Tlingit Indians of Southeastern Alaska

1. Students can name two important considerations in choosing a summer fish camp.
2. Students understand the moral lessons regarding treatment of animals, as told in a traditional story.
3. Students continue to formulate an image of the Tlingit environment.
4. Students can match subsistence tools with the resources they are designed to obtain.

New Vocabulary

ahnyuddi
tallow
situated
cedar shakes
Tsoonkla
lumbered
engrossed
skunk cabbage
alder
meandered

Section 3: Summer Camp
LANGUAGE ARTS

LANGUAGE ARTS:

"EGG BOAT" BY NORA DAUENHAUER

Read the story "Egg Boat" (which appears on the following pages) to students. It is reprinted with permission of the author from the publication Neek: News of the Sitka Native Community, Vol. 1, No. 2, January, 1980.

Egg Boat

The author of this story is a Tlingit Indian born in Juneau who spent most of her early years in and around Juneau fishing and sometimes hunting and trapping with her family.

Tins story is based on some of her life experiences during the time she fished for salmon.

The only thing you need to know before reading is how to pronounce tht Indian name "Qeixwnei."

Q is like English 'q' or 'k', but further back in the throat: 'ei' is like English 'vein': 'x' is like German 'Bach' or Scottish 'loch': 'w' is like English 'w' but is pronounced in combination with the x.

Other new or unfamiliar things about Northwest Coast Indian fishing life can be learned from the story itself. This story is part of the book that won First Prize in the literature category of the Southeast Alaska Native Cultural Festival this past March.

In the fall of every year Qeixwnei and her family went trolling for coho salmon. The season for trolling usually opened midsummer and the run became intense toward the end of the cannery season when the whole family went to the cannery to earn their money. Her father seined for the canning company while her Aunty Anny and sometimes her mother worked processing the catch from the salmon seiners. Because they worked for the cannery, they lived the summer season in the company houses.

Some years the catch of salmon seiners began to decrease before the seining season came to an end, but around this time coho trolling began to pick up. In order to get in on the favorable runs when the salmon began to migrate to the rivers for spawning, trollers had to be ready.

This was one of the times they were going to go fishing early. Her father had observed on their last trip that there were signs of coho, but he wasn't catching too much salmon in his seine. So he stripped his seine off the boat and began to replace it with trolling gear.

While Pop prepared the gas boat for trolling, the rest of the family packed their belongings from the company houses, and transferred them to the boat. Everyone helped get everything aboard.

Mom packed things from their house while Grandma and Aunty packed things from theirs. Qeixwnei and her younger brothers and sister carried things they could carry easily and the little ones carried things like pots and pans.

The older boys were big enough to help their father get the boat gassed up and get fresh water for the trip. So they had plenty to do, too, beside helping Grandma and Aunty pack their belongings down to the boat.

When the New Anny was finally ready they left port in the early afternoon and headed toward Point Adolfus. The tide was going out, and they got on the right current, which would carry them fast.

It was on a similar tide the previous year while they were coming to Hoonah from Cape Spencer that Qeixwnei's father spotted a little square-ended rowboat floating on the icy straits water. He picked it up and he and the boys put it on the deck of the boat. They had it on deck when they stopped in Hoonah. Everyone saw it and commenced on what a nice boat it was. Everyone noticed it wasn't one of the family's rowboats. When they arrived in Juneau, people noticed it too, but no one claimed it. There wasn't a fisherman who didn't know another fisherman or about another's boat and no one knew who the boat belonged to.

So, Pop brought the boat up on the beach at their home at Marks Trail and started to work on it. He checked the boards to see if they were strong enough to hold the new materials he was going to apply to it, and found that indeed it was strong enough and would hold them.

He began to renew it by stripping the old paint off. Then he caulked up the seams, and finally put on some green paint left over from some other boat that had been painted before. He put a pair of oars in that didn't quite match. He tied an old piece of manila rope on the bow that could be used to tie it up with.

It was a good looking boat. It looked just like the flower chalice of a skunk cabbage. And when he tried it, it had balance. It glided across the water very nicely. It was almost as wide as it was long. It was almost round, and because it looked like an egg shell, they called it "Egg Boat."

Qeixwnei liked it very cry much and wanted to try it. She thought the boat was so cute. But when her father told her it was hers, she thought it was the most beautiful boat she had ever seen.

Her own boat! Why, she had thought that it was going to be for one of her brothers. She could hardly believe the boat was hers. She was so happy she went around day-dreaming about it for the longest time.

Now that she had her own boat it meant she could go fishing on her own boat alongside her brothers, Aunty, and Grandma all by herself. It also meant she might catch a record breaking salmon that she would fight for so long that she would get exhausted from just the thought of it.

Or perhaps she and her Aunty and Grandma would hit a school of fish like she heard some fishing people talk about. She would fill up her little boat, empty it, then go back out and fill it again.

Or perhaps she would catch her first king salmon, and she wouldn't care what size it was just as long as it was a king.

Her rowboat took her through many adventures during her day-dreaming. How exciting the next coho season was going to be. She was so happy.

And now they were actually going to the fishing ground. The boat moved along at a good speed. They all worked on their gear, giving it a last minute check for weak spots and sections that needed replacements.

Mom steered the boar while Pop checked the tackle he would use on the big boat. She ran the boat a lot, taking over completely, especially when Pop had to do work on the deck or started catching a lot of salmon. Sometimes she even engineered. There was no pilot house control, so Pop would ring a bell to signal "slow," "fast." "neutral," "backwater," and so forth.

