This is intended to give an overview of the history of the Cup’ik people. It is not intended to be comprehensive. Instead, I hope it will help students understand the critical role of traditional stories in Cup’ik history. These stories are history: they portray how our ancestors actually lived and important events in their lives. The genius of these stories is that they are able to reconcile and make sense out of what may at first seem to be conflicting Western and Cup’ik beliefs. Another important part of our history is reflected in the traditional festivals the Cup’ik people celebrated for hundreds of years before Western missionaries arrived in the region. Those festivals marked the change of seasons and other major events in the traditional Cup’ik life; the objects and rituals in those festivals reveal a lot about what was important in daily life. 
 

The Cup’ik people are Yup’ik Eskimos, but they have their own dialect and are a historically distinct group. The terms Cup’ik and Yup’ik have the same meaning ("the real people"), but different dialect pronunciations.
Today there are two Cup’ik tribes in Alaska—the people of Chevak, who refer to themselves as the Qissunamiut tribe, and the people of Mekoryuk on Nunivak Island, who refer to themselves as the Cup’ik people. The pronunciations of "Cup’ik" and other words vary somewhat in the two villages. Yup’ik people inhabit villages as close as Hooper Bay, twenty miles west of Chevak, and Scammon Bay, which is thirty miles north of Chevak. Overall, the Yup’ik people live from Elim on the Seward Peninsula to Egegik on the Alaska Peninsula.
The Cup’ik people traditionally lived in the vicinity of the Kashunak River, a tributary of the Yukon River. The U.S. government census takers who came to this region in the late 1800s reported finding a village called "Kashunak" at the mouth of the Kashunak River. This was an English version of Qissunaq—the Cup’ik name for the river. Missionaries and traders called the Cup’ik people Kashunamiut, an English version of Qissunamiut—meaning, "the people of Qissunaq."
The documentation of these terms can be found in Edward Nelson’s book, The Eskimos of the Bering Sea. The people of the region called Nelson "a man who buys good-for-nothing things." The items Nelson purchased from the people of this region were not valued at that time. These included everything from old stone tools to carvings to clothing. However, today these items are highly valued. Nelson recorded many important historical sites of the Cup’ik people, as well as events such as feasts.

Anthropologists have at least two theories about how the Cup’ik people came to Alaska. One theory is that the Cup’ik people migrated from Asia long ago, following the animals as they crossed the Bering Land Bridge during the great Ice Age. Another theory is that they followed the coast, hunting sea mammals and fishing, skipping around the ice-covered areas. (More information about these theories and about archeological findings in the region can be found in Handbook of North American Indians, by William C. Sturtevant, published by the Smithsonian Institution, 1984.)
If the anthropologists are correct, it would seem possible that some of the traditional Cup’ik stories might verify the theory. The stories of our ancestors do not mention any migration routes. But some scholars of Cup’ik history believe that if such a movement from Asia occurred, it would have been so gradual that the Cup’ik people might not have thought of it as a migration. They might instead have simply thought that over time they were ranging further east than their parents and grandparents had. Some traditional stories do talk about re-locations of villages at times in the past. Villages were established in areas where animals and fish were easily accessible.

 

The Cup’ik Elders do not talk explicitly about how our people came to be, but we have traditional stories related to the origins of our people. Here we provide two of those traditional stories, narrated by Cup’ik Elders. One is "My First Ancestor," narrated by my grandfather, Joe Friday, who was a well-known Cup’ik storyteller. The second is Civuliaqatuk’s Story, told by Elders of Chevak community.

