BIG DELTA, Alaska - Before the arrival of the Russians, the more southern Eskimo called themselves Sugpiaq — “the real people.” The Russians began calling them “Aleuts” which eventually applied to three somewhat differing Native communities.
Today, the Sugpiaq identify as Chugach Eskimo and call that earlier time Alutiiq or “yesterday’s Aleut.”
However, the Native Peoples and Languages of Alaska map identifies the entire area as “Alutiiq (Sugpiaq)” which includes the islands and coastline of Prince William Sound, Kodiak and Alaska and Kenai peninsulas.
In the 1930s, a team of anthropologists, led by Dr. Frederica de Laguna, visited Cordova to study language and culture. The grandmother of Cordova’s Virginia Alice Nicholoff Lacy, Matrona Chimaviskey was the interpreter for de Laguna. Matrona’s father Makari Chimaviskey was de Laguna’s guide and storyteller. Chimaviskey’s Alutiiq name was Alingun Nupatlkerlugoq Angakhuna. De Laguna cited that in the area he was the oldest living Chugach Eskimo. Lacy, an 87-year-old refined lady living in a 100year-old home built a year after Cordova’s founding, explained the local history and her family’s background.
In the 1760s Russian traders arrived by ship looking for sea otter and other furs. By 1788 a Russian trading post and redoubt had been built, Nuchek on Hinchinbrook Island, the gateway to Prince William Sound. It was a supply point for ships to replenish water and supplies; Nuchek became an important hub.
Lacy pointed out, “The Russians made virtual slaves of the Natives and forced them to hunt precious sea otter for them.
"They required them to make special bidarkas with three holes so that a Russian could go along to make sure the Natives did not keep any of the furs themselves. They gave guns to the hunters but charged them exorbitant prices for shells for their own use.”
By 1800, Russian settlers paid the Chugach chiefs a salary for hunting the sea otter, but Natives were also becoming dependent on the European goods. Russian customs, language and Orthodox religion were also becoming the Native culture. People of mixed (Russian and Alutiiq) heritage — known as Creoles — served then as teachers, managers, explorers and clergy. In 1867, the Russians sold their interest in Alaska to the United States.
Lacy’s grandfather was August Tiedeman, a German sailor had joined the American Navy. In the 1890s he arrived in Alaska on a geodetic coastal survey aboard the “MacArthur.” In Nuchek he jumped ship and married Lacy’s beautiful dark-haired grandmother, Matrona. In 1904, Lacy’s mother, Mary Alma, was born, followed by her sister, Freda. The family moved to Makarka Creek on Hawkins Island where they lived on a bluff overlooking a stream.
The more protected ports of Valdez and Cordova were growing and the sea otter industry in Nuchek was dying. By 1909, only 30 people remained in Nuchek. After a devastating smallpox epidemic in which almost everyone died, Lacy’s widowed grandfather left with 10-12 orphans to join his daughter’s family at Makarka Point. There with Matrona’s help and also by subsisting on butter and razor clams, hunting ducks and fishing, he raised the children.
Lacy said, “As many chiefs did, my grandfather possessed spiritual powers.
He could predict weather changes by watching animals’ behavior. He claimed to have seen sea otter with human faces. His piercing grey eyes seemed to look right through me.”
However, Matrona’s autocratic German husband, August, forbade the use of her Aleut language in the home so the language was not passed on to her daughter, Mary. Lacy didn’t even know her grandmother knew Aleut until de Laguna appeared.
By 1925, Nuchek was fully abandoned and the land title had been transferred to the Chugach National Forest, created in 1907.
Fox farms were becoming popular and north of Hawkins Island near Sheeps Bay, Tiedeman began a blue fox farm at Alice Cove while also working in the herring saltery.
By 1933, de Laguna, her brother, mother, Norman Reynolds and her Danish colleague Kaj Birket-Smith arrived for archeological excavations in Prince William Sound. However, the Cordova area was still covered with snow and ice so they spent time interviewing people.
Lacy recalled, “When de Laguna was exploring Palugvik, an ancient site on Hawkins Island about 15 miles southwest of Cordova, she needed my great grandfather as a guide. Since he spoke little English, Gammie (Matrona) translated for her. She spent several months with the archeological team as they gathered legends. She introduced them to Eyak speakers who also shared their stories while Frederica and Birket-Smith took detailed phonetic notes.”
When the de Laguna team returned and shared their notes on the Eyak language to their overseeing scholars, it was decided that Eyak was not an Athabaskan language but an independent branch more distantly related to Tlingit.
And further, that the Eyak had been overlooked. In 2008, the last full-blooded Eyak and Native speaker of her language, Chief Marie Smith Jones passed away.
Lacy concluded, “My great grandfather died about three years later in 1936 when I was 13. I have a photo of him with a match work replica of a trap he made.”
Today, the fur the Russians once so fiercely hunted, the sea otter, is federally protected. Only Alaska Natives are allowed today to kill a sea otter for subsistence or for creating handicrafts, according to the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. Lacy smiled, “In 1992, I shot an otter, tanned it and made myself a scarf. I wear it today as a reminder of my great grandfather Makari and my grandmother Matrona, people who helped unlock the connection of the Eyak to our other Alaska Native linguistic families.”
Judy Ferguson is the author of six Alaska books. Her website is http://alaska-highway.org/delta/outpost . In 2012, “Windows to the Land, An Alaska Native Story” will be released.
Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Recollections of Cordova’s ‘Oldest Eskimo’