Why have we chosen to feature Agrafena in this book and in the book's title? This is a good question. The answer relates to the organization of this book and the presentation of our relatives, as well as to the emotions behind this book.
Let us begin by asking another question: Are all Ninilchik people included in this book? The answer is: everyone who is from one of the original families of Ninilchik and whose family has associated with Ninilchik for several generations should be in this book. That is one reason we have chosen to have our Native "(great) grandmother" as the highest ancestor in the family trees of this book. Anyone whose family has lived in Ninilchik for several generations, who can trace their roots back to the Russian-Aleut creoles who started the village of Ninilchik, should be listed in this book (unless, of course, through some oversight or lack of adequate information they have been unknowingly left out, and we will correct that omission as quickly as we are notified).
Then there is an emotional issue: Most of us in the Ninilchik families are familiar with some of our Russian heritage (and we have contracted with a family research center in Moscow, Russia, to try to get more information on our Russian heritage--the information had not yet arrived by the time this book was printed, but it will be included in any future editions, when it arrives). Our Russian ancestry is an important heritage. We have no information that any of the Russian men who helped create our Ninilchik creole families were the cruel, sometimes murderous, Russians who attacked and conquered our Native ancestors along the Aleutian Islands, and our Native brothers in Southeastern Alaska (such as the Tlingit Indians) or elsewhere in Alaska. On the contrary, the Russian men who were a part of the early history of Ninilchik were men who chose to remain in Alaska when they could have returned to Russia. They chose to stay in this new land, a place they had come to appreciate, perhaps even love, and live with families they had created and loved.
But we are not so familiar with our Native heritage. This is partly due to the fact that Native culture was threatened and overrun by the culture of the colonizing Russians and later by the Americans. Today Native groups throughout Alaska are trying to restore as much of this past heritage as possible. Athabaskan potlatches are being held again among the people who the Russians called the Kenaitze Indians, of the Kenai area. The Ninilchik Traditional Council has actively worked to try to restore some fishing rights for Ninilchik tribal members, to participate in fishing and fish preservation similar to how these activities were carried out by our Native ancestors many generations ago.
So we choose Agrafena as an emotional symbol. She represents our farthest back Alaskan roots. We can think of her as our special grandmother. We do not know who her parents were, so we can go back no farther in her history than to her herself. As far as we can determine, Agrafena was a full-blooded Alaskan Native. She is said to have been an Aleut (today, we can determine she was more likely Alutiiq).
We speak of Agrafena as being an Aleut, but we should note that there is often some confusion over who is a true Aleut. Some specialists say that true Aleuts essentially lived on the Aleutian Islands and that part of the Alaska Peninsula closest to the Islands. The Natives who lived on Kodiak Island were racially and linguistically related to the true Aleuts and to Eskimos, who are cousins to the Aleuts, but the language and culture of the Kodiak Natives marked them as being a different people from the true Aleuts. The name Koniaqs is often applied today to the Kodiak Natives and they are more closely related to Eskimos than to Aleuts. Then there are the Native people of the Nanwalek (English Bay) and Port Graham areas. These people speak a dialect of Yupik Eskimo (see the page in this book on Nanwalek). So when we say that some of ancestors were Aleuts, it is not clear whether they were the so-called true Aleuts, from the Aleutian Island areas, or whether they were people who have often been called, and who have even called themselves, Aleuts, but who lived closer to the Kenai Peninsula, on Kodiak Island and nearby areas. All of us from the old Ninilchik families have at least some Native blood if we are a direct descendant of Agrafena. We honor Agrafena with this book, and we honor each of her descendants.
This book, then, is the genealogical history of one big family, all the descendants of Agrafena and her husband, Efim Rastorguev, and actually, this book focuses on the descendants of Agrafena and Efim's creole daughter, Mavra, and her Russian husband, Grigorii Kvasnikoff, who were the first family to permanently settle in the village of Ninilchik.
Our goal throughout the entire project of making this family history scrapbook has been to help all of us whose families have identified with the village of Ninilchik know more about our history and how we are related to each other. The editor finds this history exciting. He hopes that you enjoy the journey of discovery and memories of times past enjoyable also.
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