Contents
Early Eskimo History
Written by Patricia H. Partnow, Ph.D.
Artwork by Jeannette Bailey
Originally written for
Anchorage School District
Indian Education Program
Reprinted in the
Alaska Native Heritage Center web site
www.akhistory.org
Reprinted and redesigned for the
Alaska Studies Course
Anchorage School District
2004
Early Eskimo History • UNIT 4, Early Eskimo History
1.
EARLY ESKIMO HISTORY
INTRODUCTION
Who Are the Eskimos?
T
he word “Eskimo” is not an Eskimo word. It is an Ojibwe Indian word meaning “eater of
raw meat” — and it was not meant to be a complimentary name. The Ojibwe had competed
with their neighbors to the north for the use of the land and resources for centuries. So when
early white visitors to the area asked them what the people to the north were called, they were provided the insult-name.
The people who are often called Eskimos by English-speaking outsiders prefer their own names
in their own languages. There are four separate Eskimo languages, and in each language the group
name means “the real people.” In the far north, the
people are Iñupiat. In Canada, where a dialect of the
same language is spoken, people call themselves
Inuit. In Central Yup’ik, the language of southwestern Alaska, the people are Yupiit, as are the St.
Lawrence Islanders, whose language is closely related but separate. And the people of Kodiak Island,
Prince William Sound, and the Alaska Peninsula,
who call themselves “Aleuts” when speaking
English, share some parts of their history and a similar language with Yupiit but call themselves Sugpiat
in their own language.
But the word “Eskimo” has stuck, for good or ill,
and is often used by outsiders to refer to speakers of
various languages spoken by the coastal people from
northern Canada to southwestern Alaska.
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“Prehistory” and “History”
H
istory books do not tell everything about the
past. They contain selected stories only. For
instance, they usually deal with events that
occurred after people started writing down facts
and dates. The period before writing is called
“prehistory.” Because “prehistory” is covered so
sparsely in history books, a reader might think
that nothing important happened before writing
became widespread. In Alaska, nothing could be
further from the truth.
History is selected in other ways as well.
History books are written by later generations of
people. They may even be from a culture different from the one being described. Those who
lived the history were not aware that they were
passing from “prehistory” into “history.” Nor did
they know which events would be considered
important enough to be written down for future
generations.
Arctic Native people were first described in
writing in the 1200s when Norse travelers journeyed to Greenland to establish a colony. They
encountered the Inuit who already lived there.
The first book written in an Eskimo language
was printed in 1847. History books therefore
consider the beginnings of Eskimo “history” to
date to either the 1200s or, more often, the
1800s. The Iñupiat and Yupiit themselves do not
consider these their beginnings. They know that
many important events and developments
occurred before Europeans knew they existed.
Today’s Eskimo people reconstruct their own
histories from two kinds of information. The first
comes from legends and stories handed down
from generation to generation. These stories —
called oral traditions because they are passed
down by word of mouth — tell about the beginnings of the world, a huge flood, the first people,
and the origins of human culture and laws. The
storytellers do not attach dates to these stories;
they say only that they happened in ancient
times. They are more important for what they
say about the meaning of human life than when
events happened.
Other oral traditions tell about people whose
lives were different from today. This information
is based both on remembered events — such as
battles or truces between neighboring groups —
and on old tools that people find in the ground as
they build houses, roads, and fishcamps. These
are the implements that their ancestors developed
and perfected through the centuries.
Since the 1930s, archaeologists trained at
American and European universities have
worked with Iñupiat and Yupiit to uncover more
about their pasts. This reading selection is about
some of the objects and features they have
found, and what these finds tell us about the history of the people who made them.
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3.
Earliest Eskimo History
T
he late Elijah Kakinya, an Elder from
Anaktuvuk Pass in the Brooks Range of
Alaska, told a story about the beginnings of the
world:
Long ago, the entire earth was flooded.
People hunted sea mammals, but stayed in
umiaks and kayaks all the time. One time
they were in their kayaks when they spotted
a tussock of grass floating in the water.
