The Yukon Natives
Upon their arrival on the Kvikpak and Yukon, the Russians found the banks of the stream peopled in its upper and middle courses by Indians and lower down by the Eskimo.[19] The last Indian village downstream was Aninulykhtykh-pak, since completely gone. Its site is identifiable with one that used to exist in front of the present mission of Holy Cross or just above. The first Eskimo village of some note was Paimute.
As to the Indians of the Yukon and its tributaries, there is a considerable confusion of names, almost every author using his own spelling and subdivisions. It is evident that there were two sets of names of the various Indian contingents, namely the names, sometimes contemptuous, given to them by outsiders, and the names in use among themselves, which generally meant the people of this or that locality. The facts are that they all belonged to the Tinné or Dené family;[20],[21] that there were two probably related generic names for them, namely Kutchin (used especially on the upper Yukon) and Khotana (used mainly along the central and lower parts of the stream); and that along the Yukon itself, with its channels, there were three main subdivisions of the people: The Kutchin (with various qualifications) on the upper parts of the river, down to Fort Yukon; the Yukonikhotana, from Fort Yukon to Nulato;[22] and the Kain (Petrof) or Kaiyuh (Dall) Khotana, or Inkaliks (of the Russians), from Nulato to Holy Cross.
In addition there were the Tenan-kutchin Tenan-khotana or Mountain-men of the Tanana; and the Yunnaka-khotana (Zagoskin) or Koyukuk-khotana (Dall), the people of the Koyukuk.
These groups were settled in a moderate number of permanent or winter villages along the rivers, in the summer spreading along the streams in camps. The population found by the first Russian explorer, Glazunof, from Anvik to Aninulykhtykh-pak, was seemingly a rather large one. He is reported by Wrangell to have counted, at Anvik, 240 grown males; at Magimiut, 35; and at Aninulykhtykh-pak 300. At the last-named village in particular there were present "many people," Glazunof estimating altogether nearly 700. These figures, except for Magimiut, seem too large and were not even approached later; but before the next count, that by Zagoskin, all these settlements had been visited by smallpox; and at the big village Glazunoff may have seen a potlatch, such as may still yearly be witnessed at some settlements on the river.
Zagoskin in 1843 made a detailed and evidently reliable count of all the villages that became known to him. His data in this respect, as in others, being of fundamental value, are here given, the Eskimo, for convenience, being included.