Historically, shamans were the spiritual leaders of the Cup’ik people. They had powers beyond the physical and could do things considered impossible for any human being. They provided the moral support for survival. Without them, the Eskimos would not have survived. Shamans are discussed in detail in a separate section of this curriculum; the point I am making here is that when the Western missionaries arrived in the region, the Cup’ik people had a belief system that had existed for hundreds of years.
The missionaries that came to this region around 1900 converted the Cup’ik to Catholicism and had a great influence on how our people lived. The priests became the authorities, shaping the lives of our people in ways that can be seen today. In the past, many of our people worked for the priests without pay. The first priests who came to this area were Joseph M. Treca, S.J. Father Fox, and Father Convert. (Students interested in reading about the missionaries in our region can refer to a number of sources, including Kingdom of the Seal, by Aloysius Menager, SJ, Chicago, Loyola Press, 1962; and Life on the Alaskan Mission, by Francis Barnum, SJ, Woodstock College Press, 1983.)
There was conflict between the shamans and the priests. The missionaries questioned our Cup’ik beliefs. In their eyes, we were nomadic and uncivilized people without beliefs. But it’s interesting that many of the teachings of the church were actually similar to the teachings of our Elders. I remember one Elder saying "When the priest first came and taught us the values, I thought back to my father, who spoke of things that were no different from those [now being taught] our people." My grandfather also once told some students, "If you want to learn the values of our ancestors, go to church and listen."
One such element of similarity is Cillam Cua, which refers to our Creator. Our Elders often told us to do things in the open because the being that is above all beings is always watching us. In some of the traditional masks made by our people, the "eye of awareness" indicates that someone is always watching us.
The missionaries banished many of our traditional rituals and feasts. Eskimo dances were abolished as well. As a result, many of our feasts and rituals no longer exist except as forms of entertainment of the people—for example, performances by Eskimo dance groups. While still recognizing the importance of traditional Cup’ik beliefs, our people now largely accept Biblical values and beliefs. In the last sections of this lesson, we talk about history as recorded in traditional Cup’ik stories and describe some of the major festivals.

Historically, each Cup’ik and Yup’ik tribe had its own subsistence lands, which other tribes knew and respected without the need for written documents. Two tribes might have verbal agreements about lands, just as the first Native Americans did thousands of years ago. Our history has no record of Cup’ik or Yup’ik tribes fighting over land. A hunter from one tribe could trespass on lands of another tribe, as long as he was getting food for his family. Our traditional belief was that how we treat others is how they treat us; if we treat others with respect, they will treat us with respect.
The historic and cemetery sites around Chevak cover a radius of roughly 50 to 100 miles out from the village. The people of Chevak consider these our subsistence lands—lands that have no boundaries. There are many individual sites all over this broad area around Chevak. When the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was passed in 1971, it required the Bureau of Indian Affairs to document these historic sites and turn them over to the regional corporations formed under terms of the act. If it had not been for that project, some of those sites might have been forgotten.
The project also helped me learn valuable information about my own ancestry. By acting as an interpreter for Elders who spoke no English, I learned many things. I learned that the Manokinak, Kashunak, and Aprun rivers were the direct ancestral lands of the Cup’ik people. I learned to locate sites on maps and discovered what historic events took place at various sites. I learned who had houses at individual sites and what kinds of activities took place at those sites. I also learned which types of subsistence foods people gathered most intensively at different sites—which showed me the types of food available in different areas.
One of the oldest sites recorded is Englullugmiut, estimated through carbon dating to be 4,000 years old. This site can be identified on maps.

The Elders have passed on stories of our people from one generation to the next. Those stories are important for many reasons. They reflect the way our ancestors lived and important events that happened to them. They also teach us important survival techniques. Survival over the centuries for the Cup’ik people meant being knowledgeable about the land. And people became knowledgeable because they were spoken to, mentored, nurtured and well cared for. The Elders regarded a person with no teachers (an orphan, for example) as one who would likely perish in the harsh environment. In the view of the Elders, it is best to listen to advice—whether you agree with it at the time—because the knowledge may be useful for the future. The wisdom of our forefathers is precious; in the old days, sometimes orphans would listen at the doorways of other families, to hear the stories being told and so "steal" the valuable knowledge for themselves.
Some of the traditional Cup’ik stories talk about a time long ago, when the land was thin. The Elders said that in this time, men had specially carved walking sticks (legcik in Cup’ik) with barbs on the hook—because some parts of the land were quicksand. They used the sticks to pull themselves out of the quicksand, if they fell through the ground.