Raven, who in his human form was hunting
with them, speared the tussock. As it came
closer to the hunters, they noticed flowers
growing upon it. Raven gave a victory cheer
and the ocean immediately began to recede.
Eventually the whole coastal Arctic plain
emerged, stranding the animals and people
on dry land for the first time. This is how
the North Slope came to be, and these were
the people who first settled it.
This ancient oral tradition is similar to the
story archaeologists tell about the first peopling
of Alaska. They know, by studying tiny fossils
and ancient rocks, that the sea was much lower
during the last Ice Age than it is today. Now the
Bering Sea separates Siberia from Alaska. But
11,000 years ago, the entire continental “shelf”
— the shallow part of the sea bottom — was
high and dry. It was 1000 miles wide from north
to south and was an open steppe where herds of
large animals grazed and humans hunted them.
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The northern coastline of this steppe, which scientists call “Beringia,” was north of today’s
coastline and was frozen in ice year-round. But
the southern coastline was far south of today’s
shore. It was along this coastline, more than
10,000 years ago, that the ancestors of today’s
Eskimos probably paddled their skin-covered
boats and built settlements.
As the glaciers throughout the world melted
and poured vast quantities of water into the sea,
this broad steppe began to flood. The ancestral
Eskimos picked up their belongings and moved
them back along the new coastline. They probably moved their houses several times every generation as the water level continued to rise and
drown their old homes. The oral traditions of
most Alaska Natives recall a time of floods.
They also tell about a time when the waters had
finally risen to present levels and the flooding
stopped. Perhaps it is this period that Elijah
Kakinya’s story describes — the end of flooding
and the beginning of a period when the newly
drained land allowed people to build safe and
dry homes.
Archaeologists have found remains of humanmade tools from these early days more than
10,000 years ago, but they do not think that the
implements belonged to the ancestors of today’s
Eskimos. They are far inland. Several thousand
years would have to pass before people who
were certainly ancestors of today’s Iñupiat and
Yupiit began leaving their marks in the land.
EARLIEST ESKIMO
TOOLS: 4200 BP
T
he oldest archaeological finds in western
and northern Alaska made by ancestors of
today’s Eskimos are about 4200 years old
(written as 4200 BP, or Before Present). These
are called the “Arctic Small Tool tradition,”
abbreviated as ASTt. These were indeed “small
tools,” as the name indicates. Many were tiny
blades less than an inch long. They were carefully fashioned of beautiful stone. One type of tool
is called a microblade. It is a small rectangle
chipped from a larger core of fine-grained chert
or obsidian. Some microblades were used for
cutting, others for working wood or ivory. Still
others were implanted into bone and wood
arrows to provide a deadly edge that would
cause prey to bleed to death. The people who
made these tools have been called “the best
craftsmen of stone that the world has seen.”
But after nearly 2000 years, suddenly, all
across the north, the Arctic Small Tool tradition
disappeared. About 2500 years ago people simply stopped going to their old hunting sites.
When other people finally began reusing the
sites generations later, they were using different
types of tools.
What happened to the ASTt people?
Archaeologists believe their disappearance might
have been related to the climate changes. Not
only did people leave their old northern homes,
but they might also have given up the kinds of
hunting they had been used to during the warmer
days. New hunting practices required new
weapons, so people began experimenting with a
number of different techniques and implements.
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5.
I
THE PERIOD
OF INVENTION:
NORTON TRADITION
2500 BP to 1100 BP
n archaeological findings after 2500 BP, in
place of common ASTt tools, researchers
find evidence of many different local subcultures, a different type in each location. Many of
these fit within a single tradition called the
Norton Tradition, named after Norton Bay where
its first remains were found. One of the most
famous subcultures within the Norton Tradition
was the Ipiutak culture based at Point Hope.
None of the new subcultures was widespread,
but they were alike enough to be considered part
of a single tradition. Many new inventions arose
from the new subcultures. Some of those innovations were:
Pottery. Pottery was first made in Alaska at this
time. Archaeologists think that the Alaskans
learned this skill from Siberian or other Asian
peoples.
