Alaskan Athabaskans

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Alaskan Athabascans

Former Gwichʼin grand chief Clarence Alexander in 2004
Total population
6,400[1]
Regions with significant populations
Alaska
Languages
Northern Athabaskan languages, American English (Alaskan variant), Russian (historically)
Religion
Shamanism (largely ex), Christianity

The Alaskan Athabascans,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} Alaskan Athapascans^[8] or Dena^[9] (Russian: атабаски Аляски, атапаски Аляски)^[10] are Alaska Native peoples of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. They are the original inhabitants of the interior of Alaska.^{[citation needed]}

Formerly they identified as a people by the word Tinneh (nowadays Dena; cf. Dene for Canadian Athabaskans). Taken from their own language, it means simply "men" or "people".^[11]

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In Alaska, where they are the oldest, there are eleven groups identified by the languages they speak. These are:

• Dena’ina or Tanaina (Ht’ana)
• Ahtna or Copper River Athabascan (Hwt’aene)
• Deg Hit’an or Ingalik (Hitʼan)
• Holikachuk (Hitʼan)
• Koyukon (Hut’aane)
• Upper Kuskokwim or Kolchan (Hwt’ana)
• Tanana or Lower Tanana (Kokht’ana)
• Tanacross or Tanana Crossing (Koxt’een)
• Upper Tanana (Kohtʼiin)
• Gwich'in or Kutchin (Gwich’in)
• Hän (Hwëch’in).

The Alaskan Athabascan culture is an inland creek and river fishing (also coastal fishing by only Dena'ina of Cook Inlet) and hunter-gatherer culture. The Alaskan Athabascans have a matrilineal system in which children belong to the mother's clan, with the exception of the Yupikized Athabaskans (Holikachuk and Deg Hit'an).^[12]

The Athabascan people hold potlatches which have religious, social and economic significance.^[8]

Dogs were their only domesticated animal, but were and are an integral element in their culture for the Athabascan population in North America.^[13]

Athabascans are descended from Asian hunter-gatherers, likely originally native to Mongolia, who crossed the Bering Strait and settled in North America.^[14]

• George Attla (1933–2015) was a champion sprint dog musher.^[15]
• Emil Notti, an American engineer, indigenous activist and democratic politician. Key in the development of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.^[16]
• Quinn Christopherson is an American singer-songwriter. He won the 2019 Tiny Desk Contest with his entry "Erase Me," a song describing his experience with male privilege and erasure as a transgender man.^[17]
• John Sackett (1944–2021) served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1967 to 1971 and in the Alaska Senate from 1973 to 1987.^[18]
• Michael J. Stickman, First Chief of the Nulato Tribal Council.^{[citation needed]}
• Siobhan Wescott, physician and public health advocate; she has served as director of the American Indian Health Program and is a professor of American Indian health at the University of Nebraska.^[19]
• Poldine Carlo^[20]
• Kathleen Carlo-Kendall, sculptor ^[21]
• Peter Kalifornsky, author and oral storyteller ^[22]
• Mary TallMountain, poet ^[23]
• F. Kay Wallis (born c. 1944), traditional healer and member of Alaska House of Representatives^[24][25]

• Tanana Chiefs Conference (all Alaskan Athabaskans' a territorial-level organization)
• Doyon, Limited
• Alaska Native Language Center
• Alaska Federation of Natives
• Indian ice cream (Alaska)
• Athabascan fiddle