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The First Migration: The Algonquian People
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The Sons of Sheleph
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And Joktan begat... Sheleph
Sheleph was the second son of Joktan; of the thirteen sons who left Mesopotamia with their parents, Joktan and his wife Elisheva, and which family proceeded to accomplish something that no one had ever done before, that is to journey across a vast uncharted wilderness region of the Earth, known today as the continent of Asia, eventually crossing Beringia over a land bridge onto what was likely unbeknownst to them at the time, still, would later come to be called the North American continent.
Consequently, that first migration, which, also according to this world′s wise men, likely was initiated from the city called Ur of the Chaldean, did happen long ago in the history of mankind, possible as early as the year 2200 BCE. Too, it was likely that the crossing of Asia from Ur to the Bearing Sea took this large nation of people about twenty to twenty five years.
1
Yes, that crossing of the land bridge by those ancient wayƒarers did occur; those travelers, now known as the indigenous people of
North America did arrive; and subsequently, those travelers did walk inland throughout many areas of the
North American continent; and those people continued to explore, locate their homelands and settle the lands of North America as far east as the eastern coastal lands of the continent.
Sheleph Had Six Sons
When Joktan arrived onto the North American Continent, most all of his sons were adults, had wives of their own and also has begun their families. In fact after twenty to twenty-five years of the ongoing journey, the Sons of Joktan not only had their sons, which provided Joktan with grandchildren, but also some of Joktan′s grandchildren were beginning to provide Joktan with great grandchildren.
Shelph, who himself had six sons, by the time the nation arrived at the Beringia land bridge and began taking steps upon the new continent, had already obtained nine grandchildren.
The Sons of Sheleph
Long before arriving at the land bridge crossing into the new continent, Sheleph and his wife had sons and daughters born to them.
(m0maps-2026.-sheleph-tribes) The Far North Indigenous Peoples
U·nang·ax̂
These people, which are historically called the Aleuts, (a name given to this people by the first Russian explorers), are the indigenous and original inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands, the Pribilof Islands (north of the Aleutian Island), parts of the Alaska Peninsula, areas of the Alaskan southwest Bearing Sea coast and the coastal area of the extreme northeast region of the continent of Asia, now known as the Russian federally autonomous area called
Chukotka.
Their
endonym, as spoken in their mother language, Unangax̂, means "the original people" and later, due to the location of their homeland, which land is called Unangam Tanangin, their endonym came to also mean, "the people of the passes and/or the people who live on the seaside." These indigenous people have lived within this self chosen homeland in a marine environment ever since their first great grandfather, during the
First Migration crossed the Beringia land bridge sometime shortly after 2000 BCE, making their arrival onto the North American continent a little more than 4000 years ago.
Of these indigenous people, those would self identify as a Unangax̂ (the original people) include:, (1.) The Unangan (people of the western dialect), or (2.) The Unangas (people of the eastern dialect [Russian]), and in their own language, Unangam Tunuu (the Aleut language) their self identity means original people. Later, due to the location of their homeland (Unangam Tanangin), their endonym came to also mean the people of the passes and/or the seasiders.
This group of indigenous people are the original inhabitants of the Aleutian Island Chain, predating the Russian settlers by centuries. In fact, they inhabited Beringia during the time when the water levels had decreased some 200 to 400 feet lower than they are now, a time when the continental shore lines were much further outward than they are today. (See
Beringia.)
The earliest inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands were game hunters, fishermen for salmon, crabs, shellfish, cod, as well as hunting mammals such as seal, walrus and whales. They would process the fish and sea mammals in a variety of ways including: dring, smoking and roasting. Other land mammals including: caribou, deer, moose, musk oxen and other game were often eaten roasted but sometimes preserved for later use. Berries were gathered and often processed with fat and fish to create alutiqqutigaq. Too, the boiled skin and blubber of walrus and whale is enjoyed as a delicacy. Today, modern processes food can be purchased locally but it is very expensive.
