The New International Encyclopædia/Sitka (tribe)

SIT′KA. The largest tribe of Kolushan (Tlinkit) stock, occupying Chichagof, Baranov, Kupreanof, Kuiu, and a part of the Prince of Wales islands, Southern Alaska, and numbering with subtribes more than 2,000. The town of Sitka derives its name from them. From the enormous wooden labrets worn by their women the Russians called the tribe Kalush, from the Russian kalushka, ‘a wooden trough, or bowl,’ hence the name Kolushan now applied to the stock. They were formerly a fierce and independent people, but are now greatly demoralized and wasted by liquor, which they have even learned to distill for themselves from molasses. Their general culture is that common to the Tlinkit (q.v.).