Oil lamps. Oil lamps, like those used in recent
times by Eskimos throughout the North, were
used for the first time throughout Alaska during
this period.
Sea Orientation. People began to depend
much more on sea resources than land animals.
Many new hunting tools were invented, including ice creepers and snow goggles for hunting
seals on the spring ice and toggle harpoon heads
for pursuing sea mammals of all sorts from
kayaks and skin-covered umiaks.
Artwork. Several different and elaborate styles
of carved artwork sprang up in sites throughout
Alaska.
Permanent villages. Alaskan Eskimos began
to settle in permanent villages that lasted for
generations. Although they continued to move
around seasonally to hunt a variety of animals,
they became less nomadic than in the past,
returning to the same winter villages year after
year.
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About 2500 years ago, when these new subcultures first appeared, the sea environment was
probably especially rich. Perhaps the walrus
were coming in greater numbers, or the whale
migrations were closer to shore than in previous
years. Seafood must have been plentiful, leaving
time for the men and women to create new
objects that would help them hunt, sew, and prepare food better, and still have time left over to
create beautiful and decorative objects.
found skills to obtain them, people could also
hunt for more than just their present needs. Once
they figured out how to preserve and store extra
food, they could stock up for the future. They
did not need to move around as much just to find
enough food to eat, and by staying in one place
they came to know their home territories and the
resources around then much better. They could
identify the uses of thousands of plants and animals, and knew just where and when to find
each.
The Most Important Inventions
Sedentism, which means living in a single
location, has other effects on how people live.
When they constantly move, they need to be able
to go quickly. This means they cannot carry
many belongings. It also means they must
remake many things each time they get to a new
camp, since they have not brought along everything they made in their last camps. This takes
time. Moving itself takes time.
O
f the five important changes listed above,
two affected all other parts of human life.
The first was the invention of hundreds of new
tools for hunting sea mammals. This shows that
people were looking more and more toward the
sea for their subsistence needs.
The second was that people began to change
their nomadic lifestyle and live in larger permanent villages.
The two changes are related to each other. By
concentrating on the abundant resources of the
sea, people could catch more food in less time
than before. With more food, more people could
be fed, so more people could live together in one
place.
With more sea resources available and new-
But if people stay in one place for much of
the year, they save time they used to spend moving and remaking the same objects over and
over. What could they do with the time they
saved?
At this period in Eskimo history, about 2500
years ago, Eskimos used some of this time for
inventing new tools and new ways to use old
tools. This period was the beginning of the blossoming of Eskimo culture all across the North.
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7.
LIFE IN A
PERMANENT
VILLAGE
M
any changes in Eskimo life during the
Norton Cultural Tradition show up in
the archaeological record — but modern people must infer others, using the physical
remains as clues.
For instance, the archeological record does
not tell us how life changed for an individual
during this period. We might wonder, “Did people begin to feel differently toward the land,
themselves, and each other as they changed from
nomads to settlers?”
One clue to the answer to that question is
found in oral tradition. Many Yup’ik stories tell
about the time long ago before human society
had been established. It was a time when single
people or lone families lived miles away from
other humans. Each story describes the beginnings of a human custom made possible by new
knowledge gained by the heroes — but this
knowledge was hard-won in a world made up of
isolated families. The stories show that it was
only when people came together in larger groups
that Yup’ik culture as we know it really began.
Perhaps this period of “coming together” is the
way the people remember the end of the
nomadic way of life 2000 years ago.
Another clue is in the outlines of large buildings that began appearing in Eskimo sites during
Norton Tradition times. These buildings were
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probably the first qasgit, or community or men’s
houses. In recent years similar large buildings
have been used in Central Yup’ik areas as houses
for men and boys, where they worked, ate, and
slept. In Iñupiaq areas, similar buildings were
homes for important families and also used as
ceremonial halls for community celebrations and
rituals.
The existence of qasgit shows that a person’s
life in a large permanent village was very different from his or her life as part of a nomadic family. Everyone knew and interacted with many
others. A person’s attitude about who was a
member of his family may have changed: while
living a nomadic life, Eskimo families may have
consisted of only a husband, wife, children, and
a grandparent or two. In a permanent village, the
family came to include brothers and sisters,
aunts, uncles, cousins, relatives of adopted children, grandchildren, and in-laws.
