Koyukon

Ethnic group native to Alaska, United States

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Turkish. (March 2014) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

View a machine-translated version of the Turkish article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 492 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Turkish Wikipedia article at [[:tr:Koyukonlar]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|tr|Koyukonlar}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Koyukon
Regions with significant populations
Poldine Carlo, Koyukon author, 2007
United States (Alaska)	2,300^[1]
Languages
English, Koyukon, Russian (historically)
Religion
Christianity, Animism
Related ethnic groups
Deg Hit'an, Holikachuk, Gwich'in, other Northern Athabaskan peoples

The Koyukon, Dinaa, or Denaa (Denaakk'e: Tl’eeyegge Hut’aane) are an Alaska Native Athabascan people of the Athabascan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. Their traditional territory is along the Koyukuk and Yukon rivers where they subsisted for thousands of years by hunting and trapping. Many Koyukon live in a similar manner today.

The Koyukon language belongs to a large family called Na-Dené or Athabascan, traditionally spoken by numerous groups of native people throughout northwestern North America. In addition, due to ancient migrations of related peoples, other Na-Dené languages, such as Navajo and Apachean varieties, are spoken in the American Southwest and in Mexico.

History

The first Europeans to enter Koyukon territory were Russians, who came up the Yukon River to Nulato in 1838. When they arrived, they found that items such as iron pots, glass beads, cloth apparel, and tobacco had already reached the people through their trade with coastal Eskimos, who had long traded with Russians. An epidemic of smallpox had preceded them, causing high fatalities in the village. In subsequent years, European infectious diseases drastically reduced the Koyukon population, who had no immunity to these new diseases.

Relative isolation persisted along the Koyukuk until 1898, when the Yukon Gold Rush brought more than a thousand men to the river. They found little gold, and most left the following winter.^[2]

Archaeological evidence suggests that the Koyukon people have inhabited their region for at least 1,000 years, with cultural roots there that stretch back thousands of years earlier.^[3]

Ethnobotany

The Koyukon freeze lingonberries for winter use.^[4]

Notable Koyukon

Nikoosh Carlo, PhD, scientist and policy advisor. Dr. Carlo served as Senior Advisor, Climate & Arctic Policy to the Governor of Alaska (2017–18),^[5] Senior Advisor, U.S. Department of State for the U.S. Chairmanship of the Arctic Council (2015–2017), Public Voices Fellow at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication^[6] and as executive director, Alaska Arctic Policy Commission (2013–2015).^[7]
Poldine Carlo, writer and elder
Kathleen Carlo-Kendall, professional carver artist
Mary Jane Fate, activist and leader
Walter Harper, first man known to reach the summit of Denali (Mount McKinley), in June 1913
Emil Notti, American engineer, Indigenous activist and Democratic politician
Michael J. Stickman, First Chief of the Nuwato Tribal Council
Morris Thompson, businessman and leader

References

^ Alaska Native Language Center : Alaska Native Languages / Population and Speaker Statistics
^ Shannon Michele McNeeley (2009), Seasons out of balance climate change impacts, vulnerability, and sustainable adaptation in Interior Alaska Archived 2016-08-24 at the Wayback Machine, Fairbanks, Alaska, August 2009
^ Smith, Gerad (2020). Ethnoarchaeology of the Middle Tanana Valley, Alaska.
^ Nelson, Richard K., 1983, Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, p. 55
^ "Walker admin appoints climate adviser, promises new policy 'soon'". 20 September 2017.
^ "YPCCC welcomes the inaugural class of the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis". 8 April 2020.
^ "Arctic Policy Commission hires Nikoosh Carlo as director". Daily News-Miner. Fairbanks, Alaska. October 8, 2013.