Being and Place among the Tlingit

Preface

illustrations map 1.1 Lingít Aaní, Tlingit Country 2 map 2.1 Selected sites in Herman Kitka Sr.’s place-name inventory 63 map 3.1 Story map of Aak’wtaatseen “Salmon Boy” myth 75 fig. 2.1 Austin Hammond and the Sockeye Point Robe (X’aakw X’aayí Naaxein) 61 fig. 3.1 Kéex’ Luwoolk’í 100 fig. 3.2 Chookaneidí Glacier Bay Button Blanket 108 fig. 4.1 Time spent (%) resource gathering, Klukwan, 1931 122 fig. 4.2 The late Mary Willis holds the Deisheetaan button blanket of Sitkoh Bay history 142 fig. 4.3 Mount Saint Elias 144 fig. 5.1 A rock in the river 175 fig. 5.2 K’eik’w X’óow (Black-Legged Kittiwake Blanket) 181 fig. 6.1 Herman Kitka Sr. drying salmon at his smokehouse in Deep Bay, 1994 194 table 2.1 Tlingit Sociopolitical Organization (1750–1912) 43 table 2.2 Major Kwáans in Tlingit Territory, from North to South 45 table 2.3 Some Tlingit Clans Named for Places and Their Distribution 48–51 table 2.4 Tlingit Social Organization, with a Profile of Herman Kitka Sr. 62 table 3.1 Common Relational Nouns Found in Tlingit Place-Names 84 table 3.2 Common Geographical Generics in Tlingit Place-Names 85 table 3.3 Semantic Referents in Place-Names 87 table 3.4 What Is Named 89 table 3.5 Semantic Frequency of Selected Subsistence Resources 95 table 4.1 Island and Mainland Calendars (Moons) among the Northern Tlingit 121 table 4.2 Contemporary Subsistence Production and Native Community Integrity 164 tlingit spelling and pronunciation guide The spelling ofTlingit words conforms to the accepted popular orthography first developed by Constance M. Naish and Gillian L. Story and revised by Jeff Leer and Nora Marks Florendo Dauenhauer in 1972 (see Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1987:38–46). Important Tlingit concepts and names for places are italicized within the text. Personal and social group names, however, are not. Coastal Tlingit has four long vowels and four short vowels, represented and pronounced as follows: Tlingit vowel As in the English Tlingit example A Was tás (thread) Aa Saab (a Swedish taan (sea lion) automobile) E Ten té (stone) Ei Vein yeis (horse clams) I Hit hít (house) Ee Seek s’eek (black bear) U Push núkt (male grouse) Oo Moon xóots (brown bear) Vowels may be pronounced with either a high (á) or a low (à) tone. In northern Tlingit the low tone is unmarked. In southern Tlingit both tones are marked. Consonants in Tlingit include more than two dozen sounds not found in English. The technical sound chart below (see Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1987; Leer 1991) provides a basic guide to the spelling and pronunciation of consonants in Tlingit words. viii Tlingit Consonantal Sound Chart Velar Uvular Glottal Plain Plain Plain Alveolar Lateral Palatal Round Round Round Stop plain d g gw g gw . .w aspirated t k kw k kw t’ k’ k’w k’ k’w glottalized Affricative plain dz dl j aspirated ts tl ch ts’ tl’ ch’ glottalized Fricative plain s l sh x xw x xw h hw s’ l’ x’ x’w x’ x’w glottalized Nasal n Glide y w Tlingit Pronunciation Guide ix preface I first became interested in researching Tlingit concepts of place during the summer of 1989, when, as a young graduate student, I was employed by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence , to study the historical and contemporary use of a famous but dwindling red salmon fishery in northern Southeast Alaska, known as Sitkoh Bay. Sitkoh Bay lay on the border between Sitka and Angoon, two Tlingit communities with historical ties to the place and stakes in its management. Upon my first visit to Angoon, I was directed to see Matthew Fred Sr. and Mary Willis, elders of the Deisheetaan clan, which was said to have “owned” and “taken care of” that bay. Approaching the leaders of the right social group was extremely important; indeed, as I was to learn, the social and physical geography are inseparable in Tlingit concepts of place. This was my first lesson. I shall not soon forget the first thing Matthew Fred Sr. said to me, for it was perhaps the singular lesson not only about Sitkoh Bay but about Tlingit geography as a whole: “You have to understand. There’s a history about that place. We’ve got stories on it.” My first encounter with Mary...