Scholars typically describe the indigenous groups of Alaska as Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts. Most people are aware that the term Indian would never have been used to describe the indigenous peoples of the Americas if Columbus hadn't been a half a world off in his calculations, and many people are aware that the term Eskimo would not be used if the first Europeans to come in contact with the indigenous peoples of the North American Arctic had not mispronounced the work assine'w, which the Algonquian Indians used to describe their neighbors to the north. But few seem aware that the name Aleut also came from external sources.
———Aleut is the term usually used to describe the people of the Aleutian Islands on one hand, and the people of Kodiak Island, the lower Alaska and Kenai Peninsulas, and Prince William Sound on the other. While there are considerable similarities between these two groups of indigenous peoples, they represent separate cultures, with different languages. At the time of contact, they were traditional enemies as well as trading partners. Their principal similarity lies in the fact that they are both primarily coastal peoples who have always relied to the sea to provide their food.
———In the 1740s, when the first Russian hunters and fur traders came to the Aleutian Islands, they assumed that the people living there were Aliutors — a coastal indigenous group they had previously encountered on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Ironically, the name Aliutor had been applied to this coastal group by another Kamchatkan group, the interior-residing Chavchuvs. According to modern researchers, the Aliutors were unlike the Chavchuvs; they lived in semi-subterranean sod houses, ate raw fish, and hunted small whales from skin boats. Their subsistence pattern was characteristic not only of coastal people in Kamchatka, but also of people from places as nearby as Attu and as distant as Prince William Sound. As the Russians left the Kamchatkan coast and moved out into the North Pacific, they continued to come across people who lived like the Aliutors, and they began to refer to all such seamammal-hunting peoples as Aliut.
———The first people the Russians encountered as they moved eastward were the residents of the Near Islands, who called themselves Sasignan. These people were part of the larger group that resided from there to Port Mollar on the Alaska Peninsula and who did, and still do, call themselves Unangan (Singular Unangax). There are several subgroups of the Unangan. Moving eastward from the home of the Sasignan are the Qaun, Akuuun, Naahmius, Qigiiun, Niiuis, Qawalangin, and Qagaan Tayaungin. While the most common self-designation by the Aleutian Island people today may be Aleut, the name Unangan is well known, and some believe it should return to the name of preference.
———As the Russians, together with their Unangax guides, moved to the east from the Aleutian Islands, they encountered people the Unangan called Kanain. Apparently the Russians transcribed the initial short a sound of this word as an unaccented Russian o, (Unacsian.) When Americans picked up the term from the Russians, they retained the Russian o, although Russian o and English o are very different sounds. Thus, the Unangax word Kanain was modified to Koniag. The Russians, however, continued to refer to both groups as Aleuts. The people called Kanain by the Unangan called themselves Sugpiat, meaning "the real people" (the singular, Sugpiaq, meaning "a real person"). They in turn referred to the Unangan as Tayaut.
———The Sugpait are closely related linguistically to all the peoples of the coastal areas to the north including the Yupiks of western Alaska and eastern Siberia, the Inupiat (singular Inupiaq) of Arctic ALaska, and the Inuits of Arctic Canada and Greenland. They are divided into regional subgroups, with these groups being further divided by groups at the village level. The village name is used followed by miut, which means "people who live at or belong to a particular location."
———The Unangan and the Sugpiat both resisted the initial Russian invasion, but superior weaponry and the Russian practice of taking hostages brought both peoples under Russian rule, where they remained for nearly a century. During that time their numbers were drastically reduced by previously unknown diseases, and their cultures underwent significant changes as they adopted many Russian customs. Then, in 1867, the occupation rights to Alaska were purchased by the United States, however, the Russian influence is very noticeable in Unangax and Sugpiaq villages. The most conspicuous evidence of this the influence is the omnipresence of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is the center of the social life in each community.
———During the twentieth century these coastal groups came into contact with a new group of people, anthropologists. The newcomers recognized that while both groups called themselves Aleuts, they were different from each other in many ways — including language. The anthropologists decided that the people of the Aleutian Islands were the real Aleuts, while the people of Kodiak Island and Prince William Sound were actually Eskimos. The anthropological literature began referring to the second group with such terms as Pacific Eskimos and Pacific Yupiks. This practice caused a strained relationship between many Sugpiat and anthropologists, since the Sugpiat had never identified themselves as Eskimo and did not care to begin doing so. It was then that the term Alutiiq, while apparently used sparingly in the past, became preferred for self-designation. Alutiiq (plural Alutiit) is simply the word Aleut in Sugcestun, the language of the Sugpiat. There are now those, however, who would prefer to return to using the term Sugpiaq. Nina Olsen, who grew up in Afognak village near Kodiak Island in the 1920s and 1930s, said, "When I was growing up in Afognak, I don't remember that we used the terms Aleut or Alutiiq to describe ourselves. We said Sugpiaq. Sugpaiq — 'a real person.' I think we should go back to calling ourselves Sugpiaq. It has so much more meaning."
———A defining event in the recent history of the Unangan and the Sugpiat, as it was for other Alaska indigenous groups, was the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. The new law established an additional identity for these groups when they became shareholders in regional corporations established to manage community land and resources. The corporations created the Unangan and Sugpiat are the Aleut Corporation for the Aleutian Islands region; Koniag, Inc., for the Kodiak Island area; Chugach Alaska Corporation, for Prince William Sound and the lower Kenai Peninsula; and the Bristol Bay Native Corporation, which, while serving a predominantly Yupik population, also works with four Sugpaiq villages on the Alaska Peninsula. Each of these geographical areas also has its own not-for-profit corporation that provides health, social, and political-advocacy services to the people. Those corporation are, respectively the Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Association; the Kodiak Area Native Association; Chugachmuit, Inc.; and the Bristol Bay Native Association. Each Unangax and Sugpiaq village is governed by a tribal council, and each has the political status of "Indian tribe" and maintain a special relationship with the federal government.
———Both the Unangan and the Sugpiaq have conscious efforts under way to revitalize their cultures. Particular emphasis has been placed on language preservation. In spring 1994 construction was begun on a native museum and cultural center in Kodiak, and one is in the planning stages for Unalaska, and the Aleutians. Both groups hope that these efforts will result in the development and maintenance of strong ethnic and cultural identities that will make it clear to local residents and outsiders alike that the term Aleut cannot describe the region's varied people or their traditions.

GORDON L. PULLAR (Kodiak Island Alutiiq [Sugpaiq])
University of Alaska at Fairbanks