Yupik
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The Yupik or, in the Central Alaskan language, Yup'ik, are indigenous or aboriginal peoples who live along the coast of western Alaska, especially on the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta and along the Kuskokwim River (Central Alaskan Yupik), in southern Alaska (the Alutiiq) and in the Russian Far East and St. Lawrence Island in western Alaska (the Siberian Yupik). They are Eskimo and are related to the Inuit.
The Central Alaska Yup'ik are by far the most numerous group of Yupik. The Central Alaska Yup'ik who live on Nunivak Island are called Cup'ig. Those who live in the village of Chevak are called "Cup'ik".
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[edit] Culture
Traditionally, families spend the spring and summer at fish camp, then joined with others at village sites for the winter. Many families still harvest the traditional subsistence resources, especially salmon and seal.
The men's communal house, the qasgiq, was the community center for ceremonies and festivals which included singing, dancing, and storytelling.example The qasgiq was used mainly in the winter months, because people would travel in family groups following food sources throughout the spring, summer, and fall months. Aside from ceremonies and festivals, it was also where the men taught the young boys survival and hunting skills, as well as other life lessons. The young boys were also taught how to make tools and qayaqs (kayaks) during the winter months in the qasqig.
The women's house, the ena, was traditionally right next door, and in some areas they were connected by a tunnel. Women taught the young girls how to sew, cook, and weave. Boys would live with their mothers until they were about five years old, then they would live in the qasgiq. Each winter, from anywhere between three to six weeks, the young boys and young girls would switch, with the men teaching the girls survival and hunting skills and toolmaking and the women teaching the boys how to sew and cook.
Yup'ik group dances are often with individuals staying stationary, with all the movement done with rhythmic upper body and arm movements accentuated with hand held dance fans very similar (oddly enough) to Cherokee dance fans. The limited movement area by no means limits the expressiveness of the dances, which cover the whole range from graceful flowing to energetically lively to wryly humorous.
[edit] Anthropology
The Yupik physically resemble northern East Asians. Yupik also generally have dolichocephalic heads, stout bodies and dark phenotype. Their physical appearance is closer to what is generally associated with East Asian peoples or Canadian Aboriginals than to other Native Americans. And so, they are not racially part of the Amerindians that first settled in the American continent.[citation needed]
[edit] Language
The five Yupik languages (related to Inuktitut) are still very widely spoken, with more than 75% of the Yupik/Yup'ik population fluent in the language.
Through a confusion among Russian explorers in the 1800s, the Yupik people bordering the territory of the unrelated Aleuts were erroneously called Aleuts, or Alutiiq, in Yupik. This term has remained in use to the present day, along with another term, Sugpiaq, which both refer to the Yupik of Southcentral Alaska and Kodiak.
See
of Yupik languages. The whole Eskimo-Aleut family, and also all Alaskan languages are shown. Available online [1]. Here is a wikified version of the mentioned tree (restricted to the Eskimo-Aleut family):
Some differences may exist in the terminolgy or in the details of the classification, in comparison to the main article.
[edit] See also
- List of Native Alaskan Tribal Entities
- Siberian Yupik
- Yupiit Nation
[edit] Notes
[edit] Bibliography
- Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
- Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
- de Reuse, Willem J. (1994). Siberian Yupik Eskimo: The language and its contacts with Chukchi. Studies in indigenous languages of the Americas. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. ISBN 0-87480-397-7.
