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Qik'rtarmiut - Islanders

Cama'i - Hello. The Alutiiq people are Native Alaskans. Their homeland stretches hundreds of miles across south central Alaska, from the rainforests of Prince William Sound to the windswept meadows of the Alaska Peninsula. The Kodiak archipelago lies at the heart of this region. Here, Alutiiqs have raised families for more than 7,500 years.

Anthropologists classify the Alutiiq people as Eskimo (see map). The Alutiiq language is part of a continuum of Native languages spoken from the Gulf of Alaska to Greenland, and the Alutiiq people share many cultural practices with the Yup'ik Eskimo of the Bering Sea. Yet, few Alutiiqs accept the term Eskimo. Kodiak's Native people prefer to call themselves Sugpiaq - a traditional designator for the people, Aleut - a term introduced by Russian traders, or Alutiiq - the Native way of saying Aleut. This practice reflects the uniqueness of Alutiiq culture. An abundance of natural resources, a dynamic environment, and continuous interaction with other peoples created a distinctive culture.

Today there are 1,700 Alutiiq people living in the Kodiak region. This exhibit illustrates their culture with contemporary photos. It portrays the continuities and changes in Native ways that characterize modern life. Alutiiq traditions have evolved over the millennia, and in the past 200 years, adapted to a succession fo European influences. Yet an Alutiiq way of living continues to thrive in Alaska. The Alutiiq story is one of endurance.

Photographs for this exhibit were contributed by Priscilla Russell, George Lewis, Ole Mahle, Marion Owen, and the Alutiiq Museum. Our thanks to the many Alutiiq people who permitted their images to be shown. The exhibit text was written with linguistic assistance from Mary Haakanson & Sperry Ash.

Map

Native Languages of Alaska Map
below is courtesy of the Alaska Native Language
Center University of Alaska Fairbanks

Native Cultures of Alaska: The Alutiiq homeland follows the coast of the central Gulf of Alaska, and lies at the southern-most end of the Eskimo and Aleut world. The Kodiak archipelago is in the heart of this region, about 400km south of Anchorage, Alaska's biggest city.

Qik'rtam Llanquani

Qik'rtam Llanqani -
The Islands' Surroundings

The Kodiak archipelago is a large cluster of islands that stretches 283 km across the central Gulf of Alaska. Carved by glaciers, the region features steep-sided mountains and narrow coastal fjords. A warm coastal current flows through the islands, and storms from the North Pacific bring strong winds and heavy rain throughout the year.

Together, this landscape and its cool wet weather create abundant habitat for plants and animals. Kodiak lies at the western boundary of Alaska’s coastal rainforest. Sitka spruce trees cover her northern shores, while lush shrub thickets, rolling coastal meadows thrive in southern regions and alpine tundra blankets the highlands.

There are just six mammals indigenous to this land: brown bears, river otters, red foxes, ermines, brown bats and voles. Other species, including black-tailed deer, elk, reindeer, goat, beaver and hare, were introduced in the nineteenth century. Marine resources are dramatically more abundant. Baleen whales migrate past Kodiak each spring and fall, and toothed whales, sea lions, harbor seals, porpoises and dolphins thrive in coastal waters year round. Near shore residents also include a great variety of marine fish, sea birds and waterfowl, and the rocky coast is encrusted with shellfish and seaweeds.

The Kodiak Mountains

The Kodiak Mountains

Mountains rise more than 1,300 m out of the North Pacific Ocean to form the Kodiak archipelago. The Alutiiq people have always built their communities along the coast of this precipitous region, where resources from both the land and the sea are easily harvested.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Afognak Island Forest

Sphagnum moss and Sitka spruce trees carpet Afognak, the second largest island in the archipelago. This forest is only 800 years old, creeping gradually southward from the northern end of the island. The forest supplies timber and roots, resources that were once only available as driftwood or through trade.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Afognak Island Forest

Winter in Akhiok

Winter in Akhiok

Roy Rastopsoff scans the snow-dusted meadows near his Akhiok home. He is one of a few young people who has chosen to stay in his community and live off the land.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Storm Approaching Karluk

From October to April, violent storms pass through the Kodiak region every four to five days, bringing high winds and heavy precipitation.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Storm Approaching Karluk

Kodiak Bears

Kodiak Bears

There are roughly 3,000 brown bears in the Kodiak archipelago. Bears were once a major source of food and raw materials. Although the Alutiiq people may still hunt them, they are rarely taken. Today bears are economically important for the tourists and sport hunters they attract.

