ALEUT

Almost 100 in number, the Aleutian Islands extend westward about 1,200 miles into the Pacific Ocean from the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. They are a partly submerged continuation of the Aleutian Range, a volcanic mountain chain. The climate of the islands is cold and damp, with thick fog. Few trees grow in the Rocky soil, only bushes, grasses, and marsh plants called sedge.

These rugged, barren islands were the ancestral homeland of the Aleut. The name, pronounced a-LOOT or AL-ee-oot, may have been either a Native word meaning “island” or a Russian word meaning “bald rock.” The name Alaska was taken from an Aleut phrase, alaeksu or alaschka, meaning “mainland.” The Native name for Aleutian Islands people is Unangan, or “the people.” Another people grouped in the broad category of Aleut (and formerly included among the INUIT by some scholars) used the Native name Alutiit (or Alutiiq in the singular form). Subgroups included the Chugachmiut in Prince William Sound, the Unegkurmiut on the lower Kenai Peninsula, and the Qikertarmiut on Kodiak Island.

The Aleut dialects resemble those of the numerous Inuit bands, indicating a close relationship between the two peoples. But the Aleut dialects are different enough for scholars to classify them as a distinct group. Dialects of both peoples are considered part of the Eskimaleut (or Eskaleut) language family.

Some scholars do not use the word Indian for Aleut and Inuit but apply the phrases Native peoples, indigenous peoples, or Native Americans, because, in terms of their ancestry, both the Aleut and the Inuit are more closely related to Siberian peoples in Russia than to the other Native American peoples in this book. The Aleut and Inuit came to the Americas much later than did the other Native peoples, from about 2500 B. C. to 1000 B. C., and they came by boat and not over the Bering Strait land bridge (see PREHISTORIC INDIANS).

Two main groups of Aleut established permanent villages on the Aleutian Islands’ coasts: the Unalaska, closer to the mainland, and the Atka, farther west.