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Turn the pages of this book to learn about Tlingit Indians. Read the storyof how Tlingits came to live in southeast Alaska. Discover what it is like as a child growing up in a Tlingit family. See the beautiful art that Tlingits make. In this book you wil

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A look at the culture and history of the Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest, with information on village and family life, religion, hunting and fishing practices, and native arts. ... Read more

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Chapters: Tlingit, Yup'ik. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 21. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: English, Tlingit The Tlingit (pronounced or in English; sometimes spelled Tlinkit) are an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their name for themselves is Lingít, meaning "human beings" (pronounced ). The Russian name Koloshi () (from an Alutiiq term for the labret) or the related German name Koulischen may be encountered in older historical literature, such as Shelikov's 1796 map of Russian America. The Tlingit are a matrilineal society that developed a complex hunter-gatherer culture in the temperate rainforest of the southeast Alaska coast and the Alexander Archipelago. An inland subgroup, known as the Inland Tlingit, inhabits the far northwestern part of the province of British Columbia and the southern Yukon Territory of Canada. Tlingit and neighboring peoplesThe greatest territory historically occupied by the Tlingit extended from the Portland Canal along the present border between Alaska and British Columbia, north to the coast just southeast of the Copper River delta. The Tlingit occupied almost all of the Alexander Archipelago, except the southernmost end of Prince of Wales Island and its surroundings, where the Kaigani Haida moved just before the first encounters with European explorers. Inland, the Tlingit occupied areas along the major rivers which pierce the Coast Mountains and Saint Elias Mountains and flow into the Pacific, including the Alsek, Tatshenshini, Chilkat, Taku, and Stikine rivers. With regular travel up these rivers, the Tlingit developed extensive trade networks with Athabascan tribes of the interior, and commonly intermarried with them. From this regular travel and trade, a few relatively large populations of Tlingit settled around Atlin, Teslin...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=50858 ... Read more

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Author Mary L. Beck recounts nine traditional Native American legends from the Northwest Coast. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Brilliant Tales Told Beautifully
What an amazing book! I picked this up while traveling around Alaska, and I found it compelling enough to develop a class on mythology for the coming semester, using this book as one of the texts. The stories are entertaining and meaningful, and extremely readable. I know that my students are going to learn a great deal, but they will also enjoy every minute of it, for the storytelling within this text is truly beautiful. I wish I could find more books like it!

The illustrations are also beautiful. The book is one of the best folklore explorations I have read in years.

forget philosophy
people should be reading this stuff, not the same old boring Plato/Homer stuff. This is the interesting stuff, the trickster who gets tricked and then tricks others. It's so valuable. And beautiful. And underrated.

A wonderful selection of tales from Tlingit-Haida culture.
Having grown up in Alaska, I've had much exposure to Native Alaskan culture and have always loved reading or hearing their folklore. This particular book is a great collection of Tlingit-Haida legends, each of which is a sort of "how things came to be this way" story. They explain why a certain clan took a particular crest, or how a legendary hero came to fame, etc. What I found especially interesting is the comparison with folklore from other cultures. Each story is accompanied by a short introduction in which the author shows us the parallels between these tales and similar ones in Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology. The stories are set down in clear, simple language, but are still vivid and engrossing. My one criticism of the book would be that it's too short. There are only nine legends included, and this makes for only a small sampling of Tlingit-Haida lore. I would have loved to see more. However, I will not knock any point off my rating for this. The fact that I wish it had gone on longer only attests to its overall quality. This is a terrific book, easy to read, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in native folklore.

