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Alutiiq Word of the Week

Lessons in Language and Culture

Weekly lessons on all things Alutiiq! Explore Alutiiq vocabulary and a wealth of cultural information.

Featuring the wisdom of Elders Nick Alokli, Florence Pestrikoff, Sophie Shepherd, and Victor Peterson. Hosted by Dehrich Chya, April Laktonen Counceller, Marya Halvorsen, and Michael Bach.


This Week’s Lesson

TRuup’kaaq, Pa’ipaaq – Pipe
Ata tRuup’kaaq. – Let’s see the pipe.

Although tobacco was popular in the historic era, smoking tobacco was not. Historic sources indicate that Alutiiq people preferred to create snuff by adding tobacco to a mixture of wood ash, black tea, and dried crushed nettle leaves. This produced iqmik, a substance held in the mouth. Smoking tobacco gained popularity later, perhaps in the last decades of Russian rule.

By the 1840s, tobacco pipes were among the trade goods imported to Kodiak. Manufactured in Western Europe, the earliest pipes were inexpensive objects imported both for use by colonists and for trade to Native people. These pipes were made of kaolin, a soft, white clay. They featured a small, deep, outwardly sloping bowl with a narrow, tapering stem. The stem was often very long, allowing the user to continue smoking the pipe if this fragile part broke.

For archaeologists, kaolin pipes provide a means of dating historic sites, because their styles and designs changed quickly. Pipes from the early nineteenth century, for example, have wide bowls decorated with geometric designs and even faces. In contrast, older varieties tend to have smaller, unadorned bowls. Around Kodiak, kaolin pipes fell out of use in the late nineteenth century as wooden pipes and cigarettes gained popularity.


Word of the Week Archive — COMING SOON

From left, April Counceller, Florence Pestrikof, Sophie Shepherd, and Nick Alokli, word of the week voices and advisors, sign copies of the Alutiiq Word of the Week book, 2012.

From A to Y (accordion to yeast!), there are 679 lessons in our searchable Word of the Week archive. Learn about the Alutiiq world, practice word pronunciation, and share lessons with family and friends. Type a topic in the search box to start exploring. Developed with a grant to Koniag from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Dehrich Chya records a podcast at the Alutiiq Museum.


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You can also listen to the Word of the Week on KMXT Public Radio, tune into the weekly podcast on Spotify and other platforms, read lessons in the Friday edition of the Kodiak Daily Mirror, and find a new lesson each Sunday on the Alutiiq Museum’s social media.


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