Preliminary Study of the Western Gwich'in Bands

By
Adeline Peter-Raboff

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Abstract: The K'iit['it and Di'h288 Gwich'in are two Athabascan speaking groups who once occupied the headwaters of Alaska's Koyukuk River until they were displaced through internal feuding, epidemic diseases, warfare and famine in the late 1860's. They were displaced by the Nunamiut Iñupiat Eskimos who moved inland from the Kobuk and Colville rivers and the Koyukon Indians who lived further down the Koyukuk River and along the Yukon River to the south. Their displacement began before 1820 and finally ended in the late 1860's with the movement of two of the three remaining communities into the country of the Neets'288 Gwich'in and finally with the last group moving into the Yukon Flats between the confluence of the Dall River and the Lower mouth of Birch Creek along the Yukon River. Although contemporary anthropologists are familiar with the Di'h288, until this article very little has been written about the K'iit['it Gwich'in

This paper was made possible in part by a Phillips Fund Grant from the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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