Alaskan Athabaskans Explained

Group:	Alaskan Athabascans
Population:	6,400^[1]
Popplace:	Alaska
Langs:	Northern Athabaskan languages, American English (Alaskan variant), Russian (historically)
Rels:	Shamanism (largely ex), Christianity

The Alaskan Athabascans,^{[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]} Alaskan Athapascans^[8] or Dena^[9] (ru|атабаски Аляски, атапаски Аляски)^[10] are Alaska Native peoples of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. They are the original inhabitants of the interior of Alaska.

Formerly they identified as a people by the word Tinneh (nowadays Dena; cf. Dene for Canadian Athabaskans). Taken from their own language, it means simply "men" or "people".^[11]

Subgroups

In Alaska, where they are the oldest, there are eleven groups identified by the languages they speak. These are:

• Dena’ina or Tanaina (Ht’ana)
• Ahtna or Copper River Athabascan (Hwt’aene)
• Deg Hit’an or Ingalik (Hitʼan)
• Holikachuk (Hitʼan)
• Koyukon (Hut’aane)
• Upper Kuskokwim or Kolchan (Hwt’ana)
• Tanana or Lower Tanana (Kokht’ana)
• Tanacross or Tanana Crossing (Koxt’een)
• Upper Tanana (Kohtʼiin)
• Gwich'in or Kutchin (Gwich’in)
• Hän (Hwëch’in).

Life and culture

See also: Shamanism among Alaska Natives.

The Alaskan Athabascan culture is an inland creek and river fishing (also coastal fishing by only Dena'ina of Cook Inlet) and hunter-gatherer culture. The Alaskan Athabascans have a matrilineal system in which children belong to the mother's clan, with the exception of the Yupikized Athabaskans (Holikachuk and Deg Hit'an).^[12]

The Athabascan people hold potlatches which have religious, social and economic significance.^[8]

Dogs were their only domesticated animal, but were and are an integral element in their culture for the Athabascan population in North America.^[13]

History

Athabascans are descended from Asian hunter-gatherers, likely originally native to Mongolia, who crossed the Bering Strait and settled in North America.^[14]

Notable Alaskan Athabascans

• George Attla (1933–2015) was a champion sprint dog musher.
• Emil Notti, an American engineer, indigenous activist and democratic politician. Key in the development of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
• Quinn Christopherson is an American singer-songwriter. He won the 2019 Tiny Desk Contest with his entry "Erase Me," a song describing his experience with male privilege and erasure as a transgender man.
• John Sackett (1944–2021) served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1967 to 1971 and in the Alaska Senate from 1973 to 1987.
• Michael J. Stickman, First Chief of the Nulato Tribal Council.
• Siobhan Wescott, physician and public health advocate; she has served as director of the American Indian Health Program and is a professor of American Indian health at the University of Nebraska.
• Poldine Carlo
• Kathleen Carlo-Kendall
• Peter Kalifornsky
• Mary TallMountain
• F. Kay Wallis (born), traditional healer and politician

See also

• Tanana Chiefs Conference (all Alaskan Athabaskans' [excl. Ahtna and Dena'ina] a territorial-level organization)
• Doyon, Limited
• Alaska Native Language Center
• Alaska Federation of Natives
• Indian ice cream (Alaska)
• Athabascan fiddle

Notes and References

1. Web site: Athabascans of Interior Alaska. www.ankn.uaf.edu.
2. Web site: Athabascans of Interior Alaska. www.ankn.uaf.edu.
3. Web site: Appendix E: Race Code List.
4. Web site: South Dakota Department of Education, Race/Ethnicity Guidance, Race Identification . 2014-03-14 . 2013-06-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130623032033/https://doe.sd.gov/ofm/documents/StatDigest_RaceIdentification.pdf . dead .
5. Web site: athabascan. www.aa.tufs.ac.jp.
6. Web site: Alaska's Heritage: Alaskan Athabascans . 2014-03-14 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140222234748/http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=150 . 2014-02-22 . dead .
7. Susan W. Fair (2006). Alaska Native Art: Tradition, Innovation, Continuity
8. William Simeone, A History of Alaskan Athapaskans, 1982, Alaska Historical Commission
9. Web site: ------------- Dena Languages -----------. anlorg.
10. Дзенискевич Г. И. Атапаски Аляски. — Л.: «Наука», Ленинградское отд., 1987
11. U.S. Government Printing Office (1900), Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey to the Secretary of the Interior
12. Web site: athabascan indians. www.aaanativearts.com.
13. Book: A dogs history of America. Derr, Mark . 2004. North Point Press. p. 12
14. Book: Stockel . Henrietta . Salvation Through Slavery: Chiricahua Apaches and Priests on the Spanish Colonial Frontier . 15 September 2022 . University of New Mexico Press . 978-0-8263-4327-7 . en . These words do not explain why the Athapaskans initially left their home somewhere in Asia, probably Mongolia, to settle in cold country just south of the Arctic Circle..