Tlingit Indians of Southeastern Alaska

Section 5

3 days (1 week)

WRAP UP

OBJECTIVES

1. Students will read about and see some of the changes in Lingit Aanee since Kahtahah's time.
2. Students will view and compare Tlingit material culture with contemporary urban and with traditional Athabascan material culture, at the museum.
3. Students will exhibit an understanding of the following aspects of potlatches: clan crest display, gift giving, hosting the opposite moiety (optional).

ACTIVITIES

Section 5: WRAP UP

DAY l

CONCEPT: CULTURAL CHANGE

KAHTAHAH

Read at least pp. 20-23, 37-43, and 54-57 in Kahtahah many teachers choose to finish the entire book. Note the references to trade on these pages.

How Raven
Fooled Seagull and Crane

One day Snook received word that a large canoe was lying in the outer bay, waiting for the tide to rise so it could go through the pass.

"They must be the people from the other side. It's time for herring eggs." said Snook.

The big canoe come slowly into the salt lake when the tide had ceased to roar through the rocky pass and the waters ran slack. In it was a trading party from the seaward side of the big island where the herring ran thick in the spring. They wanted to get eulachon oil and brought many dried herring eggs to trade. Snook had plenty of eulachon oil so he took all the herring eggs the visitors brought, and they went happily away.

When the herring swarmed in from the ocean, these westward people had cut down hemlock trees to put into the water for the spawning fish. Millions of tiny white eggs were caught on the branches, which were then taken out to dry in the wind and the sun.

To eat the eggs, the branches were soaked in water until the eggs slipped off. Then the eggs were boiled a very short time until they were like transparent seed pearls. Kahtahah liked to eat herring eggs because of the fresh salty taste and the crackly noise the made between her teeth.

The chief had been right when he said that there would be no deer near the summer camp because the wolves had driven them away. Not once all summer long did the hunters see a deer track along the beaches and the creeks. Whenever they needed venison, the young men had to hunt across the channel on another island where there were no wolves. The meat that was not used at once was cut into thin stripe and dried and smoked. The tallow was mixed with berries and poured into skin bags for winter use, and the skins were tanned and bleached. sometimes as white as the blossoms of the crab apple trees, for clothing and moccasins. The old women sat constantly at the stretching frames, scraping and softening the skins with their dull bone knives.

Kahtahah, already a skillful seamstress, was making herself a white deerskin dress with bead trimmings. She had a shiny needle that had belonged to her real mother and some bright beads that Snook had traded for furs from the Hudson's Boy Company. As Kahtahah sewed, she watched two old black ravens strutting back and forth an the ridge of the smokehouse, talking to each other.

"They sound like two old men," she said. "I wonder if they are talking about the salmon in the smokehouse. Ravens are greedy, but they are lazy, too. Mother, tell me the story about how the raven tricked the sea gull and the crane." She told the following story as they sewed.

"Raven walked along the beach one day, hungry. The water bubbled with a big school of herring, but Raven, though a fish eater, was no fisherman, and he had to find a way to get a herring. He looked around and saw a crane standing on one leg in the water, fishing, and a sea gull that had just lighted on a rock after swallowing a nice, fat herring. He could see the big bulge that the herring made on the side of the sea gull's breast and said to himself. 'I must have that herring or I'll die.'

"He walked past Crane and spoke to him, and then strolled over to Seagull. Returning to Crane, he said. 'I don't like to tell you this, but I feel that I ought to because I am your friend. You saw me talking with Seagull. He called you an ugly, long-legged brute and said that your ancestors were slaves.' Crane did not answer.

"So Raven walked over to Seagull and asked. 'You saw me talking to Crane just now? I really don't like to do this, but I feel that I should because I am your friend. That Crane called you some very insulting names; said you were a no-account, a common thing of low birth, and that your grandmother was a witch.' Seagull said nothing.

"Raven then walked back to Crane and whispered. 'I think I had better warn you that Seagull just told me that he was coming over here to fight you. If he does, just remember that his weak spot is his chest. Kick his chest hard and you will win the fight.' Crane looked over at Seagull, who acted restless. He felt grateful to Raven.

