#siberian yup'ik people

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Tumblr user @thefirsthogokage asked why i hate being called Inuk in the tags of a reblog so to start with the word Eskimo, please check my faq pinned post here because that's the first point.

Inuit is not the chosen name of my culture. We've called ourselves Inupiat or Eskimos, but never Inuit because the word inuit just means people in general and the -piat suffix, in this context, means we're refering to our people specifically. So no, i'm not just inuk, i'm specifically Inupiaq

The visuals that come to mind when someone refers to the Inuit are also almost exclusively Canadian Inuit, which leads to non-Eskimos having a very narrow concept of the various cultures of peoples who have been called Inuit by accademics; peoples who are typically nomadic and can be found from the coasts of Greenland, across Canada, to part of Alaska so far out west it's on the other side of the International Dateline. Some of these peoples, like my family, don't feel the word Inuit accurately represents their cultural identity and feels overly generic for how much diversity and variation there is to be found.

Eskimo is also a bit overly generic, but feels truer to my cultural experience. For one, it actually includes the Yup'ik peoples (who deserve consideration in this conversation but are often ignored because fuck nuance and autonyms i guess?), and two, it's not a slur in Alaska. I wouldn't even compare it to how they call cigarettes "fags" in the UK. In Alaska you're more likely to be called a drunk or some variation of the n-word as an anti-native slur than Eskimo. And Eskimo is faster than saying "the North Slope Inupiat, Seward Peninsula Inupiat, Inupiat from either of the Diomede Islands, King Island Inupiat, Central Yup'iit, Pacific Yup'iit, Saint Lawrence Island Yup'iit, and/or Siberian Yup'iit" or even just "Inupiat and Yup'iit" because (if you'll allow me to indulge in some snark) hey, whaddya know, Alaska isn't Canada and has its own history pre- and post-colonization.

[brianbrianbrain]

ID. Screenshot of Tumblr post by tlaquetzqui: Uh...where, exactly, do you think Scandinavians are indigenous to? And actually–skin tone is mainly a function of latitude except in populations that recently migrated long distances–most arctic people begin italics are end italics pretty pale, with many Siberians and Mongolic peoples, and eastern North Americans, having the same skin-tone range as Northern Europeans. (There are virtually no references to Native Americans having a different skin-color in English or French sources, till the mid-19th century. The idea they have a different skintone is a combination of protecting more westerly peoples from further south onto them...with the scientific-racist notion of a "red race".)

The begin italics only end italics particularly dark arctic peoples are the ones who speak Eskimo-Aleut languages, because they eat enough fish not to need light skin to process vitamin D efficiently. And not even all of them.

So actually you're both scientifically illiterate and colorist, and projecting your own bigotry onto others. End ID.

ID. Screencap from Moana of three fishermen with faces of quiet disbelief. End ID.

ID. Shoulder up shot of two Native Siberian (?) people / people in Native Siberian (not sure precisely which group) dress. Background: snowy mountains. End ID.

ID. Picture of five Inuit ("Greenlandic"?) people sitting on a roadside barrier. Background: some distant houses. End ID.

ID. Headshot of an Alaska Native (Yup'ik?) person in a headdress (Nasqurrun?). End ID.

ID. Mid-torso up picture of a Sami woman. Her hair is being blown by the wind, and a red shawl (?) with various designs on it is tied around her head. Background: snow white. End ID.

ID. Mid-torso up picture of an Inuit person peering out judgementally from their seal skin hood. Bottom text, in call caps: *judges you in Arctic Native*. End ID.

Fantasy books stop having arctic kingdoms of all blond hair blue eyed white people.

[autodidact-adventures]

Yupik peoples (reference notes)

The Yupik are a group of indigenous peoples in Alaska (west, south-west & south-central), and the Russian Far East.  They include these groups:

The Alutiiq or Sugpiaq people, who live in the Alaskan Peninsula, and coastal & island areas of south-central Alaska. They are also known as Pacific Eskimo and Pacific Yupik.