Can't Say enough about this book
Just like Beck's "Shamans & Kushtakas" this book is a great reference on Tlingit & Haida mythology.She does an excellent job in both books passing on the legends of old into the 21st century.I am aHaida indian and I think she did a wonderful job ... Read more

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This insightful and instructive book celebrates Native American life while offering a rare glimpse into the modern culture of the Tlingit tribe in Alaska. Follow the daily life of a young Tlingit girl, Lydia Mills, and explore the history, ceremonies, and traditions of her unique tribe and culture, including Tlingit traditions, ceremonial clothing, festivals, and stories. ... Read more

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Great book for girls.
A great book for girls who are interested in learning about different cultures.I worked at the cannery mentioned in the book and the descriptions reminded me of the great times I had while in Excursion Inlet. ... Read more

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The unsophisticated aboriginal of British Columbia is almost a memory of the past. He leaves no permanent monument, no ruins of former greatness. His original habitation has long given place to the frame house of sawn timber, and with the exception of the carvings in black slate made by the Hydah Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands, and the stone hammers, spear and arrow points, fashioned in the days before the coming of the white man, the mementos of his sojourn in British Columbia are only relics in wood, bark or reeds.
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Lieutenant George Thornton Emmons, U.S.N., was station in Alaska during the 1880s and 1890s, a time when the Navy was largely responsible for law and stability in the Territory.His duties brought him into close contact with the Tlingit Indians, whose respect he won and from whom he gained an understanding of and respect for their culture.He became a friend of many Tlingit leaders, visited their homes, traveled in their canoes when on leave, purchased native artifacts, and recorded native traditions.In addition to an interest in native manufacturing and in the more spectacular aspects of native life - such as bear hunting, Chilkat blankets, feuds, and the potlatch - Emmons showed the ethnographerís devotion to recording all aspects of the culture together with the Tlingit terms, and came to understand Tlingit beliefs and values better than did any of his nonnative contemporaries.He was widely recognized for his extensive collections of Tlingit artifacts and art, and for the detailed notes that accompanied them.

At the request of Morris K. Jesup, president of the American Museum of Natural History (which had purchased Emmonsís first two Tlingit collections), and on the recommendation of Franz Boas, Emmons began to organize his notes and prepare a manuscript on the Tlingit.During his retirement, he published several articles and monographs and continued to study and work on his comprehensive book.But when he died in 1945, the book was still unfinished, and he left several drafts in the museum and also in the provincial archives of British Columbia in Victoria, where he had been writing during the last decades of his life.

Frederica de Laguna, eminent ethnologist and archaeologist with long personal experience with the Tlingit, was asked by the museum to edit The Tlingit Indians for publication.Over the past thirty years she has worked to organize Emmonsís materials, scrupulously following his plan of including extracts from the earliest historical sources.She also has made significant additions from contemporary or more recent authors, and from works unknown ton Emmons or unavailable to him, and has given the ethnography greater historical depth by presenting this information in chronological order.She has also added relevant commentary of her own based on her encyclopedic information about past and present Tlingit culture.

With the help of Jeff Leer of the Alaskan Native Language Center, an expert on Tlingit, she has provided modern phonetic transcriptions of Tlingit words whenever Emmons has given native terms in his own idiosyncratic and inconsistent versions of Tlingit.

This major contribution to the ethnography of the Northwest Coast also includes a meticulously researched biography of Lieutenant Emmons by Jean Low, an extensive bibliography, and thirty-seven tables in which de Laguna draws together and tightens Emmonsís materials on topics such as census data, names of clans and houses, species of plants and their uses, native calendars, and names of gambling sticks.Illustrations include numerous photographs and sketches made and annotated by Emmons.

This volume will be invaluable to anthropologists, historians, and the general public - including the Tlingit Indians themselves, to whom it is dedicated. ... Read more

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Introduces the history, geography, and culture of the Tlingit people in Southeast Alaska through the daily lives of children who live there. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The many worlds of the Tlingit in Alaska today
The author does an excellent job presenting how Tlingit are attempting to celebrate, embrace and reestablish their cultural ways in this honor book for the 2000 Carter G. Woodson Elementary Division Award, National Council for Social Studies. The author describes how the Russians and then the United States attempted to erradicate the culture of the established Tlingit and how children are encouraged to go to week-long camps to learn about Tlingit art, storytelling, language, and customs. It would be important for children to understand why an author would write "some Tlingit must have a hard time looking at the American flag." Discussion will abound in relation to this book. Photos are interesting and provide helpful information. Maps are included. Good for classroom, school, and public libraries.

