The Eyak are an

Alaska Native Alaska Natives (also known as Native Alaskans, Alaskan Indians, or Indigenous Alaskans) are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of Alaska that encompass a diverse arena of cultural and linguistic groups, including the I ...

people historically located on the Copper River Delta and near the town of

Cordova, Alaska Cordova ( ) is a port city in Chugach Census Area, Alaska, United States. It lies near the mouth of the Copper River, at the head of Orca Inlet on the east side of Prince William Sound. The population was 2,609 at the 2020 census, up from 2 ...

. They are

Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are composed of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities. They share certain beliefs, traditions and practices, such as the centrality of sal ...

. Today, Eyak people live in Cordova, Yakutat, across Alaska, and the U.S. Many Eyak descendants do not qualify to be tribal members in the Native Village of Eyak, a

federally recognized This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes are legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United States.

Alaska Native tribe which was established through the

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was signed into law by U.S. President, President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971, constituting what is still the largest land claims settlement in United States history. ANCSA was intended to reso ...

in 1971. This is due to the enrollment qualifications that extend tribal citizenship only to those who reside in the town of Cordova for the majority of the year.

Name

Their

Eyak The Eyak are an Alaska Native people historically located on the Copper River Delta and near the town of Cordova, Alaska. They are Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast. Today, Eyak people live in Cordova, Yakutat, across Alaska, and the U ...

name is ʔi·ya·ɢdəlahɢəyu·, which translates literally to "inhabitants of Eyak Village at Mile 6"Krauss, Michael E. 1970. ''Eyak dictionary''. University of Alaska and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1963–1970) The now-common name ''Eyak'' for both the ethnic group and its language is an

exonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

and comes from the Sugt'stun (Alutiit'stun) dialect of

Chugach Sugpiaq Chugach , Chugach Sugpiaq or Chugachigmiut is the name of an Alaska Native people in the region of the Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound on the southern coast of Alaska. The Chugach people are an Alutiiq ( Pacific Native) people who speak ...

, a group of

Sugpiaq The Alutiiq (pronounced in English; from Promyshlenniki Russian Алеутъ, "Aleut"; plural often "Alutiit"), also called by their ancestral name ( or ; plural often "Sugpiat"), as well as Pacific Eskimo or Pacific Yupik, are a Yupik ...

("real people," better known as

Alutiiq The Alutiiq (pronounced in English; from Promyshlenniki Russian Алеутъ, "Aleut"; plural often "Alutiit"), also called by their ancestral name ( or ; plural often "Sugpiat"), as well as Pacific Eskimo or Pacific Yupik, are a Yupik ...

) for an Eyak village as Igya'aq' at the mouth of the Eyak River. The Eyak refer to themselves as DAXunhyuu ("the people") and the present-day Eyak Native Village as IiyaaGdaad' ("at Eyak Native Village") – but the now officially recognized tribe as IiyaaGdAlahGAyuu ("People from Eyak Native Village"), as the tribe consists of descendants of Chugach Sugpiaq, Eyak, and Tlingit.

Territory

Historical Eyak territory reached from present-day Cordova east to the Martin River and north to

Miles Glacier Miles Glacier is a -long glacier in the U.S. state of Alaska. It flows west to its terminus at Miles Lake, north of Katalla. It was named in 1885 after U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Nelson A. Miles Nelson Appleton Miles (August 8, 1839 – May 15, 19 ...

. There were four main villages: *Alaganik, near Mile 21 of the present-day Copper River Highway *Eyak, located near Mile 5.5 *unnamed, 800 yards south of Eyak *Orca, located within present-day Cordova In addition to these villages the Eyak would seasonally occupy fish camps at

Point Whitshed Point Whitshed (previously Witshed, Whitshet, and Punta de Orevilla) is a peninsula of Prince William Sound near Cordova in the U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound toge ...

and Mountain Slough.

History

The Eyak initially moved out of the interior down the Copper River to the coast. There they harvested the rich

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

fishing grounds. When the Russians arrived they recognized the Eyak as a distinct culture and described their territory on their maps. They also traded with the Eyak and sent them

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Miss ...

. Because of their small population, they were often raided and their territory boundaries were under pressure from the

Chugach Chugach , Chugach Sugpiaq or Chugachigmiut is the name of an Alaska Native people in the region of the Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound on the southern coast of Alaska. The Chugach people are an Alutiiq ( Pacific Native) people who speak ...

to the west. The

Tlingit The Tlingit or Lingít ( ) are Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. , they constitute two of the 231 federally recognized List of Alaska Native tribal entities, Tribes of Alaska. Most Tlingit are Alaska Natives; ...

on the east side, had better relations with the Eyak leading to intermarriage and the assimilation of most Eyak. The Eyak's territorial boundary was pushed further contributing to the Eyak's decline. When the Americans arrived they opened

canneries Canning is a method of food preservation in which food is processed and sealed in an airtight container (jars like Mason jars, and steel and tin cans). Canning provides a shelf life that typically ranges from one to five years, although under ...

and competed with the Eyak for salmon. The integration and novel diseases which were introduced by non-Native settlers led to the further decline of the Eyak. As populations decreased the remaining Eyak began to congregate near the village of Orca. In 1880 the population of the village of Alaganik was recorded at 117 and by 1890 it had declined to 48. In 1900 total population was estimated at 60. As more settlers arrived the last village became the town of Cordova. As of 1996, there were 120 partial Eyak descendants in the town. The last full-blood Eyak,

Marie Smith Jones Marie Smith Jones (May 14, 1918January 21, 2008) was an American national who was the last surviving speaker of the Eyak language of Southcentral Alaska. She was born in Cordova, Alaska, was an honorary chief of the Eyak Nation and the last rem ...

, died on January 21, 2008.

Language

The Eyak spoke a distinct language closely related to the

Athabaskan languages Athabaskan ( ; also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large branch of the Na-Dene languages, Na-Dene language family of North America, located in western North America in three areal language ...

. Pressure from neighboring ethnic groups and the spread of English resulted in a decline of the Eyak language. Marie Smith Jones (1918–2008) was the last native speaker. Michael Krauss was known first and foremost as an Eyak language specialist.

Notable Eyak people

, last first-language speaker of the Eyak language

References

External links

Native Village of Eyak
official website
Eyak Preservation Council

Eyak Revitalization Project

Eyak Corporation

Alaska Native Heritage Center
{{authority control Alaska Native ethnic groups Native Americans in Alaska Federally recognized tribes in the United States