Subsistence Patterns

The land of the rough, mountainous Aleutian Islands did not offer much to support human life. The people could meet only a few needs from the land, such as stones for knives or lamps and grass for woven baskets. For everything else, they turned to the sea.

The Aleuts relied on marine mammals for the majority of their diet.  Sea lions and seals were the most important food sources, but they also hunted sea otters, porpoises, and whales.  In addition to food, the oil from seals and sea lions was burnt in stone lamps for heat and light. 

The Aleuts also used many kinds of fish, shellfish, and seaweed from the surrounding waters. They gathered sea urchins, mussels, whelks, and clams. To catch fish, they used nets, hooks, and lines. Cod and halibut were important, along with smaller fish. Salmon were also taken, although their numbers were far lower in the small Aleutian creeks than in the Alutiiq and Yupik areas. The Aleuts frequently ate their food raw. Although difficult in their damp environment, they dried some of their food. 

The land of the islands did provide some food. Aleuts supplemented their diet with herbs, roots, and berries. Birds and their eggs were also harvested. In summer, numerous cormorants, gulls, murres, and puffins could be found. Besides eating the birds, Aleuts used their bones to fashion sewing needles, their skins for parkas, and the bright feathers to decorate their clothes. They rarely wasted any part of the animals, birds, or fish that they hunted.

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