Epidemics (Cangerlaagpiit) periodically devastated our people over the years. The first was around 1840-42 and was a smallpox epidemic—in Cup'ik, arumeng, a sore of the body. Other epidemics were measles, mumps, whooping cough, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and influenza.
Some of our traditional stories talk about those epidemics. An especially bad one was the influenza epidemic (cangerliigpak) that swept through the villages in 1918-20. The shamans described it as "coming as fast as the blowing snow." Elders recall this period as the "dark days of our people." There were many heartbroken families. One story says, "The families in one household looked like they were sleeping, but they were all dead." In villages where many people lived before the epidemic, only a few survived.
Healthy people were forced to take care of the dead—and so many died at the same time that they had to be buried in a dugout sod house. The people from Scammon Bay and Hooper Bay would pile up many bodies into one grave during the winter. Some villages were completely wiped out. These places no longer existed after the epidemic: Cingigmiut and Amigtulirmiut (Black River area), as well as villages around the Kusilvak Mountain (Kassiglurmiut).
The influenza epidemic was especially hard on young adults, and as a result many children were left orphans. Traditional stories verify the high incidence of orphans in many villages at this time. The many orphans left after epidemics had no fathers to teach them how to survive in a harsh environment. But the value of the knowledge and wisdom contained in the Cup’ik stories became evident. The Elders tell us that orphans often acquired important knowledge by listening in on stories being told—and were able to survive.
Unfortunately, many children also died in the epidemic; an Elder from the old village of Kashunak recalled that about thirty children died in just one winter. Nowadays, many people believe that more children could have survived the epidemic, if their parents had known how to care for them. But because they had not encountered this kind of sickness before, many parents did not know what to do. For example, when temperatures of the children became extremely high, many parents did not attempt to cool them down. Some who did survive—and who are still alive today—may owe their survival to parents who had better information about how to care for them.

An old Kashunak story related to this period is about a great and intelligent hunter (nukalpiaq) who entered a qaygiq (men’s house, described later in this lesson). Inside the qaygiq were men who were gloomy and sad because they had lost their families in an epidemic. The man gave them this advice: "No matter how sad you may be, laugh with all your might—even if you may not want to." He added, "As soon as I complete the story I am going to tell you, burst out laughing." Everyone listened attentively as the man told them, "I saw a dog carrying the head of a small newborn with red hair." Then everyone pretended to laugh—and suddenly the fake laughs turned to real laughter.
The wise hunter advised the men to laugh because by laughing at death, the men wiped away the spirit of sickness and death. This story, told to me by Joe Friday, marks the end of the epidemic era and shows how traditional stories document important events in Cup’ik history. Even though there was little hope of survival during these times of epidemics, our people went through this dark period and did survive.

Like the traditional stories we’ve just discussed, traditional festivals and rituals are also important in the history of the Cup’ik people. Those festivals and rituals marked the change of seasons, successful hunts, and other special occasions. They show the deep ties between the Cup’ik people and the land that sustained them. They show how our people valued gift-giving and sharing. As I noted earlier, the Western missionaries suppressed traditional Cup’ik festivals—and as a result most are no longer celebrated. But it is important for our children to know those traditions that reflect our culture.
Below I describe some traditional Cup’ik festivals and rituals. The qaygiq (men’s house) played a big part in many festivals and also in the broader life of the community. So I first describe the qaygiq before talking about specific festivals.

In old Qissunaq, the first village of Chevak, the people had many festivals before the winter solstice. The leaders of the village, the Elders, stated the reason this way: "We have to start our festivals before the sun sits down." That statement meant that they had to start their festivals before the shortest day of the year, which is December 21.
In the middle of the day, every day, the men measured the height of the sun. A man would extend his open hand toward the horizon of the sun, holding four fingers horizontally between the horizon and the sun. By closing one eye, he could determine when the winter solstice would start. If the sun landed between his index and middle fingers, this indicated winter solstice—or the "sitting of the sun." The sunrise and the sunset were also marked by a stick, since the horizon is outlined as the sun rises and sets.
In Qissunaq, there were two qaygiq where feasts, dancing, and firebathing took place. One qaygiq, called uniqullek, was in the northern part of the village, and the other, qaygicuaraq, was at the southern mount. The membership of each qaygiq was mostly determined according to family clans and by availability of space. Each year, Elders and other men from the two qaygiq took turns sponsoring the festivals, after consultation and agreement between them.