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After the early Tanaina Athabascans In this area got the things they needed to fulfill their basic needs, the next step was to use those things. It takes a lot of knowledge to use the natural environment well. For instance, after they had found, tracked, and killed a moose. the Tanainas needed to know how to butcher it. They needed to know which parts could be used for food, which parts to make tools, which parts could become clothes. They need to know how to preserve the meat.

The ways in which people use or change the things from their natural environment to meet a need are called their adaptations to the natural environment. One example of an adaptation to our natural environment is a house. A house uses materials from the environment to protect against the rain, snow, and cold. It helps keep people warm, and so fulfills the basic need for shelter.

The early Athabascans made many adaptations to their environment. And today, all Alaskans. both Athabascans and non-Athabascans are still making and using adaptations. Many of our adaptations today no longer meet basic needs. Paved roads, for instance, are an adaptation to the need to travel quickly in cars. But that is not a basic need.

In this unit, you will be looking at some of the ways some Alaskan Athabascans have adapted to their environments in the past. You will learn that, unlike the way many Alaskans live today, the early Athabascans used mostly their natural environment in adapting. You will learn, too, that even today, many Athabascans prefer to live where they can be close to the natural environment, adapting to it in old and new ways.

If you are an Athabascan Indian, you are one of about 200,000 people in North America. There are more Athabascans than any other American Indian group. In Alaska alone there are about 6,400 Athabascans, and there are also Athabascan groups in Canada, California, and the American Southwest. But what does the word Athabascan mean?

The word "Athabascan" is used to talk about a group of languages which were once, thousands of years ago, the same language. Over the years people moved away from each other and their languages started to become different. At first, just the accents were different--something like the difference between a Southern accent and an English accent. But people were so far apart that they never talked to each other, and slowly different

words took on different meanings, or the words themselves changed. For Instance, the word for "gloves" became "gech" for one group of people and "gis" for another group of people. Through the years the differences between the two groups became greater and greater until people in one area could no longer understand people in another area. Whenever that happens, we say that the two groups of people speak different languages.

That is what happened to the Athabascan language. Today there are eleven Athabascan languages in Alaska alone: Ahtna, Tanaina (also spelled Denaina), Holikachuk, Koyukon, Upper Kuskokwim, Tanana, Tanacross, Upper Tanana, Han, Kutchin (more correctly spelled "Gwich'in"), and Ingalik (more correctly Deg Hit'an). There are other Athabascan languages in Canada. And there are two well-known Athabascan languages in the American Southwest: Apache and Navajo.

The word "Athabascan" is used to talk about both the languages and the people who speak (or whose ancestors spoke) that language. The name "Athabascan" originally came from the large lake in Canada called "Lake Athabasca". The lake was given its name by the Cree Indians, who lived east of it. In Cree, "Athabasca" means "grass here and there", and described the lake. The name was also used to talk about the Indian groups that lived west of the lake.

You can see on the language map of Alaska that the area inhabited by Athabascans is one of the largest of the Native areas in the state. The area is all inland, except for the part around Cook Inlet. Find the Athabascan settlements on the map. You can see that most of them are located on rivers, what needs can you think of that rivers might help fulfill?