Warm Outer Wear
The Aleuts homeland developed in one of the harshest climates in the world, and the Aleuts learned to create and protect warmth. Both men and women wore parkas that reached as far down as their ankles. The skin of seal or sea-otter as well as the bird skin were used to create outer wear. Other material to create waterproof parkas included seal of sea-lion guts, entrails of bear, walrus or whales.
All outerwear included a hood that could be cinched as did the wrist opening so as to prevent water from getting in. Men wore breeches made from the esophageal skin of seals. Children wore parkas made of downy eagle skin with tanned bird skin caps, calling these parkas kameikas, which in English means: rain gear.
Skins
The most abundant marine mammals were sea-lions, harbor seals and sea otters, where after hunting were brought home for the preparation of turning the skins into waterproof parkas, bags and other receptacles. However, tuffed puffin and horned puffin skin were also used to make a parka.
After soaking and stretching the skins, the women undertook the sewing them into the clothing. Sometimes, one parka would involve a year of labor to finish and the parka could last as long as two years with proper care. All parkas were decorated with bird feathers, beard bristles of seal and sea-lion, beaks of sea parrots, bird claws, sea otter fur, dyed leather, and caribou hair sewn in the seams.
Needdles were made from the wing bones of sea birds and the thread came from the sinews of animal and fish guts. Dyes for the thread came from hematite, octopus ink bags, and some grass roots.
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The Sons of
Unamgam: The Unangam Tunúu People
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Unangam: The Unangam Tunúu People
The Unangam Tunúu (Aleut) are an Indigenous Unangax̂ tribe native to the Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands, Commander Islands, and parts of the Alaska Peninsula. They have inhabited their ancestral homelands for thousands of years, developing a culture deeply connected to the ocean and this northernmost natural environment.
Unangam Tunuu is the sole language of this branch of the Alaskan Aleut family. It is polysynthetic, which develops from single, long words that are built from many small pieces, each with its meaning and come together to express an entire sentence. It has complex verb forms and a unique agreement system between nouns and verbs. The language is critically endangered, with only a few hundred elderly speakers remaining, mostly due to colonization, forced relocation, and language replacement policies.
The Pribilof Islands dialect is about 200 years older and distinct from the Eastern and Atkan dialects
Unangam Tunúu History
From about the mid 1700′s, the Unangam Tunúu people were likely around 15,000 in population and were spread all over the Alaskan peninsula
Unangam Tunúu People Today
Unangam
Unangam Tunuu language
Unangam Belkofski tribe, Alaskan Peninsula
Unangam King Cove tribe Alaskan Peninsula
Unangam Nelson Lagoon tribe, Alaskan Peninsula
Unangam Nikolski tribe, Umnak Island
Unangam tribe Pribilof Islands
Unangam tribe, Unimak Island
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The Sons of
Yup′ik, The Yupik Alutiiq People
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Yup′ik: The Yupik Alutiiq People
The Alutiig are an Indigenous Unangax̂ tribe known to be an Alaska Native maritime people who have inhabited the coastal regions of south-central Alaska, including the Kodiak Archipelago, Prince William Sound, and the Kenai Peninsula and have lived in these regions for several thousand years. The name "Alutiiq" is the local adaptation of the Russian term "Aleut," while their ancestral autonym in the Alutiig language is Sugpiaq, meaning the real person.
The Prince William Sound and the Kenai Peninsula are the home to the c population. The Kodiak Archipelago is the ancestral and contemporoary center for the Koniag Alutiiq population. The Alaskan Peninsula has areas along the lower coast where the Koniag Alutiig population also make their home.
The Alutiig people live an ocean-based life and rely deeply on marine resources like salmon, halibut, seals, sea lions, and whales.
This people are renowned for sophisticated waterproof skin-boat building (kayak/bidarka), intricately carved wooden masks, and traditional skin sewing.
The language of this people, Alutiig (or Sugcestun) is a Pacific Gulf variety of the Yupik Eskimo family, of which has been split into distinct regional dialects.