Alaskan Peninsula.

South-central Alaska.

The Central Alaskan Yup'ik people, who live in a region stretching from southern Norton Sound, southwards to the northern Alaskan Peninsula.  They are also known as the Yup'ik people.

They have the largest population of any Alaskan Native group.

The Siberian Yupik people, who live on St. Lawrence Island (in western Alaska) and in the Russian Far East.  They include the Naukan, Chaplino and Sirenik people.

Map of the Yupik peoples (and other indigenous peoples).

The Yupik people are Eskimo – the indigenous peoples who come from the northern circumpolar region, from eastern Siberia across to Alaska, Canada and Greenland.  They encompass two main groups – 1) the Alaskan Iñupiat peoples, Greenlandic Inuit, and the Inuit peoples of Canada; and 2) the Yupik peoples.  Therefore, the Yupik are related to the Iñupiat and Inuit.

Member states and regions of the Inuit Circumpolar Council.

The word Yup'ik (plural Yupiit) literally means “real people”.  It is a combination of the Yup'ik word yuk (person) + the post-base -pik (real/genuine).

In the Hooper Bay-Chevak & Nuniak dialects of the Yup'ik language, the language and people are called Cup'ik.

The apostrophe in Yup'ik represents a lengthening of the “p” sound.

Yupik Languages

The Yupik languages are part of the Eskimo-Aleut language family. The Eskimo & Aleut languages diverged around 2000 BC.  Within the Eskimo languages, the Yupik languages diverged from each other, and from the Inuit language, around 1000 AD.

The Yupik languages are not mutually intelligible.

Central Alaskan Yup'ik: Spoken on the Alaskan mainland (and some islands, e.g. Nunivak Island) by the Central Alaskan Yup'ik people.  About 13,000 of the 21,000 CA Yup'ik still speak this language.

There are several dialects.  The largest dialect is Yugtun, or Grand Central Yup'ik, spoken in the Yukon River, Nelson Island, Kuskokwim River and Bristol Bay areas.  There are also the Norton Sound, Hooper Bay-Chevak, and Nunivak Island dialects (the latter is called Cup'ik or Cup'ig).

The dialects differ in pronunciation and vocab.  There are geographic sub-dialects within Yugtun, differing mostly in word choices.

Central Siberian Yupik: Spoken by most Yupik in the Far East, and on St. Lawrence Island (Alaska).  Most of the 1,000 Yupik on St. Lawrence Island still speak the St. Lawrence dialect.  About 300 of the 1,000 Siberian Yupiks in Russia speak the Chaplino dialect.

Naukan Yupik: spoken by about 100 people in & around Lavrentiya, Lorino and Uelen, on the Chukchi Peninsula of Siberia.

Alutiiq: spoken from the Alaska Peninsula eastwards to Prince William Sound.  About 500 – 1,000 of the 3,000 Alutiiqs still speak the language.

Prince William Sound.

The Koniag dialect is spoken on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula and on Kodiak Island; the Chugach dialect is spoken on the Kenai Peninsula and in Prince William Sound.

Kodiak Island.

Kenai Peninsula.

Sirenik: extinct since 1997, formerly spoken on the Chukchi Peninsula of Siberia.

[mademoiselleseraph]

"Alaskan Inuit" buddy, just say Inupiat. It's faster, it sounds cooler, and it's what we actually call ourselves

"Don't say Eskimo, say Inuit!" Okay, but you are remembering to include all the Yup'ik peoples who have also been referred to as Eskimo, right? You're remembering the Central Yup'iit and the Alutiq/Sugpiaq/Pacific Yup'ik people, and all the islanders and Siberian Yup'iit? What about the Chukchi? You're not just mislabeling all their distinct cultures as Inuit because it's easier and "close enough", right? That would kind of defeat the purpose of not saying Eskimo out of respect, wouldn't it?