The boys were playing some kind of a game on deck. They said their gear was ready. Qeixwnei's Aunty wound her line onto her wooden fishing wheel. Grandma was taking a nap. She had been ready for quite some time. She was always ready for things.

As for Qeixwnei, she had her tackle that her Aunty had helped her get together from discarded gear left by various members of the family. She and her Aunty had made a line for her while she was still fishing in her Aunty's rowboat. Her spinner was the one her father had made for her the previous year from a discarded spoon. It was brass metal.

Her herring hook, however, was brand new. It was the one her Aunry had given her for her own. She was ready to fish, completely outfitted with the rubber boots her brother loaned her that were slightly too large.

She was so excited she could hardly eat. The family teased her that she was probably fasting for the record breaking salmon.

When they finally got near enough to see the fishing ground there were a lot of power boats trolling, and others were anchored. A lot of the hand trolling fleet was there too. Some of the hand trollers lived in tents out at Point Adolfus for the duration ot the summer. When there were no salmon the fishing people smoked halibut they jigged from the bay over past Point Adolfus. Some of the people were relatives of the family.

When they finally reached the fishing ground, everyone was anxious to get out and fish. They all took turns jumping into their boats while Pop and the two boys held the rowboats for them while the big boat was still moving along.

Grandma went first, then Aunty Anny, then at last Qeixwnei's turn came. The boys followed in the power skiff that was converted from a tender boat from seining.

They immediately began to troll. Grandma and Aunty Anny went close to the kelp beds along the shore line. The boys stayed just on the outside of the kelp, while Qeixwnei was all over the place and sometimes dragging the bottom.

She didn't even know where her father, mother, sister and brothers were. She didn't notice a thing-just that she was going to catch her own salmon. Every rime she dragged the bottom she was sure she had a strike.

Evening came and people began to go to their own ports. Grandma and Aunty waited for Qeixwnei for such a long time they thought she wasn't coming in for that night. When they finally got her to come along with them to go back to New Anny, all of a sudden she realized it was near dark and uneasiness came on her. She had completely forgot all about the kooshdaa qaa stories she had heard, where the Land Otter Man came and took people who were near drowning and kept them captive as one of them. She quickly pulled up her line and came along with her Grandma and Aunty Anny.

Everyone had caught salmon except Qeixwnei. It was so disappointing, especially when her brothers teased her about being skunked by saying, "Where's your big salmon, Qeixwnei?" The rest of the family said she would probably catch one the next day, and she shouldn't worry. She slept very little that night. Maybe she never ever was going to catch a salmon at all.

The next day the fish buyer who anchored his scow said that there were fish showing up at Home Shore and that he was going over there to buy fish on his tender.

Pop pulled up the anchor to start off for Home Shore. But half way between Point Adolfus and Home Shore the boat started to rock back and forth from a storm that had just started to blow. Chatham Strait was stuffed with dark clouds and rain. So they had to make a run for shelter instead of trolling that day-another disappointment for Qeixwnei, especially after standing on deck most of the way straining her eyes to see if anyone was catching any salmon.

They holed up all night. She heard her father getting up from time to time during that night. He never slept much on nights of a storm.

Daybreak was beautiful. It was foggy, but through the fog, you could see that the sun was going to be very bright. Where the fog started to drop, the water surface was like a mirror, except where the "spine of the tide"-the rip tide-made ripples of tiny jumping waves on one side and the other side had tiny tide navels. Sounds carried far. They could hear gulls, and a porpoise breathing somewhere, and splashing from fish jumps. It was going to be gorgeous.

They ate quickly and went off to the fishing ground. Once again they took their turns getting into their boats while the big boat moved along.

This day Qeixwnei stuck really close to her Grandma and Aunty. They stayed on the tide spine, circling it as it moved along. She did everything they did. They measured fathoms by the span between their arms from fingertip to fingertip. Qeixwnei also measured her fathoms the same way. She checked her lines for kinks whenever one of them did theirs. She especially stayed close by when her Aunty got her first strike of the day. She had hooked onto a lively one. Qeixwnei circled her and got as close as she dared without the salmon tangling their lines.

Then Grandma got her first salmon of the day.

Qeixwnei had just about given up hope of getting a salmon for that day when she got her strike. It was so strong that the strap that holds onto the main line almost slipped from her hand. She grabbed for it just in time.

Splash! Out of the water jumped the salmon! At the same time-swish-the salmon took off with her line. The line made a scraping hum on the end of the boat where it was running out.

In the meantime the salmon jumped out into the air and made a gigantic splash. She could hear her Grandma saying "My little Grandchild! It might pull her overboard!" while her Aunty said, "Stay calm, stay calm, my little Niece. Don't hold on too tight. Let it go when it runs."

Splash, splash, splash, splash the salmon jumped with her line. It was going wild. It was a while before she could get it near enough to see that it was a coho and a good size one too. She would get it close to the boat and then it would take off on the run again. Just when she had it close enough to hit with her gaffhook club, it would take off again. Several times she hit the water with the club instead of the fish, because it kept wiggling our of range. Each time the salmon changed its direction the little boar did too. and the salmon pulled the little boat in every direction you could think of. The boat was like a little round dish, and the fish would make it spin.