Children of the Tlinget
I feel this book is a very good representation of the Tlinget lifestyle.Both my daughters have gone to the Islands in Southeastern Alaska to teach Bible School to the Tlinget Children and do work projects. Both my daughters enjoyed learning about the Tlinget culture and this book will teach children who are unable to visit Southeast Alaska about this special culture. The pictures in this book from Kake were taken when my one daughter was there and she is the person doing the face painting on page 12.My daughter fell in love with the children of Kake who were starving for attention.I thought sure when she arrived home she would have Nicki in your suitcase.He is the little boy in the purple shirt on the cover of the book. ... Read more

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Introduces the daily life, arts, crafts, and legends of the Tlingit Indians of southeastern Alaska. ... Read more

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great information
this is a good little book that gives you an insite on what the culture was like and the stories they told! I am a Tlingit and i love finding out info about my hertiage!! ... Read more

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The Battles of Sitka (1802 and 1804) were seminal events in the history of the Tlingit people, the multicultural history of Alaska, and, ultimately, in the history of America. Anooshi Lingit Aani Ka / Russians in Tlingit America covers the period from the first arrival of European and American fur traders in Tlingit territory to the establishment of a permanent Russian presence in the Pacific Northwest, presenting transcriptions and English translations of Tlingit oral traditions recorded almost fifty years ago and translations of newly available Russian historical documents. Although independent in origin and transmission, these accounts support one another to a remarkable degree on the main historical points.The Tlingit-Russian conflict is usually presented as a confrontation between "whites," with superior arms, and brave but outnumbered and poorly armed natives. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Tlingits saw themselves as victors even as they formally ceded to the Russians the site of their village and fort, now known as Sitka.Setting aside ancient rules of story ownership, a new generation of Tlingit clan leaders have decided to publish the stories told by their ancestors so that the Tlingit point of view would be known and succeeding generations would not forget their people's history.Including Russian historical documents, travellers' accounts of informal interactions between the formerly warring parties after the battles, and Dr. W. Schuhmacher's work on the role played by British and American skippers, Anooshi Lingit Aani Ka inquires into and provides some answers to the fundamental question, who owns history? Photographs of objects now in Russian and American museums - from the favorite battle hammer of Tlingit war chief Katlian to the metal ceremonial hat Baranov commissioned for the peace ceremony - enrich the book, along with portraits of key historical figures and eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century charts of Tlingit territory. Also included is the journal of Dmitrii Tarkhanov, a gazetteer, glossary, Tlingit and Russian name lists, and an index. ... Read more

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Russian America
Superbly: researched, written, illustrated, edited and footnoted.Loaded with fascinating newly uncovered information about Baranov and Russian America. I highly recommend this book. ... Read more

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The Tlingit form a distinct ethnic and linguistic group of the Koluschan stock. Koluschan is from the Russian kalyushka, meaning piece of wood (worn in the nether lip). They occupy a compact geographical area along the Pacific coast from about Mount St Elias to the Nass River, and including Sitka and the other adjacent islands of the Alexander Archipelago. The chief tribes are the Chilcat, Stikine and Yakutat. They are essentially a seafaring people and today work in the salmon industries. Prior to the deterioration suffered from contact with the white race they were the foremost traders of the Northwest. ... Read more

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An informative introduction to Tlingit artifacts
A superb addition to personal, academic, and community library Native American Studies reference collections, black-and-white as well as color photographs wonderfully illustrate Tlingit: Their Art And Culture, a captivating survey by David Hancock of the Native Americans of Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia. From village life and ceremonies; to the potlatch festivals; to shamanism; to marriage and burial customs; to woodcarving and fabric art forms, Tlingit: Their Art And Culture offers a concise and informative introduction to Tlingit artifacts, nuances, and rituals of Northwestern Native American life and society. ... Read more

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In Being and Place among the Tlingit, anthropologist Thomas F. Thornton examines the concept of place in the language, social structure, economy, and ritual of southeast Alaska's Tlingit Indians. Place signifies not only a specific geographical location but also reveals the ways in which individuals and social groups define themselves.