Photograph by Marion Owen

Pacific Salmon

Every summer five varieties of Pacific Salmon - King or Chinook (amasuuk), Red or Sockeye (niklliq), Pink or Humpy (amartuq), Silver or Coho (qakiiyaq) and Dog or Chum (alimaq) - return to Kodiak to spawn. Millions of fish enter streams providing abundance of food for people and animals.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Pacific Salmon

Sunget Nutaan

Sunget Nutaan -
People Now

What does it mean to be Alutiiq? The answers are as varied as the people. To many, Native identity is closely linked with family, one’s parents, grandparents and the deeper ancestral connections that bond people to past generations. Affiliation with a community and place are also important. Alutiiq people feel deep ties to their villages and to the lands where they hunt and fish.

Many Alutiiq people also identify with a Native corporation. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 established Native-governed corporations to manage money and lands returned by the US government. Today, the Kodiak Alutiiq are shareholders of Koniag Incorporated and six village level corporations. These businesses provide economic opportunities and benefits for their shareholders, and many are active in promoting heritage preservation.

In addition to Native ancestry, many Alutiiqs have Russian, Scandinavian, and American roots. Family names like Alexanderoff, Christiansen, and Johnson reflect the succession of immigrants that have contributed to Kodiak’s rich cultural history.

Whatever a person’s family, village or corporate affiliation, the Alutiiq people share the goal of preserving and promoting their heritage. Contact with Western cultures in the late eighteenth century began a process of acculturation that profoundly disrupted traditional practices. Today Alutiiq organizations lead summer camps, dance troupes, art workshops, language programs, classroom curricula, and archaeological projects to reawaken cultural traditions, promote pride in Native ancestry, and teach all people about the rich heritage of Kodiak’s original settlers.

The Kodiak Archipelago: The Kodiak Archipelago stretches 283km from north to south and 107km from east to west. Around this large region, the Alutiiq live in the City of Kodiak and in six small, rural villages - Ouzinkie, Port Lions, Larsen Bay, Karluk, Akhiok and Old Harbor. Accessible only by airplane or boat, these communities are all on the coast.

Larry Matfay

Larry Matfay

An Elder and educator, Mr. Larry Matfay (1907-1998) was recognized as the traditional chief of Kodiak by many Alutiiq people. He was one of the first to recognize that Alutiiq traditions were disappearing and needed to be shared with youth. He spent much of his life reaching out to young people with traditional stories, games and history lessons.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Clyda Christensen

Elders like Clyda Christensen pass Alutiiq unwritten traditions to the next generation, teaching language, history, and values through lively stories and songs.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Clyda Christiansen

Karluk Village

Karluk Village

Nestled on the bank of the Karluk River, Kodiak’s most productive salmon stream, Karluk is one of six remote Alutiiq villages. Each village has a public school, a post office, an airstrip, a church and its own tribal government.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

The City of Kodiak

Established by Russian Fur traders in 1793, the City of Kodiak is the archipelago’s population center with more than 12,000 residents. These residents include many Alutiiq families as well as families of European, Hispanic and Asian descent. Kodiak’s economy revolves around fishing, logging, and tourism. The city is also home to the largest Coast Guard base in the United States.

Photograph by George Lewis

The City of Kodiak

Picking Cranberries

Picking Cranberries

Sophie Katlenikoff and her grandchild collect highbush cranberries. Gathering wild foods remains a popular fall activity.

Photograph by Priscilla Russell

Steam Bathing

After a hard days work, Alutiiq families rest in steam baths. Physically and spiritually cleansing steam is produced by throwing cold water on hot rocks, a tradition that is more than 3,000 years old.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Steam Bath

Kodiak Communities

Community Celebrations

Children in Old Harbor celebrate Independence Day with races, hopping on air-filled fishing buoys. Modern community gatherings feature visiting, gaming, joking, feasting, dancing, singing, gift giving and praise for the divine, activities characteristic of Alutiiq gatherings for millennia.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Cumillat

Cumillat -
People Long Ago

The origins of the Kodiak Alutiiq are as misty as their coastal homeland. According to legend, Kodiak Islanders are descended from a woman whose children were shunned from their home on the Alaska Peninsula and dispersed widely. Archaeological data also indicate that the Alutiiq came to Kodiak from the west about 7,500 years ago. Alutiiq prehistory is preserved in more than 1,000 archaeological sites. The region’s cool wet weather has protected bone, antler, ivory, wood, and fiber artifacts from decay, and sheltered the remains of houses, tents, weirs, quarries, trails and burials.

This wealth of prehistoric information illustrate that Alutiiq societies developed from small, mobile hunting and gathering bands to large, permanent communities ruled by a wealthy aristocratic class. By A.D. 1200, Alutiiq societies flourished in every corner of the Kodiak Archipelago. Archaeologists estimate that the Native population may have reached 14,000, the size of Kodiak’s modern population. People lived in large sod house villages, some devoted to sea mammal hunting, others to salmon fishing. Each community had a hereditary chief. By organizing the harvest of natural resources, participating in extensive long distance exchange, conducting raids, and owning slaves, these leaders maintained their status while providing for the economic needs of their communities.

Archaeology at Settlement Point

For the past 20 years, the Alutiiq people have been working with archaeologists to unearth and study their past. At Settlement Point, on Afognak Island, excavators revealed a sod house village dating to A.D. 1500.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Alutiiq Excavators

April Laktonen Counceller assists with the investigation of an Alutiiq fish camp through a college-level internship with the Alutiiq Museum.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Cape Alitak Petroglyphs

Human faces, animals and geometric designs adorn boulders at Cape Alitak. These images were pecked into the stone by ancient artists, perhaps as hunting charms or territorial markers.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Sod House in Old Harbor

The traditional Alutiiq house was a large, wood-framed structure built partially underground and covered with a thick layer of insulating sod. Today, communities build ciqlluaq as gathering places for education, celebration and tourism.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Artifacts

A wooden doll from Malina Creek, a prehistoric settlement on Afognak Island, may be a child’s toy or a shaman’s tool. Such artifacts are cared for by the Native community at the Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository, where they can be studied by students, artists, scholars and visitors.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Pisurwit

Pisurwit -
Gathering Foods

Harvesting wild foods is one of the most enduring and beloved Native traditions. Like their ancestors, Alutiiqs continue to hunt, fish and gather. The cycle of harvesting begins in spring, as sea mammals follow fish and birds back to coastal waters. The Alutiiq people pull halibut from the ocean floor, gather herring eggs, collect gull eggs, and pursue seals and sea lions from skiffs. As summer progresses, people pick wild vegetables and berries, and fish for red and pink salmon in fresh water streams. Fall brings opportunities for duck and ptarmigan hunting, and silver salmon fishing. People also hunt the deer and elk introduced to Kodiak in the twentieth century. In the stormy winter months, families transform this abundance of natural foods into tasty dishes that are shared with friends and at gatherings.

Subsistence, however, is more than food. Many Native people still make their living from the land. They fish commercially for salmon and cod, halibut and crab. They work as foresters and land managers. They act as hunting, fishing and sightseeing guides. And they craft and sell artwork. Weavers fashion delicate baskets from beach grass, sewers stitch hats from plush sea otter pelts, and carvers create masks from driftwood. All of these activities are both economic and spiritual, reflecting the deep ties Alutiiqs feel to the Kodiak environment.

