Recorded from the 1960s to the present by twelve tradition bearers who were passing down for future generations the accounts of haa shuka, which means our ancestors. Narratives tell of the origin of social and spiritual concepts and explain complex relationships. Text in Tlingit with English translation on the opposite page. Includes biographies of the narrators. Also extensive introduction and notes.

A compendium of Tlingit oratory recorded in performance, featuring Tlingit texts with facing English translations and detailed annotations; photographs of the orators and the settings in which the speeches were delivered; and biographies of the elders. Most speeches were recorded on Canada's Northwest Coast, primarily in British Columbia, between 1968 and 1988, but two date from 1899. Includes references and glossary.

Haa Kusteeyi, Our Culture: Tlingit Life Stories is an introduction to Tlingit social and political history. Each biography is compelling in its own merit, but when all are taken together, the collection shows patterns of interaction among people and communities of today, and across the generations. By combining historical documents and photographs with accounts gathered from living memory, the book also enables the present, living generations to interact with their past. The book features biographies and life histories of more than 50 men and women, most born between 1880 and 1910, including a special section on the founders of the Alaska Native Brotherhood. Additional lives are described tangentially. Each biography or life history follows a standard format that includes vital statistics, genealogical information, names in Tlingit and English, and major achievements. But each is also unique. Like the lives they describe, all vary in length, detail, and style, depending on authorship and available human and archival resources. To the fullest extent possible oral and written material from the subjects and their families has been incorporated. Some is more anecdotal, some more historical. The appendixes include previously unpublished historical documents and Tlingit texts with facing translations. The lives in this volume show how individual people both shaped and were shaped by their time and place in history.

The Battles of Sitka (1802 and 1804) were seminal events in the history of the Tlingit people, in 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 frist 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. Northing could be further from the truth. The Tlingits saw themselves as victors even as they formally ceded to the Russian 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 has 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, travelers' 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, a glossary, and Tlingit and Russian name lists.

"This book explores Indigenous American literature and the development of an inter- and trans-Indigenous orientation in Native American and Indigenous literary studies. Drawing on the perspectives of scholars in the field, it seeks to reconcile tribal nation specificity, Indigenous literary nationalism, and trans-Indigenous methodologies as necessary components of post-Renaissance Native American and Indigenous literary studies. It looks at the work of Renaissance writers, including Louise Erdrich's Tracks (1988) and Leslie Marmon Silko's Sacred Water (1993), along with novels by S. Alice Callahan and John Milton Oskison. It also discusses Indigenous poetics and Salt Publishing's Earthworks series, focusing on poets of the Renaissance in conversation with emerging writers. Furthermore, it introduces contemporary readers to many American Indian writers from the seventeenth to the first half of the nineteenth century, from Captain Joseph Johnson and Ben Uncas to Samson Occom, Samuel Ashpo, Henry Quaquaquid, Joseph Brant, Hendrick Aupaumut, Sarah Simon, Mary Occom, and Elijah Wimpey. The book examines Inuit literature in Inuktitut, bilingual Mexicanoh and Spanish poetry, and literature in Indian Territory, Nunavut, the Huasteca, Yucatán, and the Great Lakes region. It considers Indigenous literatures north of the Medicine Line, particularly francophone writing by Indigenous authors in Quebec. Other issues tackled by the book include racial and blood identities that continue to divide Indigenous nations and communities, as well as the role of colleges and universities in the development of Indigenous literary studies".

This volume introduces the oral literature of Native American peoples in Puget Salish?speaking areas of western Washington. Seven stories told by Lushootseed elders are transcribed and translated into English, accompanied by information on narrative design and cultural background. Upper Skagit elder and cotranslator Vi Hilbert, a 1994 recipient of the NEH National Heritage Fellowship in Folk Arts, includes a cultural welcome and offers childhood reminiscences of the storytellers. Cotranslator Thomas M. Hess, associate professor of linguistics at the University of Victoria, parses the beginning lines of a text to show the grammatical structures; he also includes his recollections of working with the storytellers in the 1960s as a graduate student. Editor and cotranslator Crisca Bierwert, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, provides information on the processes of language translation and of rendering oral traditions into written form. Annotator T. C. S. Langen, who holds a Ph.D. in English literature and is a curriculum developer for the Tulalip tribe, provides analyses of Lushootseed poetics. The book includes information about purchasing audiotapes of the stories.

The myths and legends in this book have been selected both for their excellence as stories and because they illustrate the distinctive nature of Native American storytelling. A collection of Native American myths and legends. Selected for their excellence as stories, and because they illustrate the distinctive nature of Native American storytelling. Drawn from the oral traditions of all major areas of aboriginal North America. Reveals the highly practical functions of myths and legends in Native American societies. Illustrates American Indians’ profound engagement with their natural environment. Edited by an outstanding interpreter of Native American oral stories.

Being Lakota explores contemporary Lakota identity and tradition through the life-story narratives of Melda and Lupe Trejo. Melda Trejo, ne Red Bear (1939), is an Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge Reservation, while Lupe Trejo (193899) is Mexican and a long-time resident at Pine Ridge.