Aleuts - Economy



Human populations in precontact times depended exclusively on marine resources: seals, sea lions, and fish. Walrus were available in the extreme east and occasionally in the westernmost islands of the chain, the Near Islands. Fur seals were seasonally available in the straits of the eastern Aleutians during the spring and fall migrations. Fur-seal rookeries (breeding grounds) were in the Pribylov and Commander islands. Sea otters were numerous throughout the area. Ocean fish, primarily cod and halibut, were exploited, but the staple foods were the abundant salmon (red, silver, humpback, chum, and, in some localities, king). A variety of bird species provided subsidiary sources of food and material for male clothing. (Women's clothing and bedding were made of sea-mammal furs, primarily those of the sea otter and, where available, fur seal.) Technological materials were local stones and minerals, sea-mammal tissues, seaweed (kelp), and shore grasses, primarily wild rye. Wood was very important, but the only source of it was driftwood. Birch bark was also used, apparently obtained in trade from the Alaskan mainland, as were caribou hair and sometimes skins.

Today village corporations and the Aleut Corporation try to establish a solid economic base for the Aleut people as well as to create a mechanism to ensure a cultural revival. Several local corporations, notably Akutan, Ounalashka (Unalaska), and the two corporations in the Pribylov Islands (where the fur-seal harvest was stopped by the U.S. Congress several years ago), seem well on the way to establishing solid economic bases for their communities, based primarily on deep-sea fishing.


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