Being and Place among the Tlingit

Appendix: Tlingit Resources with Seasonality

side of their traditional territories (i.e., “in another kwáan’s backyard’) or been controlled by nonlocal segments of the population (i.e., “in my kwáan’s backyard that I no longer dwell in”). As unseemly as these conflicts are, at base they are indicative of the strong, stoutly resistant senses of place that still exist among Tlingit tribes and clans, especially those that still dwell in their traditional homelands. At the same time ancsa corporations are doing much to engender new Tlingit senses of place through their own investments, employment, heritage programs, architecture, symbols, and other activities. The role of place in aboriginal autonomy and development is a key issue in contemporary studies of northern indigenous peoples (cf. Scott 2001). I once asked Herman Kitka (fig. 6.1)—a man still healthy in his ninetythird year, who has served as vice president of his ancsa corporation, Shee Atika, Inc. (from the aboriginal name for Sitka), and been a successful commercial fisherman, boatbuilder, logger, general contractor, and Christian (first Russian Orthodox and, after marriage, Presbyterian)— how he managed to hold on to his subsistence camp in Deep Bay, whereas nearly every other remote camp in the region had been destroyed or appropriated (largely by the federal government), or otherwise abandoned . His answer, parts of which I have cited already, was a poignant one and worth considering in full: 194 Conclusion: Toward an Anthropology of Place fig. 6.1. Herman Kitka Sr. drying salmon at his smokehouse in Deep Bay, 1994. Photo by T. Thornton The reason my smokehouse is still there is because when Forest Service said we were trespassing, I was the only one who testified. I told them if they touched and burned my place, I’m going to take the federal government to court because my family was there even before United States came into existence. My dad couldn’t swallow it when the latecomers tried to claim the early settlers’ land. [He told them,] “Which grandfather gave you that place that you can claim it?” After the Forest Service started burning the old cabins and smokehouses, I got a BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] lawyer and applied for the land [through the allotment process]. So they left it alone. And the others, they didn’t say nothing. It wasn’t just because of the policy [that people stopped going to their fish camps]; it had to do with the federal government and Christianity being opposed to all Tlingit ways of living. Even when I was going to school, if I spoke Tlingit, you know the teacher plastered my mouth and made me stand in front of the class with the plaster over my mouth. They were that strict. They wanted all the Tlingit culture wiped out. What they kept saying was that they didn’t want the Indian pagan worship existing. But we never worshipped any idols. The Tlingit, they prayed to the Holy Spirit only—just one. Western man came among us, the missionaries told us there was three that you pray to. My grandfather, when we caught fish in Deep Bay, stood on the sandbar and prayed to the Holy Spirit, thanking the Holy Spirit for allowing us to get our food easily. And he’d hold his hands up this way [outstretched toward the sky]. And he prayed in Tlingit out loud. But at the same time he was an elder in the [Russian ] Orthodox Church. He prayed the Orthodox way. But when he gets fish he prays to the Holy Spirit, thanking the Holy Spirit. The families didn’t like to have their children suffering like that; everybody was aware of what they were doing to the children in school. So when the Alaska Native Brotherhood endorsed that we move forward only, to lift our morals and . . . standards up with the cultivated races of the world, most families just dropped the old ways. They started buying food from the stores instead of putting it up. . . . My family never quit because they always claimed that without the foods we’d never have any culture among our people. Everything stems back, all of our religion stems to the use of the cultural foods. No memorial party is ever given without each clan bringing all their Native dishes together.You see, the Eagle clan is a large group, different clans, different houses, they have different names. But they all live under one, the Eagle clan. So when the Eagle clan [or...