And maybe it's just me, but when I know my ancestors (King Islanders who summered in Nome) probably had more contact and trading relationships with various Yup'ik nations than the people who lived all the way over in Nunavut.... I dunno, it's a little off-putting to me when people say I should favor an "Inuit" identity over an "Eskimo" one, regardless of which one is the respectable word.

[ask-alaska-and-hawaii]

TV Tropes: Alaska

Acting Your Intellectual Age: He has the looks of a first-grader but the mind of a seasoned mountaineer and has no interest in connecting with children that look his age. However, this could just be because he has no interest in connecting with anyone outside his ‘pack’ after what happened last time.

Adorkable: Has his moments, such as when he’s gushing about dogs. He really loves dogs.

The Alcoholic: Being Alaska, Alaska has a love for the sauce, especially salmon vodka. This usually leads him to pass out by the end. 

Animal Motif: Dogs and wolves obviously. Specifically Alaskan Malamutes and Siberian Huskies for the former and Arctic Wolves for the latter.

Badass Bookworm: Loves to read but is a natural survivalist and gunslinger.

Berserk Button: For your safety, do not mention Russia or Texas within ten feet of him. Also, don’t call him small.

Big Brother Instinct: To Hawaii and by extension the other states if they are threatened as he does genuinely care about all of them even if they do think he’s rather odd.

Big Brother Mentor: Also to Hawaii by sharing his experiences to teach her that the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. She, however, hasn’t taken on his nihilism and still believes in the best in people.

Big Eater: Given that he smokes marijuana, is a state, and is stress eater this is no big shocker.

Blue-and-Orange Morality: Being raised by wolves, Alaska has a mindset closer to animals than humans. For one Alaska, cares nothing for morality besides protecting his ‘pack’ (America and the other states) and judges things like disloyalty and irresponsibility far more harshly than someone being outright malicious. He also thinks that politicians need to start fighting to the death for their position. Literally. (This also could just be because he just hates politicians since they often lie to gain people’s favor)

Broken Bird: After so many years of tragedy and isolation, Alaska is understandably rather cynical.

Break the Cutie: See ‘Dark and Troubled Past’.

Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: A platonic version but he is the brooding boy to Hawaii’s gentle girl. 

Brutal Honesty: Everyone agrees that Alaska is probably the most honest of the states, however, his honesty is usually extremely impolite to which he just says ‘I say the truth, it’s their fault if they can’t accept’.

Byronic Hero: Alaska is snarky, stoic, stubborn, excessively cynical but is passionate about his beliefs and has a soft spot for the environment and its creatures.

Celibate Hero: While not asexual, he has little interest in ever having sex and it’s not just because he looks six.

Color Motif: White and gray.

Comically Serious: He does not understand jokes so he will often take these at face value.  

Crazy-Prepared: Winter’s in his state are intense, so he leaves nothing to chance. 

Dark and Troubled Past: Imagine being locked into the form of a baby, abandoned by the people who were supposed to love and protect you, find a new family in wolves only for them to be killed leaving you to survive on your own while looking a like a toddler. When you finally found someone they also die leaving you to want to curl up and die and then be adopted again but seen as odd by your adopted siblings. Yeah, Alaska having depression and anxiety makes a lot of sense.

Deadpan Snarker: Usually this, especially when at states meeting or when he’s answering asks.

Defrosting Ice Queen: Alaska is not an easy person to get along with and can be extremely rude and sarcastic especially to ask blogs that star Texas, however, it is possible for him to warm up to some people outside his family like Dave (@alaska-ask-blog-aph) or at the very least learns the ability to bite his tongue.

Emotionless Boy: Most of the time, he is extremely stoic due to the fact that when he does express emotion, he can come off as rather intense.

Everyone Has Standards: He has a strange morality, however he is openly disgusted by ‘people’ who would rip away children’s innocence.