At long last the salmon tired itself out and when she pulled it to the boat it just sort of floated on top of the water. She clubbed it one good one. It had no fight left.

She dragged it aboard, and everyone around her yelled for joy with her. Grandma and Aunty looked as if they had pulled in the fish. They both said: "Xwei! She's finally got it!" Qeixwnei was sopping wet. Her face was all beaded with water.

It was the only salmon she caught that day, but, by gosh, she brought it in herself. She sold the salmon and with some of the money she got for it she bought a pie for the family. What a feast that was! Everyone made pleasing comments about her, so she could overhear it.

They mainly wished she didn't spend all her money on the pie and that she was going to start saving her fishing money for important things that a girl should have as she grew older.

It was great to be a troller. That fall was a very memorable one for Qeixwnei. Rain or shine she tried to rise with her Grandma and Aunty each dawn.

One day they all timed it just right for the salmon to feed. Everyone made good that day. There wasn't a fisherman who wasn'y happy about his or her catch that day. Qeixwnei also made good. When her Aunty and Grandma lined up their salmon on the beach for cleaning she also had her eight salmon lined up. What a day that was!

When they got to Juneau after the season was over, everyone bought some of the things they'd said they would buy once the season was over. Pop bought some hot dogs for dinner and a watermelon that Grandma called "water berry."

Qeixwnei bought herself a pair of new hip boots. What dandies they were! They had red and white stripes all the way around the sole seams. And they also had patches that read "B. F. Goodrich" on each knee. And they fit perfectly if she wore two pairs of sox.

Her mother told her they were a very fine pair and that they would wear for a long time. Now she wouldn't have to borrow her brothers' boots anymore. In fact, they could borrow hers from time to time. And she could use the boots to play fishing with boats she and her brothers made from driftwood bark at Marks Trail. And very best of all-she would wear her boots when she went with the family to get fish for dryfish camp on their next trip.

DAY 1

CONCEPT: SEASONALITY OF RESOURCES

Arrival at Summer Camp

Kahtahah curled up on her bundle of blankets and took a nap. She was almost 12 years old and taller than other Indian children of her age. Her hair, which was braided in too long, thick braids, had glints of red when the sun shone on it. Her foster mother carefully combed her hair every three or four days with a piece of comb that her real mother had given her.

Kahtahah was an Ahnyuddi (literally, "town," or high-caste) child, and was not permitted to do any of the rough work. Every head chief owned slaves taken and raids to the south or purchased from other raiders for the hard and routine tasks. Snook did not let her help smoke the fish, which would have stained her face, and Kahtahah's skin did not become as brown as that of the other Indian children, even in summer camp. Her hands were small and smooth-though often very dirty-and in winter her foster mother rubbed them with deer tallow to keep them soft.

The water of the wide channel was as smooth as Snook's copper shield before the Bear-with-ears-hanging-down had been carved on it.

The canoes made fast times since they traveled with the tide, and they drew up their camping place in our before sunset. There was plenty of time in the long twilight to cook their supper and prepare for the short night. The sun went down in the northwest in a blaze of red clouds, an omen that rain would not fall while they slept. The next morning, with a light breeze the large canoes raised mat sails woven of red cedar bark strips. To keep together, the large canoes towed the smaller ones, and they came to their own bay three hours before sunset. The summer village was situated at the upper end of the grassy meadow.

ENRICHMENT: SPECULATION

Using the Tongass Forest map, have students speculate on where Snook's summer fish camp might have been. Draw in the travel route to the camp.

How long might it take to journey there today?

With the high tide, the canoes sailed smoothly through the pass at the head of the bay into a broad salt lake. Except at high slack or low slack tides, the pass was a raging rapids, a feature that had suggested the location of a summer village to Kahtahah's family long ago as a protection against surprise enemy attacks.

Both children and grownups were tired from sitting so many hours in the canoes and were glad to go ashore and move around. Some of the big boys went up to the creek with their fishing spears to get some early salmon or steelhead trout, and by the time the canoes were unloaded and cooking fires started they had enough sockeye for a big feast of boiled salmon.

The last thing Kahtahah heard that night before she went to sleep was the far off howling of a pack of wolves. Snook said, "There will be no deers here this summer. The wolves have driven them away."

Summer Camp

The next morning everyone was busily repairing the camp for the summer. They put back the cedar shakes (hand-split shingles) that had blown off the roofs during the winter storms and straightened up the poles of the drying racks.

Bears often came down to the water from the woods through the tall dry grass of the meadows to catch salmon. One of the men had gone bear hunting in the meadows, and before the sun was halfway up in the sky, he returned, staggering under the weight of the fat young black bear. For their first breakfast in camp, everyone had juicy bear steak roasted over hot coals.

After she had eaten all she wanted of the strong red meat and had wiped her greasy hands on the dry grass, Kahtahah called to her sister Tsoonkla (dream mother): "Come on, let's go to the creek and hide on the high bank. We might see a bear fishing."

They followed one of the bear trails up to the edge of the woods where the creek began to flow quietly through the meadows to the salt lake. They usually walked on the sand bars of the creekbed, but since they were still covered with water from the spring rains, they climbed up the bank. They picked their way quietly through the bushes to a high point overlooking the shallow pool, filled with splashing salmon, to watch the bears that often fished there. A blue jay began to scream over their heads, giving away their hiding place, but they no sooner were settled than they heard a crashing in the bushes on the other side, and a large black bear lumbered down the bank.