The notion of place consists of three dimensions - space, time, and experience - which are culturally and environmentally structured. Thornton examines each in detail to show how individual and collective Tlingit notions of place, being, and identity are formed. As he observes, despite cultural and environmental changes over time, particularly in the post-contact era since the late eighteenth century, Tlingits continue to bind themselves and their culture to places and landscapes in distinctive ways. He offers insight into how Tlingits in particular, and humans in general, conceptualize their relationship to the lands they inhabit, arguing for a study of place that considers all aspects of human interaction with landscape.

In Tlingit, it is difficult even to introduce oneself without referencing places in Lingit Aani (Tlingit Country). Geographic references are embedded in personal names, clan names, house names, and, most obviously, in k-waan names, which define regions of dwelling. To say one is Sheet'ka K-waan defines one as a member of the Tlingit community that inhabits Sheet'ka (Sitka).

Being and Place among the Tlingit makes a substantive contribution to the literature on the Tlingit, the Northwest Coast cultural area, Native American and indigenous studies, and to the growing social scientific and humanistic literature on space, place, and landscape. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent Discussion of a Complex Subject
This is an excellent ethnographic work that makes significant arguments in a quiet, accessible, and confident way.Thornton demonstrates the interconnectivity of language, history and memory, ecology, and economics in Tlingit society and in doing so builds a robust claim for the value of cultural preservation and autonomy.It is difficult to read this and not draw comparisons with the dominant models of economic, environmental, and cultural practice.In doing so this reader gained much in the way of analytical tools with which to approach the problems associated with the models mentioned above.

'Being and Place Among the Tlingit' is also a fine example of social science methodology and ethics.An ideal read for students of anthropology, and perhaps disciplines as varied as economics, ecology, and phenomenology.Outstanding.

Great Book, Respectable service
A worthy scholarly treatment of SE Alaska Tlingit sensibility. Respected in both cultures, Thornton is possessed of insight valuable to all non-Tlingit seeking to understand how intimately place is tied to personal and cultural identity. ... Read more

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After an introduction to the Tlingit culture, history, land, and traditional art forms, 22 tales include creation myths, religious stories, and tales that teach familial values. Illustrations by traditional Tlingit artist Ts'anak are included. A great resource for the multicultural classroom or for a unit on American Indians. ... Read more

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Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, shortly after the invention of photography, the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska encountered early Russian and American survey teams, ethnographic investigators, studio photographers, tourists, and resident amateur and commercial photographers.

Why were the Tlingit photographed and how were their images disseminated? How were they portrayed through photography? How active were the Tlingit in shaping the images taken of them and in controlling their representation? Did photography remain an alien technology and activity or did the Tlingit incorporate it into their own culture?

Based on research in thirteen North American archives (including the Penn Museum's Shotridge Collection), a close examination of hundreds of photographs, and extensive oral-history interviews in Sitka and other sites with both Tlingit and non-Native residents, Sharon Bohn Gmelch presents valuable insights on the motivations and reactions of Native subjects to being photographed. She shows the ways the Tlingit incorporated photography and came to use it for their own purposes, expressing a new sense of empowerment as they reclaimed images from public archives for their own purposes. This is the first book to explore the photographic imagery of the Tlingit during a critical period of change, from the 1860s through the 1920s. It also provides the first full treatment of the Tlingit photography of Elbridge W. Merrill, a neglected figure in the history of ethnographic photography.