Foil: To Hawaii. They are both disconnected states and the child of a Native mother and Caucasian parent with trauma happening to them at very young ages which caused them to act the way they do, with Alaska being very stern and no-nonsense while Hawaii is energetic and enjoys making people smile.

Friendless Background: Because of his inability to relate to children his physical age and his autism causing him panic attacks whenever he is in close proximity to others, he has very few friends other than Hawaii. 

Friend to All Children: Zigzagged. He doesn’t connect with older children very well but he does have a soft spot for toddlers and babies and even makes an attempt to be openly kind to them. He also considers the worst people the ones who would purposefully steal their innocence and wouldn’t hesitate to pull his gun on such people.

Friend to All Living Things: Hey, I said humans, I never said anything about animals but yes he does love animals particularly dogs, wolves, and eagles.

Good is Not Nice: Not nice is an understatement. He has a strange moral code, is rather rude to new people, and mainly keeps to himself but if someone dares and tries to hurt his little sister or anyone in his family, they better start running.

Guilt Complex: Blames himself for what happened to his crush.

Hates Being Touched: The only one who he will willingly let touch him, much less hug him, is Hawaii. Other than not, hands-off.

Hates Their Parent: Openly refers to Russia as ‘a sperm donor’. And that’s when he’s being nice.

The Hermit: Lives like this whenever he’s at home in his state.  

Hidden Depths: 

Instead of hockey as one would think, he enjoys figure skating and is actually pretty good.

Not shown on the blog, yet but he actually enjoys the company of toddlers like Nunavut as they are far less complicated than people who are older.

He also enjoys writing and even creates stories in his free time. He also uses it along with his personal journal as a form of therapy for himself.

Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Brother/Sister version. Alaska is the huge guy to Hawaii’s tiny girl, especially once they’re older where he’ll be at 5′11 to 6′0 to Hawaii’s 5′3. Justified as Alaska is one-fifth the size of the lower 48 and is larger than Montana, California, Texas COMBINED.

Human Mom, Non-Human Dad: While his biological father is Russia, his mother was a normal Yup'ik woman named Uki.  

Hypocrite: Alaska calls Russia a ‘cruel, crazy manchild’  when he openly calls for the deaths of anyone who betrays their country. He also wants Hawaii to seek help when he resists any for him.

Hypocrite has a Point: To be fair, being lenient with traitors is a recipe for disaster for this country.

Ice Queen: He’s a rather cold and rude person but still a nice guy underneath.

Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Cynical, rude, stubborn are all words that would accurately describe him but also family-orientated, protective, and generous when he needs to be.

Knight in Sour Armor: He does see the world as a cold and dark and is a self-proclaimed misanthrope but still does his best to protect his family and people.

Meaningful Name: Alaska’s name Inuit name, ‘Nukilik’, means ‘strong’ and given everything, he’s gone through and still living to see today, no one can say he isn’t strong. As for his European name of ‘Peter’ meaning ‘stone’ and he is stone-faced and it’s also a nice reference to Peter the Great of Russia.

Mixed Ancestry: He’s half-Slavic, half-Inuit. 

Nature Lover: Growing up most of his life in the forests of Alaska, it makes sense the woods are where he’s most comfortable especially among the animals there. He is also disgusted by hunters who hunt merely for the game and not because they need it.

Not Good with People: Type 2. My beloved grumpy boy is unsurprisingly not good with people as he can’t understand their feelings or why he offended him. However, he is good at reading the feelings of animals and emphasizes more with them.

No Social Skills: Justified due to both his upbringing. He also is very indifferent to having them at the end of the day.

Older Than They Look: Being a state this a given. However where he differs, since he was born in 1800, he’s actually older than most states but since he was basically deserted by Russia he was never given the ability to grow.

Only Sane Man: Certainly sees himself as this among the other states as he feels that they play bloated, bureaucratic politics far too much instead of working together to help their father.

The Pessimist: Alaska physically can’t bring himself to hope in the best in people since all he’s seen was the worst in people since he was young when everyone he loved just ditched him or died. 