DISCUSS READING

Discuss: why did Snook's clan choose this place for summer fish camp?

He immediately began scooping fish from the water from his forearm as swiftly as lightning flashes from the eyes of the legendary thunderbird. Kahtahah and Tsoonkla became so engrossed they leaned far out, holding on to the berry bushes that grew at the water's edge. Suddenly, the bank, undermined by the high water, gave way and the two girls, berry bushes and all, fell into the pool almost on top of the bear.

"Woof!" said the bear, as startled as the girls, and took off in the opposite direction. The bear ran so fast that he had disappeared before they had even untangled themselves from the bushes.

Their fright over, the girls stopped running and begin to laugh, now that they had already made so much noise that no more bears would come down to fish.

At the summer camp, Snook decided to have the bear hams cooked in the pit oven, a process that made the meat tender and juicy. When the girls returned they ran to the swamp and the beach to gather skunk cabbage leaves and seaweed for the roasting. The roasting pit was dug in the sand about three feet deep. Rocks, which had been heated in a big fire, were thrown on the bottom, then the layer of seaweed put over them. The bear meat was wrapped in the skunk cabbage leaves to protect it from sand, and laid on the seaweed. Another layer of seaweed and more hot rocks were placed on top, and pit filled with sand. The meat was left to cook all night long in this first fireless cooker. Salmon and the hard little wild crab apples were also steamed in pit ovens.

The wind changed to the southeast and the clouds blew in from the ocean, a sure sign of rain. This was the time when the tall dry grass that covered the meadows was burned off without danger to the summer camp, and within a week the meadows were soft and green again with fresh shoots.

Wild flowers were blooming all over the fields a month after they arrived, and as soon as the ugly brown bells of the wild rice appeared, Kahtahah and her foster mother dug up many plants-though only enough for one meal-with sharp digging sticks. They washed the little kernels many times and soaked them in water all night to take out the bitter taste before cooking.

By this time the camp houses had been readied for sudden spring storms. Drying poles were in place, alder wood was stacked near the smoke houses for the smoking fires and plenty of fresh food was on hand. It was time for a holiday. Everyone was happy and gay. They waded and swam in the warm water of the shallow streams that meandered through the meadows. The put down crab traps in the outer bay, and at very low tide made picnic trips to the adjacent bay to gather a special kind of black seaweed that was much prized for medicine. The young men raced and wrestled, but sometimes all were content merely to lie in the warm sunshine.

DISCUSSION TOPICS

1. Summer Camps

In a class discussion, ask students to describe summer camps or outings they have been to. Encourage a comparison with Kahtahah's summer camp by focussing on these topics:

1. what did the land around camp look like? (plants,
   terrain, etc.)
2. what type of shelter did you stay in?
3. what did you eat and how did you get your food?
4. what did you do during the day?

2. Content Review

1. Why did Snook's clan choose the salt lake as the place
   for fish camp?
2. What does "Tsoonkla" mean in English?
3. Why was Tsoonkla given that name?
4. Why were you given your name?

    

Talk about the importance of a person's name. How do students feel when someone calls them by the wrong name? Their last name? First name? Explain that a Tlingit name, like clan membership, is inherited. Certain clans own certain names, and a baby would, in the old days, be named after a deceased clan sister or brother. Often, the name was chosen because the baby resembled someone who used to have that name.


ENRICHMENT: WORKSHEET 7: NATURAL RESOURCES AT SUMMER CAMP CROSSWORD

All answers to Worksheet 7 are contained in the reading for this section, pages 6 to 11 in Kahtahah. Teachers have found this to be a good small group activity. You might also plan to assign this at the same time students are working on the subsistence poster (p. 116), so that some students are working at their seat, others at the poster.

CONCEPT: MORALITY TOWARD ANIMALS

After their brief holiday, everyone began to work in earnest to lay in a supply of food for the winter. With every incoming tide the silvery fish came into the salt lake by thousands and the young men piled fresh branches across the V-shaped mouth of the salmon trap. Sometimes the water seemed to boil with the salmon, which played around in the tidal streams back of the trap, leaping out of the water, twisting and turning and falling back with mighty splashes. The salmon were happy, the Indians said, because they liked the feel of fresh water, but when the tide turned and the fish followed the water runinng swiftly out, they were caught in the brush between the rock walls of the trap.

The men brought the catch to the beach at every tide, and the women cleaned and sliced them thin to dry on the rocks for a day or two an the sun. They were then taken to the smokehouses where the constant alder wood fires gave the fish a nice sweet taste.

At first all the fish were bright silver, almost blue on their backs, but as they stayed near the fresh water of the creeks, they began to turn a dull red. Than Kahtahah knew that they were nearing their spawning time and would soon slip up the creeks on their way to the lakes.

Thousands of the rich red salmon were needed to feed Snook's house the next winter, but Kahtahah had no part in drying the fish since it was not considered suitable work for a chief's daughter. But she often watched the women at their cutting.

One day Kahtahah picked up the knife of one of the women who had left her cutting board and tried to imitate her long, swift strokes. She knew well how to make all the cuts-even the notch near the tail with which to hold the slippery fish-and how to clean out the insides with one stroke of the knife, but she did not succeed very well. She found the squatting position uncomfortable. Both the fish and the knife were heavy and slippery, and the salmon bones were tough and the flesh soft. The knife constantly slipped and hit the wrong place so she made chopped-up hash instead of thin slices.

