogs in the interior.

Nevertheless, much of
Native culture is still practiced. In many areas, particularly
around rural villages, Natives hunt, fish, and gather
the same plants and animals as did their ancestors and
continue to practice much of their traditional culture.
In some areas, subsistence food makes up more than 50%
of Native diets. Even urban Natives often have connections
to relatives in villages who supply them with Native
foods. Ceremonies and traditional gatherings take place
as well as modern celebrations of Native heritage. Elders
are making an effort to pass on knowledge of Native
art forms, (such as blanket weaving, wood and ivory
carving, beadwork, kayak building, and dancing), to
younger generations.

For
more in-depth information about Alaska Natives then
and now, visit the following links:

Cultural/Historical
Information
Native
Arts
Alaska
Native Knowledge Network
Alaska
Native Arts Resource Directory

Alaska
Native Language Center

Alaska
Crafts
Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act Resource Center
Export
Guide to Native Art
Alaska
Native Curriculum and Teacher Development Project
 

Alaska
Native Heritage Center
 

LitSite
Alaska
 

First
Alaskans Institute
 

Arctic Studies Center