Aleut People - Culture and Technology

Culture and Technology

Aleuts constructed partially underground houses called Barabara. According to Lillie McGarvey, a 20th-century Aleut leader, barabaras keep "occupants dry from the frequent rains, warm at all times, and snugly sheltered from the high winds common to the area". First a rectangular pit was dug. Then it was covered with logs and poles and then sealed by drit/mud/soil and ice and moss. Inside there would be benches along the side with the hearth in the middle. The bedrooms were at the back of the lodge.

Fishing, hunting and gathering were the only way Aleuts could find food. Salmon, seal, walrus, crabs, shellfish, cod were all caught and dried, smoked or roasted. Caribou, musk oxen, deer, moose, whale and other types of game were eaten roasted or preserved. Berries were dried or often whipped into alutiqqutigaq, which was a mixture of berries, fat and fish. The skin and blubber from a whale which was boiled was a delicacy and so was walrus. These days Aleuts eat their traditional food but also with the new processed foods the outside world brought in.