The women near her watched out of the corners of their eyes and chuckled at her struggles, but Kahtahah was so intent on her work that she was oblivious to them. Suddenly a hand fell on her shoulder and her foster mother's voice sounded above her. "Ee-ee! Ee-ee! What is this that you are doing? Look at your hands! I can't leave you for a moment without your disgracing yourself!"

Kahtahah dropped the knife and hung her head in shame. Her mother could not help smiling as she looked at the chopped-up fish, so she did not scold Kahtahah further, but Snook was very stern and talked to Kahtahah a long time about the responsibilities of her caste.

Once Kahtahah took a leisurely walk with her foster father all the way up the big creek to the lake, Snook shot a ptarmigan, which they roasted on a forked stick over a small fire for lunch. They discovered that a beaver dam, built across the mouth of the creek where it joined the lake, had lowered the water in the creek so that the fish could not reach the lake, and hundreds lay dying on the sand bars before they had spawned.

After they returned home. Snook sent slaves up the creek to break down the dam. "The beavers will have time to build other homes somewhere else before winter." he said. "We cannot let them spoil our salmon streams. The fish are more important to us than the beavers are."

Yes, fish were very important to them, and Snook told her one of her favorite stories about the fish people while they sat in front of their little fire at lunchtime.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

KIKSADI DOG SALMON LEGEND

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Pages 16-19 of Kahtahah contain a version of a famous Tlingit story. However, the story is more correctly and authentically told in the book Kiksadi Dog Salmon Legend, which will be the students' next assignment. Although owned by the Kiksadi clan, this is not a crest story, since the dog salmon is not one of the Kiksadi crests. The human hero of this story was a Kiksadi, however.

READ KIKSADI DOG SALMON LEGEND

The dog salmon story has been transcribed verbatim from a recording. It was thus told orally and would be best presented to the students orally. You might read it to them or ask for volunteers from the class to read it aloud.

This clan story was originally narrated by Mr. A. P. Johnson of Sitka. He is well qualified to relate the legend, as a scholar both in the traditional Tlingit sense and in the Western academic sense.

As a prominent member of the Kiksadi clan and a child of the Kaagwaantaan clan, he received instruction in clan history and traditional ways from many distinguished forebears.

He has also been a teacher in BIA schools for many years, has studied for the ministry, and has been an active evangelist.

The staff at the Alaska Bilingual Education Center wishes to thank Mr. Johnson, not only for allowing us to print the story, but also for his help in proofreading and correcting the manuscript.

The story I'm going to tell you belonged to the Kiksadi clan. The event took place near Sitka at the Nakwasena River.

Toward fall time we go to Nakwasena and we dry salmon. At first we dry the humpies. But we don't dry very many humpies. It doesn't keep very well for the winter. We only dry a few of them; maybe 25 or 50 of them per family. We eat it right away. We don't keep it for the coming winter.

Then comes the fresh run of the dog salmon, right from the ocean. We do not dry very many of them; we only dry a few. The eggs from the female dog salmon are still all in one piece and the milt from the male is still hard and all in one piece when they first come in. Now that dried salmon, that dried dog salmon, is only kept for soaking. They are fresh run salmon from the ocean. When it's dried it dries like a piece of wood. You couldn't even bite it. You couldn't take a bite off of it, even if you broiled it. They use it for soaking. They soak it down at the beach, maybe 12 hours. By that time it's soaked enough and they boil it for breakfast. With seal oil it tastes good, especially to those that have grown up eating such food. They enjoy it very much; I know I do.

When the dorsal fin on the dog salmon begins to show white spots on top, on the end, they would take these dog salmon. The male dog salmon milt would be so soft it would start running. When it breaks open it almost runs out of it. And the female dog salmon eggs are very loose. If you just squeeze the stomach, eggs begin to fall out. Now quite a number of these are dried for the coming winter. And when you broil it over the fire the flesh is crumbly, nice and soft. Even the old people enjoy it, even though they haven't got very strong teeth. It's very delicious. It doesn't contain very much oil. It's mostly fish flesh and not much oil.

And this is what they were doing at Nakwasena. People were there to put up food. They were already putting up the winter supply of dog salmon, drying it up thoroughly. And the boys were having lots of fun on the beach. We are taught to capture birds and animals alive. But we do not keep them as pets. The moment we catch them we let them go. Sometimes we use snares. Aakwtaatseen, a young boy of 12 or 14, was playing with a snare his father made him near the shore of the river.

Now, a lot of loose salmon eggs are put on the bottom of the river under the snare. And the seagulls have the habit of dipping down. As they dip down to eat the salmon eggs they'll put their head through the snare. When they come back it's around their neck.

We'd have lots of fun. We'd go down there. Our mothers would put dry clothes on us. In less than 5 minutes we are soaking wet from head to feet. Even the shoes are all soaking wet.

And that's what Aakwtaatseen was doing, and they were having lots of fun, counting how many seagulls they had caught. In the midst of that, Aakwtaatseen had gone home to eat his noon lunch. He was very hungry. He knew what to do. He ran on up to the house where his mother was preparing the winter supply of food.

DISCUSSION

Immediately following the reading, discuss the story with the students. Some topics follow, appearing above the reproductions of the book's pages, and at the end of the reproductions.

He asked his mother, "Mother, may I have a piece of dried fish." His mother gave him a piece. "Here, you eat that." It's somewhat rich; the part of the salmon she gave him is somewhat rich.