Raised by Wolves: Played completely straight. After his mother’s tribe abandoned him in the woods an Alpha She-Wolf who had just lost her pups adopted Alaska.

Socially Awkward Hero: Alaska can scale mountains, survive massive earthquakes, and survive on his own for years. However, the ability to interact with humans or even other anthropics is the hard part.

Strong Family Resemblance: Besides his dark skin, black hair, and eye shape, Alaska is basically a younger version of Russia. This has gotten him into quite a bit of trouble like when he was accused of being a communist during the McCarthy era due to his Russian heritage and Belarus has tried to kidnap him on more than one occasion.

Sugar-and-Ice Personality: In spite of cold, loner nature and dislike for society in general, Alaska at his core is a genuinely familial, protective person who just wants to take care of those he cares about. This is best showcased in his relationship with Hawaii, who might be the only person he openly gives affection to and he did go as Elsa twice just to make her happy even if it was embarrassing for him.

Trauma Conga Line: Abandoned, seen as a threat, had his pack murdered, only person he ended up caring about dying, and nearly froze to almost-death. All when he looked 2. Someone get this boy a therapists.

Used to Be a Sweet Kid: When he was young, Alaska was a sweet and gentle boy, even while living with his wolf pack. However, due to the many tragedies in his life, he has become extremely bitter and cynical towards the world.

When She Smiles: Has given a few in some comics and chats. He even admits that the main reason he loves Hawaii (as a sister) is that she is one of the few people who can make him give a genuine smile.

[engelspolitics]

Pre-American Alaska

https://www.grunge.com/164495/what-pre-american-alaska-was-really-like/

Alaska has been inhabited for 15.000 years when Siberians moved across Being Strait

During the last Ice Age (until ca. 10000 years ago) Alaska was not covered in ice

· So much of the world's oceans were frozen, that the sea level dropped by around 400 feet, exposing the Bering land bridge and briefly connecting Alaska and Siberia.

· The extra land helped to further isolate the Alaskan interior from ocean moisture, which in turn led to warm summers and mild(er) winters.

Multiple waves of migration

· Firs one between 15.000-10.000 years ago

· Second major migration from Siberia somewhere between 7,000 and 4,500 years ago; by then the Bering land bridge was long gone, so it's likely that this group came by boat

· Ancestors of the modern Inuit and Yup'ik people didn't arrive until around 1200 AD

Unique gene that protects the Inuit from the cold weather is similar to the one found in the Denisovans, an ancient human cousin

· Some of the people who possess this gene variant live in parts of the world that Neanderthals once occupied

o Scientists think this means that Inuits, Native Americans, and some Siberians have genetic ties to Denisovans, Neanderthals, or maybe some other human ancestor that hasn't yet been discovered.

Early Alaskans hunted mammoth, mastodon, and other megafauna, and may have had a role in animals' eventual extinction

· The fossil record seems to suggest that the decline of these species correlated with the migration of humans from Beringia into North America

· However, could also be climate change; as the region warmed, the scrub tundra spread to the steppe and outcompeted the vegetation that larger herbivores depended on

Neanderthals were eating barley 40,000 years ago àpalaeolithic diet did contain wheats

Old world usually started building permanent settlements as result of farming but Alaska doesn’t have a farming tradition

· Plank house construction and permanent hearths starts to appear in the archaeological record about 5,200 years ago

· By 3,200 years ago it's clear that people were skilled at building large wooden fish weirs for the mass harvest of salmon

o Developments were followed by things like fortification, which suggests that villages were sometimes targeted by other clans

By 800 BC Alaskans figured out that warmth depends on insulation, which can best be found underground; building semi-subterranean house that was either partially or completely underground

· Also prevented houses being taken down by the frequent storms

· These types of houses are still being built

For a lot of native Alaskan people, whales were an important resource, and the history of whaling in the area goes back at least 2,500 years, when the Eskimos of the Bering Sea were hunting whales in boats made of walrus hide or small kayaks

[mostly-mundane-atla]

In a modern AU where most of the cast is not originally from Alaska, where do you think they'd be from?

