Tlingit

The Tlingit or Lingít (English: /ˈtlɪŋkɪt, ˈklɪŋkɪt/ ^ⓘ TLING-kit, KLING-kit) are Alaska Native Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America and are one of two-hundred twenty-nine (229) federally recognized Tribes of Alaska. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively Lingít, pronounced [ɬɪ̀nkɪ́tʰ]), in which the name means 'People of the Tides'. The Russian name Koloshi (Колоши, from a Sugpiaq-Alutiiq term kulut'ruaq for the labret worn by women) or the related German name Koulischen may be encountered referring to the people in older historical literature, such as Grigory Shelikhov's 1796 map of Russian America. Tlingit people today belong to two federally recognized Alaska Native tribes: the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe.

The Tlingit have a matrilineal kinship system, with children born into the mother's clan, and property and hereditary roles passing through the mother's line. Their culture and society developed in the temperate rainforest of the southeast Alaskan coast and the Alexander Archipelago. The Tlingit have maintained a complex hunter-gatherer culture based on semi-sedentary management of fisheries. Hereditary servitude was practiced extensively until it was outlawed by the United States Government. An inland group, known as the Inland Tlingit, inhabits the far northwestern part of the province of British Columbia and the southern Yukon in Canada.