Yupik Alutiig History
In the early 1800s, there were some 60 Alutiiq villages in the Kodiak Archipelago where there was a populations of about 13,000 people. Today, there are only about 4,000 Alutiig people in the entire state of Alaska.
Sometime in the early 1900s, a small family clan separated from the Yup′ik tribe and moved to the
Yukon-Kuskokwim river delta area and built their homeland separately from the rest of the nation.
Yupik Alutiig People Today
Yupic
Alutiig language, (Chugack, Sugpiag, Koniag-CR, Chevak Tribes)
Yupic Alutiiq Chugack tribe, Southwest Alaska
Yupic Alutiiq Sugpiag tribe, Kenai Peninsula
Yupic Alutiiq Koniag tribe, Kodiak Island
Cupic Alutiiq Chevak tribe, Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta
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The Sons of
Atkan, The Atkan Unangax̂ People
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Atkan: The Atkan Unangax̂ People
The Atkan Unangax̂ people are an Indigenous Unangax̂ (Aleut: original people and/or coastal people) tribe who have lived on Atka Island in Alaska′s Aleutian Island chain for several thousand years. Traditionally, these indigenous people survived by fishing, hunting marine mammals using skin-covered kayaks (iqyax^), and living in semi-subterranean earth homes (ulax^).
The Atkan Unangax̂ indigenous people live in a coastal fishing village where about fifty residents are closely connected, all of who are Unangax̂ and who speak the western dialect of the Unangam Tunuu language, which is known as Niiĝuĝim tunuu.
Atkan Unangax̂ People History
During the middle of the 1700s, the Atkan people were contacted by Russian fur traders, which new comers impacted the native population heavily with disease, labor exploitation and religious conversion. Subsequently, a Russian Orthodoxy church was established in 1830 which became a central component of the indigenous people′s life.
Then, after the Japanese attack of the Hawaiian Islands in 1942, the US government forcibly evacuated the indigenous people from Atka Island and interned them in southeast Alaska camps under similar harsh conditions that the United States had interned the Japanese Americans during the same period. When the Second World War ended, the U.S. Navy helped rebuild the community and subsequently, the indigenous people returned to re-populate the villages in their homeland.
Atkan Unangax̂ People Today
Atkan
Unangax̂ Dialec, (Atka Islands-CR)
Atkan Atka Island (52.138056, -174.445278)
Bering Island (55.000833, 166.273056)
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The Sons of
Attu, The Attu Unangax̂ People
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Attu: The Attu Unangax̂ People
The island of Attu is an island in the Near Islands section of the Aleutian Islands chain and is one of the westernmost points of the United States state of Alaska. In 2010, this island became uninhabited which makes it the largest uninhabited island of the Aluetian Islands. The Attu island is about 20 miles by 35 miles in size with a land areas of about 345 square miles giving this island the ranking of the 23rd largest island in the United States. Directly west of Attu island, some 208 miles (335 kilometers) are the Russian Commander Islands, which islands sit in the waters on the west side of the International Date Line.
The Attu Aleut, a dialect of the Indigenous Unangax̂ people are an Alaska Native community that historically inhabited Attu Island which is the the westernmost island in the Aleutian chain of islands. These people lived in four villages on Attu Island known as Attu, Biorka, Kashega and Makushin; and they had been living on this island for several thousand years until their village was destroyed and the people were permanently displaced during the Second World War.
Attu Unangax̂ History
During the Second World War, the Japanese gathered all of the indigenous people from Attu Island, transported them to Otaru on Hokkaido and held them as prisoners for the duration of the war. Most of these captives died from malnutrition and starvation during their incarceration. After the war, when the survivors returned from Japan, they were not allowed to return to Attu island, but were taken to a village on Atka island.
In 2009 and 2010 the project chartered the US Fish & Wildlife Service research vessel to bring elders and their descendants to the sites of Makushin, Kashega, and Biorka. The site visits gave participants a chance to see the places they remembered or had heard about and to honor the memories of those who once lived there.
