Yup'ik Facts Total Population 40,000 Arctic Homelands Southwestern Alaska & northwestern Siberia Origins Siberia, 10,000 years ago Languages Yup'ik Traditional Activities Fishing, hunting & gathering, trapping, crafts Religion Naturalistic, shamanistic Did you know? Although subsistence living involved a constant struggle against the elements, the Yupik people mostly thrived, relying mainly on fish and sea mammals for food, tools, and clothing. Traditional Yup'ik houses were mostly built underground in dry areas. They had a wooden structure which was covered with earth and sod. Traditional Yup'ik believe that both living beings and natural objects have spirits and thus, they have great respect for all animals and the environment in which they live. The Raven was an important figure in Yup'ik mythology and often appears carved on distinctive ceremonial masks.

Yup'ik People

With the influx of European and Russian explorers, fur traders, settlers in the 1800's also came diseases. Yup'ik communities endured catastrophic epidemics of smallpox, influenza and tuberculosis. A hardy and adaptable people, Yup'ik customs remain strong, however, in the villages of southwest Alaska, and include many traditions and beliefs centered around hunting and sharing. Renewed ties to Chukotka have revived traditional trade and intermarriage.

Yup'ik homelands are typically flat, treeless tundra landscapes dotted with thousands and thousands of lakes. Though not the seagoing people the Aleuts were, the Yupik, too, relied on the ocean and rivers for their livelihood.

Although ships and planes bring in supplies for local stores, people still hunt and gather the largest percentage of their own food -- especially the people living on the islands. Subsistence activities center on fish. In summer, salmon migrating upriver are caught and often dried for winter use. Other kinds of fish are available such as cod, halibut, and herring. In addition, they utilize both seals and walrus which are plentiful along the Bering Sea coast. Shellfish, terrestrial mammals (such as moose and caribou), birds, bird eggs, and plants also play significant roles in the diet.

Transportation over the land is accomplished mostly by all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles. Umiaks, boats made from walrus skins, are still widely used for sea transportation and sea hunting. However now the boats are propelled with outboard motors, rather than just sails and oars.

Today Yup'ik people live in modern houses which have electricity, and are heated with petroleum oil. In earlier times, people lived in houses made from wood and whalebone, and roofed and sided with walrus skins. There were no glass windows, and the interior was lit with bowl shaped clay lamps, or bowl shaped lamps made of carved stone. Seal oil was the lamps's main energy source. Food was stored in underground caches.