Alutiiq

Alaskan Eskimo Tribe

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This website will allow you an opportunity to explore the Alutiiq culture and become more familiar with their geography, economy, religion, family practices, and their politics.

The Alutiiq, an indigenous people to Alaska's Aleutian Islands, maintain a society which is similar to various modern societies; while the Alutiiq society maintains several aspects similar to modern societies, what separates it from those modern societies is its conservative approach to preserving tradition. The most frequent family subjects which arise are marriage, household and family composition, patterns of inheritance, socialization, and its Constitution and By-Laws.

 

Subsistence Patterns

The Alutiiq peoples are maritime people obtaining most of their food and livelihood from the sea. Historically, sea mammal hunters went to sea, sometimes traveled long distances in their skin covered iqyax/qayaq or ´bairdarka´, as they became known in Russian. For larger groups, people traveled in a large skin covered boat called an angyaq or ´baidar´ in Russian.

Historically, villages were usually located at the mouths of streams to take advantage of fresh water and abundant salmon runs as they are today. Besides nets, traps and weirs for fishing, people used wooden hooks and kelp or sinew lines. Today, salmon, halibut, octopus, shellfish, seal, sea lion, caribou (on the Alaska Peninsula) and deer remain important components of the Alutiiq subsistence diet.

Group Members:

Brian Faloona: Politics

Cody Franklin: Economy

Kevin Johnson: Family

Brian Parker: Religion

Erika Payne: Family

Dontrece Smith: Geography