"Raven then went to Seagull. 'I wonder.' he asked. 'what is the matter with Crane? He seemed so angry at you, kept calling you insulting names, and just now told me that he was coming over here to give you a beating. You had better not wait. See him looking at you? You had better start right out and if he tries to kick you, stick your chest at him and he can't hurt you. You go at him hard with your chest.' Just then Crane shifted from one foot to the other. 'See that? See that?' Raven exclaimed. 'He is planning to come at you. You had better start at him right now.'

"So Seagull and Crane started toward each other, grateful that their good friend Raven had warned them and prepared them for victory. They walked faster and glared at each other as they approached. Both fairly flew the last few feet. Remembering the good advice Raven had given him. Crane raised his foot and kicked at Seagull's chest with all his might, and Seagull, having been warned by his good friend Raven, promptly presented his chest to receive the blow. Crane struck, and the herring popped out. Raven caught it before it fell into the water, and flew off chuckling. Crane and Seagull realized that Raven had told them a bunch of lies and stopped fighting. When our people hear stories that make them feel angry toward others they say. 'Perhaps Raven is carrying tales to Seagull and Crane once more. Everybody understands what is meant."

Kahtahah laughed. "Raven was always playing tricks on people, wasn't he, mother?"

"Yes," she answered. "but Raven was kind to us, too."

Refer to Appendix H for a collection of Raven stories.

Only the top half of page 23 is to be read.

Seals

The hair seals had a rookery on a small rocky island without trees or small bushes out in the channel near the mouth of the bay. The seals talked together a lot - the old ones with hoarse grunts and growls and the young ones with shrill squeals and whistles - and Kahtahah used to pretend she could understand what they were saying to each other. Hunters had to be skillful to get a seal at the rookery, even though they came close in a small canoe and imitated their growls, because the seals were very sensitive and dove into the water, leaving the rock bare, at the slightest disturbance.

The Northwest Coast Study Prints (UN 639), studied during the next section, contain a print of a spruce root basket (Print #1). Show the print to the students after they have read this chapter in Kahtahah.

Bears Like
Blueberries

The women and children had spent all morning picking blueberries from the low bushes at the edge of the forest. To pick the berries, each person placed a broad, flat basket on the ground under a bush and pulled down the branches, stripping them bare of both leaves and berries. She then shook the basket and blew all of the little sticks and leaves away, leaving the clean berries, which she emptied into a deep basket under the trees.

When Kahtahah carried her deep basket to the edge of the stream where many others stood ready for the canoe trip back to camp, she saw a mother bear and her two round, fat cubs tipping over the baskets, scooping the berries into their mouths, pawful after pawful.

"Look, Mother! Look, Tsoonkla! Oh, look, everybody! The bad wicked bears are spoiling our berries!" All of the women came running to her call. Kahtahah was angry and wanted to run out and chase the bears away, but her foster mother pulled her back.

"Be quiet!" she warned. "Don't you see that it's a mother bear? We must be careful because even a black bear mother will fight for her cubs."

"But our berries will be gone!" cried the children.

"And our baskets, too!" the women exclaimed as the two cubs began to pull on the same basket. Both hung on tenaciously, squealing and growling. The mother bear, alerted by the noise, reached out with her big paw, and with one blow ripped the basket in two. The little bears tumbled over backward, but recovering, sat up on their haunches and looked at the other baskets. They rolled their naughty little eyes at each other, and as if propelled by one thought, scrambled to the other baskets, and imitating their mother, ripped them to pieces right and left.

Remembering the hunting stories her foster father had told her. Kahtahah said, "Come on. We must get the wind behind us. Snook told me that's the way to frighten black bears away. When they get our scent, the mother bear will tell her cubs to run into the woods."

Everyone stepped back into the trees and ran quickly over the soft moss to the other side where the wind would carry their smell to the bears. They peeped out from behind the tree trunks to watch.

The mother bear lifted her nose, sniffed the gentle breeze and thought. "Man-smell." Lumbering over to her cubs, she slapped them away from their game of ripping berry baskets, and they disappeared into the forest so quickly that Kahtahah could not believe her eyes.

After a few seconds the women and children hurried across the meadow to the stream. Blueberries, mashed and spoiled, were scattered everywhere on the grass, and the baskets were badly torn.

