t) BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



(2) Icy Bay, Yakutat Bay, and the coastal plain as far east as the 

 site of the Yakutat airfield, but excluding Kussell Fiord at the head 

 of Yakutat Bay, compose the territory of the K'^ackqwan, a Raven sib 

 who trace their origin to the middle Copper River near Chitina. 



(3) The district from Lost River near the Yakutat airfield to just 

 east of Italio River, including the head of Russell Fiord, belongs to the 

 Teqwedi, a Thngit Eagle sib from southeastern Alaska. The Bear 

 House lineage owns the western area of Lost and Situk Rivers; the 

 Drum House lineage claims the eastern lands on Ahmldin, Dangerous, 

 and Italio Rivers. 



(4) Akwe River and Dry Bay area belongs to the Thik^'axAdi, a 

 formerly Athabaskan -speaking Raven sib, and to the Tl'ulaiaxAdi, a 

 Raven sib from southeastern Alaska, with whom the remnants of the 

 original inhabitants have merged. Also resident in the area, although 

 they have never estabhshed full territorial claims, were the Eagle 

 Tcukanedi, associated chiefly with Lituya Bay, and two other Eagle 

 sibs from southeastern Alaska: the Kagwantan (proper) and the 

 CAnkuqedi. The latter came via an interior route from Lynn Canal, 

 up the Chilkat and down the Alsek, and are said to have inter- 

 married with the Southern Tutchone Athabaskans. 



Although there were once many settlements in these regions, they 

 are now deserted, and the population of about 250 to 300 natives is 

 now concentrated in the modern town of Yakutat. Only a handful 

 of Eyak are reported to be at Cordova, and the little tribe is almost 

 culturally and linguistically extinct. Some of the Dry Bay and 

 Lituya Bay people emigrated to Hoonah and Sitka. In 1880, there 

 were 170 "Thhnket" in Controller Bay, 150 near Cape Yakataga, 

 and 500 at Yakutat and on the mainland as far south as Cape Spencer 

 (Petroff, 1884, pp. 29, 32), making a total of 820, if Petroff's figures 

 are to be trusted. Although this count was taken after the disastrous 

 smallpox epidemics, there is no reason to suppose that the Indian 

 population on the Gulf Coast was ever very large. 



The legendary history of Yakutat begins some "ten generations" 

 ago, when the ancestors of the K'^ackqwan emigrated from Chitina 

 on the Copper River because of an intrasib quarrel. At that time 

 they spoke Atna Athabaskan, and are referred to as the Ginexqwan 

 or "people of Ginex" (Bremner River, an eastern tributary of the 

 Copper River). The emigrants are said to have ascended this river 

 and crossed the glaciers. Part of the group that became separated 

 from the rest eventually became the GauAxtedi Raven sib of the 

 Eyak at the mouth of the Copper River. The main party traveled 

 across the ice, past Mount Saint Ehas, which they now claim as a 

 crest, and reached the coast somewhere west of Icy Bay, which was 