He looked at it. "Ahh, the salmon is a little moldy." He complained. "It's a little moldy."

His mother told him "A little mold won't hurt you. Go ahead and eat it."

Just then someone called out from the beach. "Aakwtaatseen! You have a seagull in your snare!"

He forgot about the piece of dried salmon and started to run. When he went out in the water, the seagull began to pull the whole thing out. It came loose from the rocks and kept on going and pretty soon the water was up above his waistline. He disappeared.

The father ran down, got in the water. The water was clear. There was no sign of Aakwtaatseen. There were just dog salmon swimming around. No one knew what happened to Aakwtaatseen.

According to the story, the people of the salmon captured him. The salmon people took him out to the ocean, way out on the sea; took him to the place where the young salmon go in the fall of the year after they leave the salmon river. He stayed out there for about three or four years among the salmon people.

DISCUSSION: WHY WAS AAKWTAATSEEN CAPTURED?

Ask students to speculate on why Aakwtaatseen was captured by the salmon people. (The reason is that he insulted them by calling the piece of salmon his mother gave him "moldy". In effect, he "bit the hand that fed him.") Discuss the motivations and feeling of the salmon people throughout the story. For instance, although Aakwtaatseen insulted them, they were still concerned about his well being, and took him to be entertained by the strange and happy creatures at the mouth of a river.

There was a time he was so very lonesome, he could not even bear it. He felt like weeping. But he decided he wasn't going to weep. He rebelled. He didn't want to eat anything. They tried to give him food but he wouldn't take it. They took him to the mouth of a large river. On each side of the river, just as it enters the ocean,
there was a creature in the water. One on his side, another one on his other side.

They were the happiest creatures. All day long they danced. They'd go down in the water and come up again, and then would go down again.

Aakwtaatseen hadn't laughed now for many days. They took him to one side of the river and put his arms around one of the creatures. They told him, "Now, you hang on tight, don't be afraid of getting drowned." As he put his arms around the creature, the creature began to dance with him. It amused him so much he started laughing. And they put his arms around the other one. After that he was himself again.

Now one day they told him, "We're going to go to a big dinner that's going on. It's put on by different people. The people are people whom you know. You are well acquainted with them, but you have never thought of them as people. You thought of them as creatures of the sea."

As he came near the place with the salmon people, he heard people singing Indian songs that were very happy, and beating the drum. You could see the feathers flying all over. The feather, symbol of peace. He wanted to see who they were. He looked through a crack, and as he looked through the crack he felt something on his face. It seemed to be covering that part of his face where he thought the feathers were flying around. When he reached up and scratched it he found on him herring eggs. Those were herring people putting on a big dance.

After Aakwtaatseen left he went back and one day they told him, "We are going back to your country, to the place that you came from." They kept on going. Everybody was paddling. He wasn't paddling; he was sitting right in the middle of the canoe, and each time they would tell him where they were.

According to the Tlingit people, way out in the ocean, in the middle of the ocean in the deep places, there is no light. It's all dark. And when they came to the line where it gets dark, Aakwtaatseen saw very fearful things ahead of him. There were large eyes looking at him. And each time before an individual went past the line he would let out a war cry and he'd rush right by those places in a hurry. As they went by some of them were bitten. And when the salmon come to the river you find teeth marks on some of then. You never know what bit them, what kind of creatures bit them.

At this time we already had copper; we were using copper for implements and ornaments. There were those that worked in metal who would make copper wires. They made it into the form of a rope. Very flexible. More like chains all linked together. They would measure a full grown man's neck, and when the child got to be a certain age, when the head was the size of a grown mans neck, they would slip this endless copper rope over his head. And the child commenced to grow, and they wouldn't take this off; he died with it on. And this showed the person was from an aristocratic family. And they put this around the neck of Aakwtaatseen when he was a baby, being of an aristocratic family.

And when he came nearer the river, the father and the mother saw a very nice looking, stream-lined dog salmon. It was so pretty, a very large dog salmon, unusually larger than the rest, with no mark on it. It was a perfect fish.

Aakwtaatseen recognized his family before he went on up the river. As they came to where the river people were going, some of his friends, some relatives, were going in a canoe. The fish people told Aakwtaatseen , "There are your clan going up there. They know who you are. Stand up and look at them." Aakwtaatseen in his mind stood up. He thought he stood up. Instead of that, the people in the canoe called out, "Here jump!"

Finally the father hooked him, brought him ashore and the mother started to cut the head, and they found under the skin was this copper rope. She recognized him.

Then all the women cleared out and cleansed the whole smoke house. And they wrapped him up. They put him on the platform right above the door. They had no fire in it. They put the body of the fish there and they put a very nice skin blanket over it. For several days it was there.

DEFINITION OF IXT'

"Ixt'" is a Tlingit word for which there is no exact English translation, and so the Tlingit word was left in. An ixt' is what is today called a shaman, a person blessed with the gift of telepathy, one who could communicate with the spirits as well as other people with like abilities. A shaman was thus a seer and healer, not a "witch doctor". Modern-day parallels to an ixt' might be a psychiatrist, minister, priest or doctor. Explain the meaning of the term ixt' to your students.

And finally, they heard the blue flies' sound up there. And it began to change into a tune. The platform was very large. Big enough to hold a human being. As time went on they knew that it wasn't a blue fly, but a person singing. And they went up there on a ladder and took his body down. He returned back with his own people.