Because personalities differ, not everyone living in a large village gets along with everyone
else. In a nomadic lifestyle, a family can simply
move away from a person who is annoying. In a
permanent settlement, they must figure out ways
to get along with annoying people without causing trouble for the whole community. One way is
to agree to new rules of behavior. For instance,
everyone might agree that if there is an argument
between two families, an elder from each family
will decide the outcome. Another way to get
along with others is to group together into clubs,
qasgit, or families, and to support each other in
times of disagreement. Perhaps both happened
during the Period of Invention.
TIKIGAQ:
A Permanent
Settlement for More
than 1000 Years
A
popular picture of Eskimo life in the old
days shows a small family traveling
along an icy coast, searching for game.
As nightfall approaches, the man and woman
begin to make a snow dome-shaped house which
will be abandoned as soon as game becomes
scarce in that area.
This picture is all wrong, at least when
describing life as lived by one group of Alaskan
Iñupiat over a period lasting more than 1000
years.
Point Hope, Alaska has been the site of one of
the largest villages in the North for almost 15
centuries. The area has long supported a large
population. Archaeologists have found more than
500 houses in one area alone. And the population
has been stable. The Iñupiat from Tikigaq — the
real name for Point Hope — were not nomads
wandering over the tundra in search of game.
They lived in a single home village, supported
by spring whale hunts.
Tikigaq is not unique in Alaska. All of the
major whaling villages have had large and settled populations for hundreds of years. Tikigaq is
unique in two ways, though: 1500 years ago during the Norton Tradition, when it first became an
important population center, the people living
there did not depend on whale hunting, as they
did in later years. And 1500 years ago, residents
of Tikigaq began producing elaborate and beautiful artworks that seemed to spring up from
nowhere. This artstyle is called Ipiutak, after the
place it was first found by archaeologists.
Tikigaq’s past remains a mystery. No one has
yet explained where the ideas for the art came
from, nor how such a large population was fed
during the village’s earliest centuries without
depending on whales.
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9.
ORIGINS
Not all inventions occurred during the
days of the Norton Tradition. Other items
often associated with traditional Eskimo culture were invented at other times. For
instance,
1. Snowshoes:
Iñupiat and Yupiit have used snowshoes for
as long as anyone can remember, but snowshoes were probably invented not by Eskimos
but by Athabascans or their ancestors in the
interior of North America. A story told by the
late Dena’ina Elder Peter Kalifornsky
explains the origins of the many snowshoe
types in use by Athabascans:
One time Raven, Camprobber,
Ptarmigan, and Spruce Hen noticed the
rabbit’s big feet. They decided to experi ment with big feet of their own. They
made various kinds of snowshoes, each
for different snow conditions. It was
from these birds that humans learned to
make snowshoes for themselves for dif ferent conditions and purposes.
Athabascans probably began fashioning
showshoes thousands of years ago when they
first moved into northern forests where the
snow falls thick and light. However, archaeologists have not found remains of snowshoes
in Athabascan sites; their earliest finds were
some 1500 years old, at an Eskimo site on the
Seward Peninsula.
2. Tailored Clothing:
Tailored clothes are made of many different
pieces sewn together to fit the owner. The
ancestral Eskimos undoubtedly knew how to
make warm tailored clothing such as parkas
and pants when they first came to North
America. People in Siberia were making this
type of clothing as early as 15,000 years ago.
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3. Toggle Harpoon Heads:
There are many different styles of harpoon
heads, but the one most often associated with
Eskimos is the toggle, which turns sideways
to anchor itself into the animal’s flesh. These have been
found in 4000-year-old sites
in Canada. In Alaska, toggle
harpoon heads appeared in
the Aleutians 3000 years ago.
They may have been made
earlier in other parts of the
state, but if so, the bone they
were made from rotted away,
leaving no trace.