In October 2012, surviving Attu residents and descendants of the village, many of whom now live outside Alaska, convened in Anchorage for an Attu Reunion. Participants shared memories and photographs, some speaking of losses and family trauma spanning several generations. At events hosted by the National Park Service, Aleutian-Pribilof Island Association and the Aleut Corporation, the Attu descendants were welcomed into the Unangan community and learned about Unangan art, language, culture and history.
Attu Unangax̂ Today
Attu
Unangax̂ Dialec, (Western Aleut, Extinct)
Medny Unangax̂ Island (54.6848928, 167.7452923)
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The Sons of
Unangan, The Unangan Unangax̂ People
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Unangan: The Unangan Unangax̂ People
The Unangan people are an Indigenous Unangax̂ tribe native to the Aleutian Island, the Pribilof Islands, parts of the Alaska Peninsula and areas of Russia. The name Aleut was given to this people by Russian traders in the 1700s. Their autonym Unangax̂ (Aleut: original people and/or seaside people) has the plural form as Unangan (west) or Unangas (east). In some web sites, these indigenous people are called the Naukan Yupik people in which Yupik is likely synonymous with Unangax̂.
The Unangan lived by the sea, gathered plants, fished the waters and hunted the marine mammals such as sea otters, seals and whales. To aid them in the hunting large ocean mammals, they invented the kayak and the baidarka, which is a large skin boat designed for ocean travel
The traditional homeland of the Unangan spans the Aleutian Island Archipelago from the Pacific Ocean to the Bering Sea. The wise men of this world cites archaeological evidence to show that this people has been living here for as long at ten thousand years.
However, the logical evidence indicates that the first migration had to have happened after the worldwide flood, which the Bible identifies the date of that event as 2370 BCE. (see The
Sons of Sheleph above)
Unangan Unangax̂ History
In the 1700s, the Russians fur traders arrived and brought with them diseases previously unknown to the Unangan Aleut people. Too, the Russians introduced forced labor on the Unangan which resulted inn a major population drop. However, despite this hardship, the Unangan people maintained their resilient culture.
Unangan Unangax̂ Today
Unangan
Unangax̂t language, (Unalaskan Western Aluet)
Unangan Qawalangin tribe, Unalaska Island
Unangan Kashega tribe, Fox Island
Unangan Akutan tribe, Akutan Island
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The Sons of
Haida, The Haida Xaat Kil People
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Haida: The Haida Xaat Kil People
The Hadia people are an indigenous native people who separated from the rest of the nations of people early on and traveled much further southward from the main nation of the Unangax̂. Their traditional homeland is now called Haida Gwaii which was formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Island archipelago.
Today, the Haida pupulation is between 4,000 to 5000 people, with many living in the Alaskan city of Hydaburg and the British Columbia villages of Skidegate and Old Massett.
The Haida people is a matrilineal society divided into two groups known as the Eagle and the Raven. The Haida are famous for their master wood craftsmanship, which includes towering wooden totem poles, cedar dugout canoes, and argillite carvings. Traditional gatherings and ceremonies, called potlatches, reinforce social organization, trade, and community ties.
The Haida language Xaat Kil is referred to as a language isolate, which resulted from their permanent departure from the remaining members of the Sons of Sheleph.
Haida Kil History
During the 1700s and 1800s, contact with European brought smallpox and other contagious diseases which drastically reduced the populations of the Haida people, as much as ninety percent. Decades of forced assimilation and residential schools severely reduced fluent speakers, but active community programs are working to revive the language. Their current leadership, the Council of the Haida Nation are now acting to protect their lands, waterways and cultural herigage.
Haida Today
Haida
(Haida Xaat Kil Language)
Prince of Wales Island
Haida Gwaii Islands
Previously Queen Charlotte Islands
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This Page Last Updated: 31 July 2026
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