I don't know, I've seen people from just about every irl cultural inspiration for the show in Fairbanks (except maybe folks from Tibet, but I never actually asked so), the majority of them living there with their family and still speaking their languages, so I never really thought about back stories where everyone 20 and younger wasn't simultaneously born in Alaska and still being raised in a non-American culture. It never occured to me that was something I might need to do. Alaska is ridiculously diverse and no one ever talks about it.

I guess I do have cultural backgrounds, so I guess that could be where they're from? I dunno if that counts though.

Sokka and Katara's family is always Bering Straits Inupiaq. Exactly which village they're from isn't always specified (honestly just assume King Island unless stated otherwise because I like to be important), but they typically have family in nome.

I haven't written much with Aang, but I end up conceptualixing him as Thai a lot because most Buddhists I've seen were Thai. I should probably put more effort into thinking of him as Tibetan.

Ozai and Iroh are Chinese and Ursa is Okinawan with family in Hawai'i. One idea i keep getting is Zuko saying he's Japanese on his mom's side and when someone brings up that he said his mom is Okinawan he says "My dad says it's the same thing."

Suki is Ainu and Siberian Yup'ik

Toph is Chinese and depending on the day you ask, she was either taught English along with Mandarin Chinese by her bilingual nanny or learned English exclusively from Mel Brooks movies she technically wasn't allowed to watch. She also speaks French and Hebrew, claiming "I just like the way they sound."

Haru is Korean and Haida. The parents he refers to are technically his aunt and uncle on the Korean side, but as they can't have kids and he's been in their care for as long as he can remember, they're Mom and Dad to him. He has plenty of contact with his Haida relatives and there's a lot of planning ahead so that he has equal exposure to each culture.

Jet is Koyukon, Gwitchin, and Tanana, though he doesn't know how much of each.

Might add more at a later date

[mostly-mundane-atla]

How do you feel about the umbrella term “circumpolar peoples”? I saw your post about inspiration for drawing water tribe characters and I wanted to tag it as that, but I wasn’t sure if that was even an accepted term among the people it describes. I’ve only ever heard linguists use it (none of them Indigenous, as far as I know)

I've actually been pushing for that as a more inclusive term to replace "eskimo" than just "Inuit" because the people who refer to themselves as Inuit are not the only ones to whom the word Eskimo was historically applied. If it needs to be specified, it can. I usually use the term to mean Inuit, Inupiat, and Yup'ik peoples (of which there are a lot and not all of them call themselves Yup'ik), but theoretically, it also applies to the Sami, Innu, and all kinds of people indigenous to Siberia (way more cultures than just Siberian Yup'ik), and anyone else that close to the Arctic Circle

[mostly-mundane-atla]

@pop-budgie partially shaved hairstyles weren't all that uncommon on men among the Inupiaq and Yup'ik peoples. But it was the top of the head that was shaved, rarely ever just the sides

The boy on the right holding a basket in this photo may seem to be wearing a yarmulke or similar cap, but that's actually where his hair was shaved off and is starting to grow back, (Teller, Alaska)

Illustration of Saint Lawrence Island Yup'it. The man in the center has his head shaved in such a way

Unknown Inupiaq artist, drawing depicting men sharing berries. Man on the right is depicted with a similar shaved style

Guy Kakarook drew these depictions of an Inupiaq family (left) and a Siberian family (right). The man in the Inupiaq drawing has that same shaved hair style

And if non of the above were clear enough to convince you, here's a photo of a Diomede Islands man with the top pf his head shaved

I keep seeing redesigns of adult Sokka, presumably done to make him look less whitewashed, and every single one has me going "hmmm, that's not right either" and I thing I figured it out

The wrong part of his head is shaved