Ancient Aleut Personal Names, Kadaangim Asangisangis: Materials from the Billings Expedition, 1790-1792

The rich tradition of Aleut personal names was beginning to disappear with the introduction of Christian names at about the time Captain Joseph Billings led a major Russian expedition to the Aleutian Islands in 1790-1792. Our knowledge of these ancient Aleut names was vastly increased in 1992 when anthropologist Lydia Black obtained copies of manuscripts from the Russian Naval Archives constituting a kind of census for the Billings Expedition. The census listed by name 1,618 Aleut males from areas through much of the Aleutians, who either paid fur tax to the Russians, did not pay, or were to young to pay. Out of that number of Aleut male,s about 1,510 had different legible Aleut names, all listed by island and village. In this work, linguist Knut Bergsland was able to interpret plausibly 1,140 of these names, which generally have clearly recognizable meanings, and thereby give a very intimate and vivid glimpse of ancient Aleut culture and values. Bergsland was further able to add a