Alaska

Alaska

Ministry of Education of the Ukraine

Section: Area stadies

Topic: Alaska

Done by Lena Kozachenok

201 gr.

Kyev 1998

FROM THE LAND CALLED BERINGIA

Origins of Alaska’s Native Groups

No one knows exactly when people first found the land that would be

called Alaska.

Some anthropologists believe that people migrated from Asia to North

America as long as 40,000 years ago. Others argue it was as recent as

15,000 years ago.

Whenever, the consensus is that they came from Asia by way of a

northern land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska.

That land bridge, now recalled as Beringia, was the first gateway to

Alaska. But these first visitors were hardly tourists intent on exploring

new worlds. Rather they were simply pursuing their subsistence way of life

as they followed great herds of grazing mammals across the grassy tundra

and gentle steppes of Beringia.

They came sporadically through many millennia.. in waves of different

ethnic backgrounds/generations of people and animals..hunters and hunted.

As the Ice Age drew to an end and the seas claimed the land, these people

moved to higher and drier places--the land that, as the continents drifted

apart, would become Alaska.

Some groups settled in the Arctic. Others traversed the mountain

passes to other parts of Alaska. While still others migrated through

Alaska, continuing on to distant lands--perhaps as far as South America!

Those who made Alaska their permanent home make up the state’s four

major anthropological group: Eskimos, Aleuts, Athabascans, and Northwest

Coast Indians.

While all four groups shared certain basic similarities--all hunted,

fished and gathered food--they developed distinctive cultures and sets of

skills.

The Eskimos:

Flexible Residents of the Arctic

The Eskimos were primarily a coastal people, setting along the shores

of the Arctic and Bering seas.

For millennia they lived a simple, subsistence life--much as they

still do today--by harvesting the fish and mammals of the seas, the fruits

and game of the land. Somehow they learned how to thrive despite the

demanding conditions of the Arcitc.

Their sense of direction was keen, almost uncanny. Traveling in a

straight line, sometimes through snowstorms and whiteouts, they found their

way around the mostly featureless terrain by noting wind direction, the

position of the stars, the shape and size of a snowdrift.

And they were resourceful. In a land where the summer sun stays at eye-

level for weeks on end, never setting below the horizon, the Eskimos

fashioned the first sun-visor--which also doubled as a snowmask to protect

their eyes from the wind-driven snow!

The Athabascans:

Nomads of the Interior

Like the Eskimos, the Athabascans were skillful hunters, but they

depended more on large land mammals for their subsistence--tracking moose

and migrating caribou.

When it came to fishing, the Athabascans were absolutely ingenious,

snaring fish with hooks, lures, traps and nets that are the fascination of

modern day anglers who visit their camps.

Generally nomadic, they lived in small, simply organized bands of a

few families, and whenever possible pitched their camps in the sheltered

white spruce forests of the Interior. Some adventurous tribes, however,

wandered all the way to the Southwest United States to become kin to the

Navajos and Apaches.

Aleuts:

Born of the Sea

For the Aleuts, life centered around the sea as they distributed

themselves among the 70-some islands in the Aleutian chain across the North

Pacfic.

Life here was somewhat more benign that in the Arctic, though wind

storms were sometimes strong enough to blow rocks around!

Since their food supply was rich, varied and readily available, the

Aleuts had time to develop a complex culture. Evidence indicates that they

practiced surgery and that their elaborate burial rituals included

embalming. Instruments. utensils, even their boats (baidars) were made with

amazing beauty and exact symmetry. And everything was fashioned for a

specific purpose--the Aleuts used 30 different kinds of harpoon heads for

different species of game!

Skilled navigators and sailors, the Aleuts had the dubious distinction

of being the first to encounter the white man...Russian fur traders who

took them as slaves to harvest the fur seals in the Pribilofs.

The Northwest Coast Indians:

High Society of Alaska’s Southeast

The milder, more temperate climate and an unlimited supply of salmon

and other seafood’s enabled the N