Fishing

The crew of a Kodiak boat fishes for crab. Many Alutiiq families make their living through commercial fishing and fish processing.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Splitting

Mary Haakanson cleans freshly caught salmon. Alutiiq families enjoy salmon roasted with wild vegetables or baked in perok - a Russian-style fish pie.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Processing

Lawrence Panamaroff fuels his smokehouse where salmon are cured with smoldering alder branches. Other fish are drying on open-air racks. Alutiiq families process hundreds of salmon each summer for winter consumption.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Butchering

Sven Haakanson, Jr. butchers a harbor seal. Sea mammals remain a critical economic resource in the Kodiak region. Laws protect the rights of Native people to hunt these animals for food and raw materials.

Photograph by Ole Mahle

Collecting

Jake Charliaga pulls an octopus from beneath a beach rock. Shellfish, intertidal creatures and seaweed are popular foods. Elders say, "When the tide is out, the table is set."

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Preserving

Phyllis Peterson holds a jar of berries preserved in oil, a traditional way of storing summer foods. In the past berries were stored in seal stomach containers filled with seal oil.

Photograph by Priscilla Russell

Preparing

Lucille Davis braids the intestines of a seal, which will be fried and eaten. This is a rare but popular dish.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Crafting

Young women chat and practice their weaving skills, fashioning baskets from wild grasses.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Agayumasqaat

Agayumasqaat - Spirituality

Alutiiq spirituality is a combination of traditional beliefs and Western religious practices. Following Alutiiq cosmology, every object in the universe - living things, objects, places, and natural phenomenon like the wind - has a human-like essence, a spirit inside that is aware of human action. As such, reverence for the natural world is an essential part of caring for human life. If a hunter is wasteful or a child is disrespectful, the animals and plants necessary for human existence will not give themselves to people.

Spiritual well-being also comes from perpetuating Native traditions. From hunting and fishing, to singing, dancing and drumming, Alutiiq people feel joy in expressing their identity and participating in the activities that have sustained their communities for millennia.

Spirituality is also expressed in churches. Many Alutiiq adopted Russian Orthodoxy in the nineteenth century. There is a Russian Orthodox church in each Native community and the faithful continue to celebrate Easter, Christmas and the feast days of beloved saints according to the Church’s Julian calendar. Other Alutiiq people have joined protestant churches, reflecting the arrival of Baptist and evangelical missionaries in the recent century.

Karluk Chapel

The majority of Kodiak Alutiiqs belong to the Orthodox faith, introduced by Russian missionaries in the nineteenth century. The beautiful chapels maintained in every Alutiiq community reflect allegiance to the church. The Karluk chapel was built in 1888.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Cemetery at Old Harbor

Majestic mountains and ocean waters are the setting for the Orthodox crosses and spirit houses of Old Harbor’s cemetery.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Masked Revelers

Dressed in pillowcases and rubber masks, revelers celebrate the new year. They travel door-to-door performing for food and small gifts, a practice that combines Alutiiq and Orthodox traditions. Masks were once used in ceremonial performances to tell stories and communicate with the powerful spirits that controlled life on Earth.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Drum Dance

Lori Pestrikoff dances to the rhythmic beat of Marsha Parker's drum. Traditional dances honor ancestors and appeal to the spirit world for future prosperity. With the help of Elders, young people are learning and reinterpreting the performances of their ancestors.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Artist's Offering

Marra Andrewvitch shares a basket expertly twined from beach grass. Creative expression is one way Alutiiq people celebrate their culture. Beautifully crafted objects also show a reverence for the natural world that is central to Alutiiq spirituality.

Alutiiq Museum Photo

Spirit Camp

To learn more about Alutiiq heritage, Kodiak youth attend Spirit camps. Campers from across the archipelago travel to a remote location to participate in subsistence activities, learn natural history & archaeology, create artwork, practice the Alutiiq language, and share pride in Native ancestry.

Alutiiq Museum Photo