Alaska Native Communities on Harriman’s
Route

Excerpted from The Native People of Alaska by Steve
J. Langdon, published by Greatland Graphics, Anchorage, 1978. Used with
permission

Alaska’s indigenous people, who are jointly
called Alaska Natives, can be divided into five major groupings: Aleuts,
Northern Eskimos (Inupiat), Southern Eskimos (Yuit), Interior Indians
(Athabascans) and Southeast Coastal Indians (Tlingit and Haida). These
groupings are based on broad cultural and linguistic similarities of peoples
living contiguously in different regions of Alaska. They do not represent
political or tribal units nor are they the units Native people have traditionally
used to define themselves.

Alaska Native
Language map. Source: Alaska Geographic
Alliance.
Click
image for a larger view

At the time of contact with
Russian explorers in the mid-18th century, Alaska was
occupied by approximately 80,000 indigenous people. The
phrase “time of contact” means the earliest time when a
Native group had significant direct interaction with
Europeans. This time varied for different parts of Alaska;
therefore Alaskan Native groups have had somewhat different
historical experiences through their contact with Europeans
and Americans.

Time of Contact for
Alaskan
Native Groups

Aleut

1750-1780

Southern Eskimo

1780-1840

Northern Eskimo

1850-1870

Interior Indians

1840-1860

Coastal Indians

1775-1800

In 1899, the Harriman
Expeditions met people from the Aleut, Southern Eskimo and
Coastal Indian groups. George Bird Grinnell, writing about
these encounters, described them as “hasty and superficial,”
not surprising given that the Elder rarely spent more
than a day in any port. But the expedition created an
overview record of Alaska Native life at the
turn-of-the-century, one that includes not only writings
about the Native communities on the coast, but also the
first known recording of Tlingit song, and the evocative
portraits made by photographer Edward Curtis.

The Aleuts

Stretching like a rocky necklace
from Asian to North America, the Aleutian Islands and the
nearby Alaska Peninsula are the home of the Aleuts. The term
“Aleut” was introduced by Russians and comes originally from
the Koryak or Chukchi languages of Siberia; it appears to
have been quickly adopted by the Aleut people
themselves.

An Aleut
two-hatch bidarka, used in seal hunting.
Click
image for a larger view

The Aleuts are distinctive among
the world’s people for their remarkably successful maritime
adaptation to this cold archipelago. Some archeologists
suggest that contemporary Aleuts are the descendants of a
population which first established itself at Anangula Island
more than 7,000 years ago. At the time of European contact,
the Aleut population inhabited all of the major Aleutian
Islands, the Alaska Peninsula as far east as Port Moller,
and the Shumagin Islands to the south of the Alaska
Peninsula.

Although reconstruction of Aleut
culture and history is difficult due to the devastating
impact of Russian contact in the 18th century, it is
believed that the Aleuts were divided into nine named
subdivisions. The total Aleut population is estimated to
have been between 15-18,000 at the time of contact. The nine
subdivisions are usually joined into western, central and
eastern groups based on language. Population concentration
was greatest among the eastern groups who had access to
salmon and caribou. The Aleuts were a relatively long-lived
people with a considerable proportion of the population more
than 60 years of age.

Traveling with the Harriman
Expedition, Grinnell noticed the profound influence that the
Russian Orthodox Church had had on Aleut communities at
Unalaska and in the Pribilofs. He also noted how difficult
it had become for the Aleuts to maintain their subsistence
way of life “under the changed conditions which surround
them, and the increasing scarcity of the wild creatures on
which they used to depend for food.”

The Southern
Eskimos

The most diverse group of
Alaskan Natives are the southern Eskimos or Yuit, speakers
of the Yup’ik languages. At the time of contact, they were
the most numerous of the Alaska Native groups. Communities
stretched from Prince William Sound on the north Pacific
Coast to St. Lawrence Island in the central Bering Sea. The
Yuit settled this vast region from west to east reaching the
Kodiak archipelago and Prince William Sound by about 2,000
years ago.

