Alaska Natives
The Alaska Natives (English: Alaska Natives ) are indigenous peoples from the region of present-day U.S. state of Alaska. 225 of the 562 recognized tribes in the United States live here. At the 2000 census, there were 98,043 people, 15.6% of Alaska's total population at that time, in being Indigenous Alaska.
Settlement and Culture
The present-day Indian tribes of the south-eastern coast and the inland are descendants of the Paleo- Indians who migrated from Siberia over the then existing Beringia approximately 16000-12000 years ago. The Inuit are descended from a later settlement wave. The ancestors of the people of the Aleutian Islands settled the Aleutian chain of islands about 4,000 years ago from Siberia.
The peoples belonging to different cultural regions and accordingly have significantly different social structures and religious and cultural peculiarities. Some tribes of the Pacific coast are known for their rich carving, which has been preserved to the present day.
Today's legal status
Similarly, the Canadian Inuit and First Nations, which are recognized as a distinct peoples, Alaska Natives are in some legal areas treated differently than the rest of the Indians in the United States. So, they are entitled to, for example, by a adopted in 1995 supplement to the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, to hunt whales and other marine mammals. They were also given land rights that were regulated in force until 1971 Alaska Native Allotment Act, and which differed significantly from those in parts of the Dawes Act, which delimited the reserve land of the Indians in the other regions of the United States. 1971 regulated the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the territorial claims of indigenous and transferred land rights to 13 Alaska Native Regional Corporations ( local authorities) and over 200 bodies at the level of villages. The regulation of subsistence use ( Subsistence Management) on federally owned areas located since 1990 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in the hands of the federal government. The Alaska Native tribal governments, in contrast to the Indians on the rest of the country, not the right to collect taxes, because they - do not have reserves - with the exception of Tsimshians.
Regional assignment
Inland
The Athabaskan lived as a wandering hunter-gatherers in Interior Alaska between the Brooks Range and the Kenai Peninsula on the Gulf of Alaska. The catchment areas of the five great rivers of the inland area, Yukon, Tanana, Susitna, Kuskokwim and Copper, formed their livelihood.
They moved in small groups of 20 to 40 people and subsisted on fishing, hunting and trapping. In the summer camps were built to fish-filled rivers, in the winter covered the families in winter quarters, which served as a base camp.
With the Ahtna, Deg Xinag, Dena'ina, Gwich'in, Han, Holikachuk, Kolchan, Koyukon, Lower Tanana, Tanacross and Upper Tanana there are eleven language groups.
Aleutian Islands and south coast
The habitat of the Aleutian Islands and the Alutiiq is the island chain of the Aleutian Islands, the Alaska Peninsula and the southern coast of the mainland of Alaska to Prince William Sound. Food source are the resources of the surrounding seas, the Northern Pacific and the Bering Sea. With Baidarkas, driftwood, bones and animal skins built kayaks, was hunted on the sea.
The language of the Aleutian Islands has split off around 4000 years ago by the Yupik. The Alutiiq are by anthropologists into three groups, the Chugach on Prince William Sound, the Unegkurmiut on the Kenai Peninsula and the Koniag on Kodiak and the Alaska Peninsula, divided. The peoples were settled along waterways inland or on the coast of the sea. The trade with other tribes along the coast and the Athabascan from the region of the Copper River provided a supplement to the one-sided diet, which supplied the sea.
Southeast and Panhandle
Southeastern Alaska and the Panhandle is home to the Eyak, Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian. Their culture connects them with other peoples of the Pacific coast to the south to Oregon. Significant differences exist in tribal order and language. The region from the Copper River Delta to in the southeastern Panhandle consists of temperate rain forest, which the sea, the rivers and estuaries of the Inside Passage made to major transport routes.
The Eyak populated region on the Gulf of Alaska between Icy Bay and Copper River south of Mount Saint Elias. Continue south-east, between Icy Bay and Dixon Entrance, living the Tlingit, had spread today's Canadian border into the country to over. The Haida, whose original territory of Haida Gwaii is had penetrated before the arrival of the first Europeans to the north up to the Prince of Wales Iceland.
South West and Bristol Bay
The Central Alaskan Yup'ik live in southwestern Alaska from Bristol Bay, the Yukon - Kuskokwim Delta, and on the island of Nunivak. At the time of first contact with Europeans, the population was about 16,500. They lived as hunters and gatherers, and of the resources of the sea. The Yup'ik and Cup'ik lived nomadic and followed the trails of the Wilds.
The men of the groups and families lived in the seasonal, far-flung camps in the so-called " Qasgiqs " ( community centers ), where the cultural events were held. The women lived in " Enas ", which were designed similar to but smaller than the " Qasgiqs " and where the food preparation took place.
North West and North Slope
The Inupiat and St. Lawrence Iceland Yupik were and are hunter-gatherers in northwestern Alaska to the Seward Peninsula and in the North Slope to the Arctic Ocean. Their livelihood is based on fishing and whale and reindeer herds of the arctic tundra. They live in small groups of up to 200 members. The time of the first contact with Europeans largest ethnic groups were the St. Lawrence Iceland Yupiit with 1500 people, the Bering Strait Inupiat (1820 people), the Kotzebue Sound Inupiat ( 3675 people), that of the North Alaska Coast Inupiat ( " Tareumiut " people sea, 1850 people) and the Interior North Inupiat ( " Nunamiut " people of the land, in 1050 persons).
In the design of accommodation all groups was common that the input was below the area to prevent cold air from entering, that the dwelling were partially embedded in the ground to take advantage of the surrounding soil for insulation and that oil lamps made of ceramic or soapstone were used to produce light and heat as well as for cooking.
Languages
In Alaska, there are over 20 different Aboriginal languages from four language families. The Athabaskan languages form a genetic unit with the extinct Eyak. The genetic relationship of the Tlingit is not fully understood. The language group Tlingit - Eyak - Athapaskisch is referred to as Na - Dene languages. In addition to the Athabaskan Eskimo Aleut languages are the second largest language group. The Haida was formerly assigned to the Na - Dene languages , but today seen as an isolated language of the Tsimshian.