"Ai-ee, aa-ee, those bad bears." sighed Kahtahah's mother. "Now we'll have to weave baskets all winter to replace them."

"I'm sorry I didn't eat every berry I picked." Tsoonkla grumbled. Kahtahah looked at Tsoonkla's berry-stained lips and teeth, and couldn't help laughing. "it's plain that you ate a lot at that." she answered.

"Those little black bears looked so cute when they tumbled over backward," Tsoonkla whispered. "I wish we could have them for pets."

Kahtahah answered, "It would be like the deer we had once. You remember how sweet it was when it was a little spotted fawn, but when its horns got big it tried to kill that boy who teased it a [lot]. Snook said we should let it go before anyone was hurt. Snook would have had to make big presents if someone had been hurt. I cried under my blanket when they took my deer into the woods."

They picked up the baskets that could be mended, each woman hoping that she had enough spruce roots drying to make all the new baskets she would need.

How the Stikheenquan Came Down the River was not available at the time of converting this resource for educational online use.

Summer Comes to an End was not available at the time of converting this resource for educational online use.

Section 5: Wrap UP
LANGUAGE ARTS

LANGUAGE ARTS

WRITING

1. Discuss what passages in the book Kahtahah indicate some of the changes that were occurring in Tlingit culture during Kahtahah's childhood.
2. Have students write a poem about how Kahtahah felt when she saw- the Eagle canoe in the New York museuma Put the poem in the student folders or notebooks.
3. Have students write or tell about a time when they have felt homesick about a place or time in their pasts.

UPDATE ON SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA

There are several resources you could use to give students a vivid impression of life in Southeastern Alaska today. For instance:

1. RESOURCE PERSON

Invite a Tlingit resource person to your class. Ask him or her to prepare a slide show or talk about how life (and family structure in particular) have changed in the last 100 years.

2. FILMSTRIP

Show the class A Kwakiutl Family (a filmstrip from SVE series Six Native American Families). Although Kwakiutls live in British Colombia, their culture is considered part of the Northwest Coast area and is similar enough to modern Tlingit life so that students can draw comparisons and understand some of the changes since Kahtahah's day. List the ways the Kwakiutls earn a living today. Compare them with the ways the Tlingits earned a living in Kahtahah's day.

3. COMMUNITY PROFILES

Refer to Conniiunity Profiles for information on the current economic status of Southeastern communities. Students could do individual research or the profiles could be used for their photographs. Relate each picture with the location of the community on the Language or Tongass Forest map.

4. PHOTOGRAPHS

Cut out and laminate photographs of modern Southeastern Alaska which you have obtained from magazines. Discuss the photographs with the students. See also Volume 5 of the Alaska Geographic Series (see Appendix F).

5. ENRICHMENT: FILMS AND VIDEOTAPES

Other resources pertinent to the topic of cultural change and contained in the Anchorage School District's AVS Center are:

F 2813 The Choice Is Ours

F 3665 Tlingit Ani

F 4791 American Indians: Yesterday and Today

UN 521 Time of Change

UN 647 Alaska Natives at the Turn of the Century

UN 674 The Way it is Today

DISCUSSION

Discuss how Kahtahah's life was different from the students' lives because of her clan and moiety memberships. Ask students to think of all the ways that Kahtahahs life was effected by her family. A review of the clan rules might be helpful in this discussion. Examples might be:

1. The work and play Kahtahah was allowed to do

2. Whom Kahtahah was allowed to marry

3. Where she lived

4. Whom she learned from

5. How she spent her summers

6. Whom she felt closest to

7. The stories she learned

Have students consider to what extent their own families determine their lives, using the above seven topics as examples.

Extend the discussion to other cultures your class has studied.

MUSEUM PREPARATION

Prepare your class for its visit to the museum. Review the following ideas with your students:

1. Crest designs on clan-owned objects

2. Subsistence implements and their uses

3. Abundance of wood and wood-products

4. The sea orientation of Tlingit objects

ENRICHMENT: Duplicate for students or read to them the following fictionalized, but historically accurate story by Barbara Bernard (4th grade teacher, Ptarmigan School), before your museum visit.