And it was told that he became one of the strongest ixt' of the Kiksadi people. He practiced telepathy and portation. He could communicate with Kake from here. That was the first wireless statian in Alaska.

When they brought him down he became one of the strongest ixt' among the Kiksadis. And later on he composed a song. It did not become the national song but we sing it quite often. You don't dance to this song, like you would any other. You have mountain sheep wool dyed red. The women wear them hanging from their ears. The first verse you swing towards your left. The second verse you swing to the right. And the men keep time with the long sticks with the emblems on them.

ATTITUDES TOWARD ANIMALS

The following comments were made to Frederica deLaguna by a Tlingit man from Yakutat:

"The old Indians never just shot animals for no purpose. They just shot what they needed, and every animal they killed, they talked to it and explained why they had to kill it. They showed the animals respect. After they kill it-bear, goat, any animal- they bring the head in by the fire to warm it. They hang the skin up on the wall and talk to it, explaining why they have to kill it. My father always faced the head of the dead animal toward the mountain. I still do it when I can. When you finish with the head, cover it up with boughs..." (deLaguna 1972:824)

Read the quotation to the class, then discuss the man's attitude toward animals as students learned in the Athabascan unit. How is this attitude expressed in the Kiksadi Dog Salmon Legend?

COMPARISON WITH ATHABASCAN STORY

Ask students to recall the Tanaina salmon story from When People Meet Animals in the Athabascan unit. How was it similar to the Kiksadi Dog Salmon Legend?

FUNCTION OF STORY

Discuss: what do you think Aakwtaatseen learned from his experience? What were children who heard the story supposed to learn from it? (Note: not only were they to learn that it was unacceptable to insult salmon; they were also to learn about the different kinds of salmon and how they were prepared; and about the clan's history.)

DAY 2 & 3

TLINGIT SUBSISTENCE TECHNIQUES: HOW TO TREAT SALMON, SUBSISTENCE POSTER, DESCRIPTION CARDS

1. Enrichment: Read How to Treat Salmon to students and discuss it. (Note: classroom sets of this booklet are available on request.)

2. Put up the Subsistence Poster. Save the Legend, to be tacked up after students have completed this activity. Label 13 folders, one for each implement. Put several copies of the appropriate Description Sheets in each. Place the folders on a table near the poster.

Have students number a piece of paper from 1 to 13. Students must research each implement, and fill in their papers with two pieces of information about each tool:

a. name of the implement pictured on the poster

b. plant(s) or animal(s) it was used to obtain.

Go over the answers when students have completed their papers. You may tack up the Legend sheet next to the poster at this time if you like. Refer to the resources on the Environments of Tlingit Aanee poster (used during the first section of the unit).

3. Remind students of the list they made on the first day of the Tlingit study (possibilities and limitations of Lingit Aanee p. 12). Briefly compare their speculations with the way the Tlingits did use their environment.

4. Enrichment: Distribute to each student one or more cards with pictures of the implements (duplicate and cut up pp. 125 & 126 following). Each student is to write a paragraph (from memory) on the item pictured telling what it is, how it was used, what resource it was used to obtain.

After paragraphs have been written, read some to the class or post them on a bulletin board. Refer once again to theEnvironments of Lingit Aanee poster and ask for other possible subsistence techniques the Tlingits might have used. (Point out that the thirteen items the students worked with are a tiny fraction of the many which Tlingits did use. Alert students to the upcoming museum tour where they will see many more.)

ENRICHMENT: Read How to Build a Canoe to students.

ENRICHMENT: Read Halibut Fishing to students.

LANGUAGE ARTS

SUBSISTENCE

Several Language Arts activities which reinforce the social studies lessons follow:

1. Have students do one of the following tasks as an addition to study of the Kiksadi Dog Salmon Legend. They should place their finished products in their notebooks or folders.

a. Draw a picture of what you think the village of the salmon people looked like.

b. Rewrite the Dog Salmon story, but this time tell the story from the salmon people's point of view.

c. Have a group of students perform the legend for the rest of the class.

2. Read Nora Dauenhauer's poem "How to Make Good Baked Salmon from the River" (following page), reprinted with her permission from Northward Journal, No. 21/22, 1981. Have students write a booklet about the proper customs in dealing with some food which they normally eat. Have them illustrate the books, then read them in class. Compare students' customs with the traditional Tlingit salmon customs mentioned in How to Treat Salmon and in Ms. Dauenhauer's poem.

3. Provide each student with pictures of three of the subsistence implements they have studied. The students' task is to write a story in which all three implements appear.

4. Read to students the "Legend of the Origin of Basketry" (pp. 121 & 122).

for Simon Ortiz
and for all our friends and relatives
who loved it

It's best made in dry-ish camp on the beach by a fish stream on sticks over an open fire, or during fishing, or during cannery season.

In this case, we'll make it in the city baked in an electric oven on a black fry pan.

INGREDIENTS
Bar-b-q sticks of alder wood.
In this case, the oven will do.
Salmon: River salmon, current super market costs $4. 99 a pound.
In this case, salmon poached from River.
Seal oil or olachen oil.
In this case, butter or Wesson oil, if available.

DIRECTIONS
To butcher, split head up the jaw. Cut through, remove gills. Split from throat down the belly. Gut, but make sure you toss all the sea gulls and the ravens because their your kin, and make sure you speak to them while you're feeding them. Then split down along the back bone and through the skin. Enjoy how nice it looks when it's split.

