Eyak (people)
The Eyak are an Indian tribe in Alaska , whose language of the same name with its last speaker, Marie Smith Jones , died out in early 2008. The language belonged to the Athapaskan family of languages . By 2002 the tribe had around 170 members, but only one of them had only Eyak ancestors.
history
In the 18th century, the Eyak lived in Prince William Sound , in an area that stretched east across the Copper River Delta to what is now Yakutat . Until around 1880, the Eyak, which had gradually been decimated to around 200 tribe members, were repeatedly harassed by Tlingit . They were cut off from their fishing grounds by industrial fish farming as early as the 1890s. The fish farming methods also interrupted the annual salmon migration , so that their lives changed radically.
At first, some eyak found employment in the fish factories, but they were soon replaced by cheaper Chinese workers. The construction of a railway connection, right past the last Eyak settlement, Cordova, brought alcohol and opium , as well as diseases. They reduced the number of Eyak to 50, and the global flu epidemic from 1918 to 1920 almost wiped them out. Since 1906 their village on Eyak belonged to the neighboring Cordova.
It was not until 1933 that they were the last to be recognized as a tribe in the USA. When Alaska became a US state in 1959, the Indians lost their land. In 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) abolished all tribal rights to land. 44 million acres of land went to private Native corporations . The Alaska Federation of Natives agreed to the process, so that now cross-tribal corporations own the land. The Indians became shareholders, which emphasized profit interests rather than preserving the land. For example, they repeatedly agreed to Clear Cut Logging , a type of area-wide deforestation that is still used in North America without any selection.
The Eyak were finally pushed aside when US authorities discovered that the area was home to several tribes. The Indians, Aleutians and Eskimos who had come to Cordova in the meantime were allowed to join the tribal assembly. The Eyak suddenly became a small minority in their own area. When, contrary to the agreements, logging began on the Eyak River , Marie Smith Jones tried to defend herself as a member of the council, but the tribal council that was exchanged was of little interest in the cultural artefacts on the Eyak River - they have disappeared with the trees.
Current situation
After the oil tanker Exxon Valdez poured over 30 million barrels of crude oil into the Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989 , Dune Lankard and others founded the Eyak Preservation Council in 1995 . The NATIVE Conservancy Land Trust followed later . Lankard descends from the Eyak with one parent and belongs to the wolf clan. His organization has managed to protect 700,000 acres in the region so far .
In 1995 the Eyak celebrated their first potlatch in 80 years , a ritual celebration that was forbidden for a long time.
With the death of the last speaker of the Eyak in January 2008, their language died out. Both the dramatic population decline and the pressure of English and the neighboring Indian languages contributed to this.