Tlingit Spruce Root Basketry by Barbara Bernard

When I was six I began helping my mother and the other women of the village in the long process of basket-making. I was very excited to be allowed to go that first time. One morning, after the frost had left the soil , I woke to hear mother clattering around getting ready to go gathering. After we had eaten a bit of fish and packed our lunches we were ready to go. Everyone, grandmothers, aunts, cousins and friends met down at the beach to load the canoes. Our uncle came also to paddle us across our cove. I knew uncle would be staying with us when we collected the roots. He would be watching for bears.

When we arrived at the other side of the cove grandma led the way. She stopped at a spot where the ground was sandy around the spruce trees. This meant that the roots would be close to the surface and unentangled. Grandma finally settled on a tree that was between one to two feet around with reddish colored bark. Once she had pointed out the tree the women gathered around and started prodding at the roots to loosen them. They knew that if they had gotten a good tree the roots would be very long and bendable. After each root was loosened my mother and aunt pulled and lifted it out of the dirt, cleaned it off, coiled it and put it in a basket.

When we got home with a big load of roots, we stirred the fire right away so that we could steam the coils over the fire. I got to help strip the bark off of them. We used a tool that was a stick with a notch cut off the top. My aunt would hold the stick upright and I would pull the warm root through the notch. The bark peeled off beautifully! Then we hung the coils to season and dry them. It was usually a long time before we would get back to making the roots into baskets. The coming summer would be the busiest time of the year for us. We would go to fish camp, pick berries, and some days we would collect eggs. Basketmaking just had to wait until fall.

After the days got shorter, mother began preparing to weave. She brought the roots out from under the bench and set them in water. When the roots were soft and workable they were split. An especiafly big root was sometimes split as many as four times. Mother showed me how to tie the roots into neat even bundles. We put all the bundles together, got a bowl of water, and placed dyed grasses and ferns next to her spot by the fire. Now everything was in place and mother was finally ready to weave. At first I just watched Mother as she wove. Because I had been allowed to go along and collect the roots I was especially interested in the batch of baskets that would be made from those roots. I knew that Mother would let me try to make my own basket this year if I wanted. I watched Mother for several days before I was ready to try. Finally, one day I picked up a bundle of roots and began. I tried to do exactly as I had seen. My basket took me many days. When I finished it the basket was lopsided and wobbly, but my mother and grandmothers were pleased I had started to learn. When I grew up I discovered that Mother had saved my first little basket. I then showed it to my daughter when she began to learn to weave.

Baskets were used everywhere in our house! There were baskets for cooking. Mother would put the meat in the basket and then drop hot stones from the fire on the food, add water, cover the basket and in just a short time we would have a delicious supper. Our small water-tight baskets were used for drinking and carrying water. We also used baskets to haul things, for gathering berries, roots and shell fish.

Baskets were not the only thing Mother would weave. She and all the other women in our village made hats, meat bags, mats for the floor and even a cradle for baby. But telling how we made all these things would be another story!

Additional information about Tlingit Baskets:

Dyed grasses were woven into the baskets for decoration. Grasses were gathered in the early summer before they were ripe. The grass was then dipped in boiling water and spread out in the shade to dry slowly. After the grass was sufficiently dry it was tied together in bundles and stored for later use.

Decorations on Tlingit baskety were pictorial and represented things found in nature. One feature was often chosen to represent an animal or plant.

Tlingit designs were handed down from generation to generation, from mother to daughter.

Late 1800's to the present:

In the late 1800's traders brought pots and pans, cups and glasses, pails and rugs which in turn changed the need for making baskets. Traders began to encourage the women to make baskets for sale. As baskets became marketable, shapes and ornamentation were simplified and the resulting baskets were smaller.

Most girls no longer learn to make baskets. There are only a few Tlingit women still skilled in the art of weaving baskets. Presently, Tlingit basketry is an object of beauty, rather than use.

Paul, Frances, Spruce Root Basketry of the Alaskan Tlingit, U.S. Department of Interior 1944.

Cavana, V.V., "Alaska BAsketry", obtained from the Anchorage Historical and Fine Arts Museum.

DAY 2

MUSEUM VISIT

DAY 3

CLASS/CLAN PRESENTATIONS OR POTLATCH

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