4. Oil Lamps:
People found the earliest oilburning lamp in a very old
site on Kodiak Island, dated
5500 BP. Some late Arctic Small Tool tradition users in Greenland had begun using oilburning stove lamps, but it was not until
about 3000 years ago that the lamps became
widespread in tundra areas north of the
Pacific coast.
5. Dogsleds:
Dogs could have been hitched to sleds to help
carry belongings many thousands of years
ago. A rawhide line and wooden sled would
have rotted away and left no sign, so archaeologists would not know about their use. But
there is no actual evidence of dogsleds until
after 1000 AD. It was during the days of the
Thule Culture, which followed the Norton
Tradition, that firm evidence for dogsled use
appears.
For an on-line version of this material (and
more on the topic), visit www.akhistory.org,
and click on the Eskimo History lesson.
Arctic Small Tool Tradition
SITES MAP
Arctic Small Tool Tradition
HOUSE
Brooks River
3450 B.P.
This house was a
semi-subterranean sod house.
It seems to have been heated
with wood - note the hearth
in the center.
A L A S K A S T U D I E S • UNIT 4, Early Eskimo History
11.
Arctic Small Tool Tradition
SPEAR POINT AND
ARROWHEAD
Cape Denbigh - 4000 B.P.
Arctic Small Tool Tradition
MICROBLADES
AND CORES
Cape Denbigh - 4000 B.P.
The figure in the center shows how a small
microblade was made by striking a core of a
hard smooth rock. The blades were then fitted
into slots made in tools and used for many
purposes. Some were placed in harpoon
heads. Others became knife blades or gouging tools.
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Arctic Small Tool Tradition
END AND SIDE BLADES
Cape Denbigh - 4000 B.P.
Figures c and d are side blades, fitted into harpoon
heads in the way shown in the center picture.
Figures a and e are end blades, used as
arrow points.
IPIUTAK SITES MAP
A L A S K A S T U D I E S • UNIT 4, Early Eskimo History
13.
HOUSE
Norton Tradition,
Ipiutak Culture
Cape Krusenstern - 1600 B.P.
This house apparently used wood rather than
oil as fuel - note the dark area in the center
which was a hearth. No seal oil lamps have
been found in Ipiutak sites. There is no doorway in this outline, suggesting that the
entrance hole was in the roof and that people
climbed down a ladder.
Carving of
BABY WALRUS
Norton Tradition,
Ipiutak Culture
Cape Krusenstern 1600 B.P.
This ivory carving was found in a
burial. It is carved to look like a
skeleton.
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HUMAN SKULL
Norton Tradition, Ipiutak
Culture
Point Hope - 1600 B.P.
This human skull was part of a buried skeleton.
It had ivory and jet pieces set into the eye,
nose and mouth holes. The Ipiutak people took
great care with their burials, showing a belief
in a life after death.
HARPOON HEAD
Norton Tradition, Ipiutak Culture
Point Hope - 1600 B.P.
This ivory toggle harpoon head with a flint blade set into its end
was used in hunting seals and walrus. Note the designs carved in
the ivory.
SNOW GOGGLES
Norton Tradition, Ipiutak Culture
Cape Krusenstern - 1600 B.P.
These snow goggles were carved to fit one specific man.
Judging by the size of the goggles, he was a large man with
a long, straight nose.
A L A S K A S T U D I E S • UNIT 4, Early Eskimo History
15.
Norton Tradition, Ipiutak Culture, Point Hope - 1600 B.P.
BURIAL MASK
This ivory outline of a face was found with a person’s
grave. The ivory pieces were at one time attached to a
wooden background to form a more complete mask.
COMB
This ivory comb’s exact use is not known. It may have been
used in cleaning a bearskin for some sort of ceremony. It is
decoraed with figures of bears and seals.
CHAIN AND
ORNAMENT
ORNAMENT WITH
LOON’S HEAD
This ivory ornament was probably
attached to shamans clothing. The
loon was considered a powerful spirit which could give the shamans
power to see and travel to other
places.
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These two ivory objects
were probably sewn
into a shamans’ clothing as decoration. Their
meaning is not known.