Russia is |
Peoples of Russia
Aleuts
The Aleuts are the native population of the Aleut Islands. Their self-designations are Aleut, Anangan, Unangin. In 2000, by a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation they were given the status of native small-numbered people.
Language
The Aleuts speak the Aleut language, in which four dialects are usually distinguished: the Eastern dialect (the majority of the Aleut Islands: Umnak, Unalashka, Akutan; Pribylov Islands, Alaskan Peninsula); the Western dialect (Atka Island on the west of the Aleut Islands); the Bering dialect (Bering Island – Commander Islands) which is almost similar to the Western but contains much more borrowings from the Russian language; the Mednovsky dialect (previously existed on the Medny Island within the Commander Islands, now its few speakers live on the Bering Island).
Dispersion
The Aleuts live on the Commander Islands which compose the Aleut district of the Kamchatka territory.
Traditional occupations
Until 1867, the main occupation of the Aleuts of the Commander Islands was hunting sea mammals (whales, seals, kalans, sea lions) with a lance from kayaks (closed leather frame-based boats with a hatch opening into which a hunter was seated) and canoes (wooden flat-bottomed frame boats covered with sea lion or ringed seal skin), hunting seals on the dry land and preparing fur, fat and other goods for the Russian-American company. The Aleuts also fished. Foraging and crafts (mostly making weapons and tools) were of a subsidiary nature.
Dwellings
The traditional semi-dugout valkaran based on bones or fins of whales was covered with dry grass, skins or turf. They left several four-cornered openings for entrance; they climbed there over a log with notches. Later they started making side entrances with long seni antechambers. The dwellings were often big and fit from 10 to 40 families. Small semi-dugouts for 1-2 families were also built. In the 19th century, they started building ground-based residential and outbuilding log houses.
Clothes
The traditional winter costume of the Aleuts was the parka – a long closed (without a cut in front) garment made from seal and calan fur and bird skins. Over it, a kamleyka was worn – a non-opening waterproof garment made from intestines of sea animals, with sleeves, closed collar and a hood (the prototype of the European windbreaker). Festive clothes (parkas and kamleykas) did not differ from the everyday one by their cut, but they were richly decorated with embroidered strips, fringe, fur straps; men’s festive parkas had high standing collars. The edges of the hood and the sleeves were pulled tight on cords. Traditional hunting jackets with hoods made from sea lion intestines and throats and trousers from ringed seal skin have survived. Men’s and women’s clothes were similar in cut and decorations. Later a new type of clothes appeared, brodni (trousers made from sea lion throats) to which waterproof torbasa (soft boots from sea animal skins) were sewn. In everyday life they wore European clothes. The Aleuts wore worn out winter clothes for summer, but they also made special summer clothes out of the intestines of sea animals and bird skins. The Aleuts did not have underwear as such, but wore waist clothes made from ringed seal skins. During hunting and fishing to protect themselves from being wet the Aleuts in the 18th century put on raincoats woven from grass (similar to the Itelmen and Ainu ones), and later, woven straw mats. The headgear worn for hunting were conical wooden hats (for the toyon leaders) or topless hats with much elongated front part (for simple hunters), which were richly decorated with polychromous painting, carved bone, feathers, sea lion wattles. They were worn over the kamleyka hood. The hats were hollowed out of the whole piece of wood, then steamed out and, giving them the required shape, they were painted bright with fanciful ornaments. On the sides and on the back they were decorated with carved walrus tusk plated engraved with geometrical ornament into which paint was rubbed. On top of the back plate, which also served as the top of the hat, a bone figurine of a bird or an animal was attached. Inside the side openings on the plate, 50-cm sea lion wattles were inserted, the amount of which depended on the hunting worth of the owner. This headgear was only worn by men. As festive and ritual headgear, hats of various shapes made from leather and bird skins with decorations or leather headbands with decorative stitching were used.
Food
The traditional Aleut food included the meat of sea animals and birds, fish, marine invertebrates, seaweeds and wild plants. For winter they preseved yukola – dried and cured fish meat or reindeer meat.
