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St Lawrence Island Yupik and Inupiaq Native American history - page 4 of 4

Cooperative hunting also linked families together. Notably, in such endeavors, the individual recognized as being the most skilled hunter assumed leadership of the given enterprise, irrespective of family membership. Given the importance of maximizing success in hunting, choosing the most knowledgeable individual within the larger group to lead the effort was a far more effective approach than limiting the selection to a member of one's own family. Once harvested, the game was then divided among the individual participants according to a precise set of rules overseen by the group leader (ataniq). When returned to the hunter's family, the game would then enter the family redistribution system. Following a successful whale hunt, Inupiat families would distribute maktak (whale skin with blubber) to other community members. Nalukataq is the celebration of a successful whaling season featuring a blanket toss, public feast and dancing.

From June and early July when the ice left, some North Slope coastal Inupiat spent their time at seal and duck hunting camps, while others headed east for the trade fairs at Nigliq on the Colville River and at Kaktovik on Barter Island. Most Inlanders also moved down to the coast just after breakup in late June or later. July called for another move to the fish camps although men spent much of their time hunting caribou. Later in the season, women turned to harvesting large quantities of berries and other vegetable products. Farther south, the residents of Kotzebue Sound spent their late spring hunting the beluga, a small white whale of 12 to 14 feet in length that frequented the area in large numbers. With the end of the beluga hunting season, and after the women had finished drying the whale skin and blubber (maktak) and storing it in pokes, the people could turn to less strenuous activities including participation in the large trade fair held at Sheshalik on the north shore of Kotzebue Sound. This fair involving two thousand or more participants, regularly included boatloads of people from Siberia as well as inland and coastal Inupiat. Local trade goods such as pokes of oil, seal, whale, and walrus meat and maktak, ugruk skins and rope, were exchanged for Russian tobacco, regional specialties such as jade, pottery and Siberian reindeer skins, beads, caribou skins and furs. Social activities included dances, athletic contests, feasts, and more serious negotiations between members of different localities concerning disputes of the recent past.

It is often thought that prior to the arrival of Europeans with their guns and whale bombs, the available land and sea mammal population could easily support small aboriginal groups residing more or less permanently in the area. In a few localities this was largely so. But for most, not only was seasonal mobility the norm, but the threat of disaster was ever present - whether caused by climatic alteration tidal wave, disease, or similar calamity. Climatic changes especially, could seriously reduce the availability of fish and game such as salmon, caribou, and ptarmigan. No matter where the locality, the result was famine. Indeed, there are recognizable periods in Arctic Alaska prior to the arrival of Europeans [for example, between 1838 and 1848] when several territories were completely depopulated through famine or disease. Eventually, a few ex-residents returned, or if they had died out, other marginal members of adjacent areas moved in to fill the vacuum, and life continued.

In summary, it is obvious that for hundreds of years, the Inupiat of Arctic Alaska lived in distinct territorially-based populations. Highly competent, they had an intimate knowledge of their environment. Their economic and social life was organized around interlocking bilateral kin ties, extending to other localities through co-marriage. Although rights and responsibilities of relatives differed according to the closeness of the relationship, the collective labor of the group was nevertheless seen as being mobilized by linkages between kin. Largely self-sufficient and politically autonomous, these kinship groups maintained active trading relations with other Inupiat, Siberian and Alaskan Yup'ik, and Athabascan Indians.

• Athabascans,
• Yup'ik and Cup'ik,
• Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yupik people,
• Aleut and Alutiiq peoples,
• Eyak, Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people.

Inupiaq and St Lawrence Island Yupik Native American history - page 1

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