Unangan History and Culture

Unangan History
Within forty-five years after Russian contact, the native Unangan or Aleut, as the world at large has come to call them, generally estimated at twelve to fifteen thousand in number, plummeted to a few thousand persons at most-the population decimated by warfare, epidemics, and starvation. Exploited by Russian fur traders to harvest the sea otter, Aleut hunters were often enslaved, others forcibly relocated, some as far south as the Santa Catalina Islands off California, their wives and children held hostage to ensure acquiescence.
The Russian monarchy attempted to enforce fair treatment, but it was not until the arrival of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1800s, that the Aleuts' rights were argued in Russian courts. After the purchase of Alaska by the United States in 1867, the Aleut found themselves classified as "Indians" and made wards of the government. Under U.S. protectorate, the Aleut entered a time of what can best be described as benign neglect, receiving little or no support from the Territorial or Federal authorities.
The Aleut worked the introduced fox and sheep farms for wages, became construction workers or longshoremen, but almost all still looked to the sea for sustenance. The Aleuts' hardships lasted for over two centuries, under the governing hand of two countries, culminating finally in the forced evacuation from their homeland during World War II, where the unique geography of their islands, the link between east and west, again played a pivotal role in their history.

 Church
Unalaska's first Russian Orthodox church was constructed in 1808. In the 1820s and 1830s the church served as the seat of Father Ioann Veniaminov, later elected head of the Orthodox Church in Russia in 1868 and canonized Saint Innocent in 1977. Much of what is known of early Aleut culture and language is based on Father Veniaminov's observations.
Built in 1895, the present day Church of the Holy Ascension of Christ, is a National Historic Landmark. In 1996, the World Monuments Watch - a highly selective listing which includes India's Taj Mahal - designated the church's 250 religious icons one of the world's 100 most endangered sites.

The Russian Orthodox Church did much to alleviate the ills of colonization. Churches became the most prominent village structure and the locus of community life. Aleuts served as lay readers. They formed choirs, practicing the Orthodox liturgy in their own Aleut tongue. The Church became a sanctuary, its icons representing a spiritual world which transcended the often harsh realities of life. The Russian Orthodox faith remains a dominant force in modern Aleut culture.

 

Aleut Winter House
The traditional Aleut winter house, called a barabara or, in Aleut, an ulax, was a semi-subterranean dwelling with a driftwood/whale bone frame overlain with grass, earth, and sod. Entrance was through a portal in the roof, the inhabitants descending into the interior by means of a notched log ladder. Woven grass mats divided the dwellings into familial units with storage, sleeping quarters, and hiding places excavated into the walls-the latter often linked to secret passages providing a means of escape during warfare.

Barabaras reached lengths of 60 meters or more and held upwards of 40 families. They functioned as the site of manufacturing, communal and ceremonial activities, and at times, burial of the dead. Although it is thought each house acted independently, an elder of a leading barabara in the community was recognized as village leader. Shared dancing and feasting insured harmony between individual villages.

 

Basketry
Aleut basketry is some of the finest in the world, the continuum of a craft begun in prehistoric times and carried through to the present. Early Aleut women created baskets and woven mats of exceptional technical quality using only an elongated and sharpened thumbnail as tool. Today Aleut weavers continue to produce woven pieces of a remarkable cloth-like texture, works of modern art with roots in ancient tradition. The Aleut word for grass basket is qiigam aygaaxsii.

 

Baidarka
To the early Aleut, the baidarka or iqax was a living being, the skeleton made of hewn driftwood covered with seal and sea lion skin, the joints bound with sinew, bone, and baleen. Craftsmen worked for a year or more on a single boat, fashioning an iqax both strong and supple, one that "bent" upon the wave. The finished iqax was made watertight with boiled seal oil, the skin shell often turning translucent as paper in the process, so that the hunter, the heart of the vessel, was visible within. In these superb craft, Aleut hunters could paddle for twelve to eighteen hours without rest, traveling 150 kilometers out to sea at speeds reaching eight miles an hour. They navigated by the stars and moon, by watching the winds and tide rips, the flight of birds and the direction of the ocean swell. The iqax was not only a sailing craft, but a hunting partner that identified itself with its master and wished to share his life. "Their fates, indeed, are bound up together," states anthropologist J. Robert-Lamblin, "...their lives end at the same time; they disappear at sea together or, on land, share the same grave."

Hunters
Aleut whale hunters attacked their prey from single hatch baidarkas. Such formidable feats required magical assistance, with hunters calling upon the spirits of deceased whaling men to aid them. In a society where it was not uncommon for persons to live until thier sixties, whalers died young, the victims of their dangerous pursiuts and secret associations with the dead.

Headgear
Closed-crowned headgear was reserved for ceremonial occasions and hunts for sea otter and whale. Painted in polychrome and often elaborately decorated with ivory volutes, sea lion whiskers, and bird feathers, the wooden hat, or chagudax, not only provided protection from the elements, but denoted status or rank as well.

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