Push stake through flesh and skin like pushing a needle through cloth, so that it hangs on stakes while cooking over fire made from alder wood.

Then sit around and watch the slime of the salmon begin to dry out. Notice how red the flesh is, and how silvery the skin looks. Watch and listen to the grease crackle, and smell is delicious aroma drifting around on a breeze.

Mash some fresh berries to go along for dessert. Pour seal oil in a little water. Set aside.

In this case, put the poached salmon in the fry pan. Smell how good it smells while its cooking, because it's soooooooo important.

Cut up an onion. Put in a small dish. Notice how nice this smells too and how good it will taste. Cook a pot of rice to go along with salmon. Find some soy sauce to put on rice, maybe borrow some.

In this case, think about how nice the berries would have been after the salmon, but open a can fruit cocktail instead.

Then go out to the cool stream get some skunk cabbage, because it's biodegradable, to serve this salmon from. Before you take back the skunk cabbage you can make a cup out of one to drink from the cool stream.

In this case, plastic forks paper plates and cups will do, and drink cool water from the faucet.

TO SERVE
After smelling smoke and fish and watching the cooking, smelling the skunk cabbage and the berries mixed with seal oil, when the salmon is done, put the salmon on stakes on the skunk cabbage and pour some seal oil over it and watch the oil run into the nice cooked flaky flesh which is now turned pink.

Shoo mosquitoes off the salmon, and shoo the ravens away, but don't insult them because mosquitoes are known to be the ashes of the cannibal giant, and Raven is known to take off with just about anything.

In this case, dish out on paper plates from fry pan. Serve to all relatives and friends you have invited to the bar-b-q and those who love it.

And think how good it is that we have good spirits that still bring salmon and oil.

TO EAT
Everyone knows that you can eat just about every part of the salmon, so I don't have to tell you that you start with the head because it's everyone's favorite. You take it apart bone by bone, but make sure you don't miss the eyes, the cheeks, the nose, in the very best part-the jawbone.

The start on the mandible with a glottalized alveolar fricative action as expressed in the Tlingit verb als'oss'.

Chew on the tasty, crispy skins before you start on the bones. Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! How delicious.

Then you start on the body by sucking on the fins with the same action. Include crispy skins, and the meat with grease dripping all over.

Have some cool water from the stream with the salmon.

In this case, water from the faucet will do. Enjoy how the water to sweeter with salmon.

When done, toss the bones to the ravens and seagulls and mosquitoes, but don't throw them in the salmon stream because the salmon have spirits and don't like to see the remains of the kin among them in the stream.

In this case, put bones and plastic bags to put in dumpster.

Now settle back to a story telling session, while someone feeds the fire.

In this case, small talk and jokes with friends will do while you drink beer. If you shouldn't drink beer, tea or coffee will do nicely.

GunalchÈesh for coming to my bar-b-q.

NORA DAUENHAUER

"It happened in those mysterious times when Raven still walked among men, exercising the cunning of his mind in bringing good to his creatures by ways strange and inexplicable to mankind. Already his greatest works had been accomplished. He had stolen the Sun, Moon and Stars from his grandfather, the great Raven-who-lived-above-the-Nass River, and thus divided the night from the day. He had set the tides in order. He had filled the streams with fresh water and had scattered abroad the eggs of the salmon and trout so that the Tlingit might have food. But not yet had Raven disappeared into the unknown, taking with him the power of the spirit world to mingle with mankind.

"In those days a certain woman who lived in a cloud village had a beautiful daughter of marriageable age. She was greatly desired by all mortals and many came seeking to mate with her. But their wooing was in vain. At last it chanced that the eyes of the Sun rested with desire upon the maiden, and at the end of his day's travel across the sky he took upon himself the form of a man and sought her for his wife.

"Long years they lived together in the Sky-land and many children came to them. But these children were of the Earth-world of their mother. One day as the mother sat watching her children frolicking in the fields of the Sun-land, her mind filled with anxiety over their future, she plucked some roots and began idly to plait them together in the shape of a basket. Her husband, the Sun, had divined her fears and perplexities. So he took the basket which she had unknowingly made and increased its size until it was large enough to hold the mother and her eight children. In it they were lowered to their homeland, the Earth.

Their great basket settled near Yakutat on the Alsek River, and that is the reason that the first baskets in southeastern Alaska were made by the Yakutat women."

*Paul, Frances. Spruce Root Basketry of the Alaska Tlingit. 1944

Worksheet 7 (in pdf)

Worksheet 7 Answers (in pdf)

Tools of the Trade (in pdf)

MATERIALS LIST & GOALS
SECTION 1: Tlingit Country
SECTION 2: Clans
SECTION 3: Summer Camp
SECTION 4: Tlingit Economy: Surplus
SECTION 5: Wrap Up

APPENDIX A: Brief Description of Tlingit Culture
APPENDIX B: A Sample Winter Clan House
APPENDIX C: Northwest Coast Materials in ASD AVS Center
APPENDIX D: Juvenile Literature on Northwest Coast Cultures
APPENDIX E: Art Bibliography
APPENDIX F: Northwest Coast Cultures Bibliography
APPENDIX G: Schools Which Own Northwest Coast Study Prints
APPENDIX H: Raven Stories (reprints)
APPENDIX I: Recorded Versions of Clan Crest Stories
APPENDIX J: Some Northwest Coast Art Activities