An Eskimo
summer house and fireplace, Plover Bay,
Siberia.
Click
image for a larger view

The Yuit are usually divided
into Bering Sea groups and Pacific groups. This
classification is based on technological, subsistence and
language differences. In the Bering Sea group, the major
language spoken is Central Yup’ik. St. Lawrence Island
Yup’ik is a separate language. The Pacific Eskimos all speak
dialects of Alutiiq, another Yup’ik language.

In general, between 100-300
people could be found living in sedentary villages in
protected locations during the winter. In the spring, family
or extended family groups dispersed to various camps to
obtain migratory waterfowl, salmon, caribou and other
resources. Substantial movements of people throughout the
spring, summer and fall was necessary to insure that
adequate resources would be acquired before the winter.

In 1899, the Harriman party
encountered Eskimos in Bering Sea communities of both Alaska
and Siberia. Grinnell’s descriptions of these communities
reveal how closely the Eskimo communities were bound to the
sea in every aspect of their lives. Food, clothing, fuel,
materials for their homes and boats were all derived from
the creatures they hunted in the sea. They made their
hunting weapons from whalebone and walrus ivory, and carried
their entire stock of possessions from summer to winter
villages in sealskin bags.

Grinnell predicted that the Eskimos’ immediate
future was “gloomy.” He knew that, with fur seals in serious decline,
with commercial whaling and gold mining on the rise, these Eskimo communities
could not long maintain their traditional way of life.

The Tlingit/Haida

Occupying the islands and mainland of southeast
Alaska are the northernmost groups of the Northwest Coast cultures; the
Tlingit and Haida Indians. They are well-known for their distinctive art
represented in totem poles and other elegantly carved objects.

The Tlingit and Haida are more
similar to Indians along the coast of present day British
Columbia than to other Alaskan groups. The Tlingit occupied
the vast majority of the area from Yakutat Bay to Portland
Canal while the Kaigani Haida, whose Haida relatives
occupied the Queen Charlotte Island off the north coast of
British Columbia, controlled the southern half of the Prince
of Wales archipelago. The two groups share similar social
and cultural patterns; however, their languages are
unrelated and they have distinct ethnic identities.

The Tlingit were divided into 13
units, sometimes erroneously labelled “tribes” (they were
not tribes because there was no political unity at this
level) to which the suffix kwan was applied. This
terminology defines a group of people who lived in a region,
shared residence in several communities, intermarried, and
were at peace. The total Tlingit population was about 15,000
at the time of contact. The most numerous groups were those
living on the Stikine and Chilkat rivers. The Kaigani Haida
population was about 1,800 people at the time of European
contact.

The Tlingit and Haida had
similar settlement patterns which included relatively
permanent winter villages occupied from October or November
to March. From these villages, small groups of people
dispersed to seasonal camps during the spring, summer and
early fall.

Grinnell described the Tlingits
as “a hardy race. Living on the shore, bold mariners and sea
hunters, they are also mountaineers, familiar with the
towering peaks, the dreadful cliffs, and the mighty glaciers
of the iron-bound coast. In their frail canoes they venture
far to sea in pursuit of the fur-seal, the sea-otter, and
the whale.” Harriman himself must have recognized the value
of such skill. At Yakutat, he invited a Tlingit named James
to accompany them as a guide for the rest of the
expedition.

Material from The Native
People of Alaska, by Steve J. Langdon, c. Greatland
Graphics, used with permission.

(top)

Sealer’s
Camp

A sealer’s camp in Glacier Bay, Alaska.
Click image for a larger view

Unlike
the Indian tribes of our Western States, most of which have treaties
which the government by which they are support with the government
by which they are supported wholly or in part, these dwellers
along Alaska coast depend for their subsistence wholly on their
exertions and draw their food largely from the sea.

George Bird Grinnell, writing about
Alaska Natives, 1899.