When She Wakes Up: Archaeology and Community Revitalization of the Unangax Open Skin Boat Tradition

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In the second half of the 18th century Russian colonization swiped across the Aleutian Chain and into continental Alaska, destroying and distorting many Indigenous traditions, including the boat building of the Unangax people of the Aleutian Islands. While Unangax kayaks are well known from ethnographic examples, their undecked skin boats remain a mystery.

Historic accounts portray two different Unangax boat types: nigilax̂ displays strong morphological affinity with the Indigenous watercraft of Kodiak archipelago, while baidar resembles boats of the Koryaks, Native people of Kamchatka, and was presumably introduced by the Russians. No full-scale examples of nigilax̂ survived. Only six examples of baidar remain, all are in dare need of conservation. Recent reawakening of the Unagax open skin boat building tradition, combined with the archaeological data analysis offer insights into the history of the Aleutian watercraft, historic patterns of maritime mobility, and the healing power of regaining this knowledge.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow