Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narratives
These gripping and powerful prose narratives relate monumental events in the lives of the forebears of Tlingit clans, from the prehistoric migration to the coast of Southeast Alaska to the first contact with Europeans. The stories were recorded from the 1960s to the present by twelve tradition bearers who where passing down for future generations the accounts of haa shuka, which means “our ancestors.” Their narratives tell of the origin of social and spiritual concepts and explain the complex relationships among members of a given clan to their relatives in other clans, to spirits of the land where the vents took place, to the spirits of departed ancestors, and to the spirits of various animals, including killer whale and bear.

The focus here is on the stories and story tellers themselves, who lived amazingly different lives, reflecting in a small way the complexity of Tlingit life in the twentieth century, a period characterized by unprecedented political, economic, and social change. The stories were told in Tlingit and then transcribed from the tape recorded versions. The editors have attempted to write these stories the way they were told, and to then translate them into English keeping the unique Tlingit oral style.

This book will be of interest to the general reader of Native American literature and comparative literature, as well as to folklorists, linguists, and anthropologists. Of special interest to linguist will be the new texts (transcribed in three different Tlingit dialects) containing many hitherto unattested grammatical forms.

1137062243
Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narratives
These gripping and powerful prose narratives relate monumental events in the lives of the forebears of Tlingit clans, from the prehistoric migration to the coast of Southeast Alaska to the first contact with Europeans. The stories were recorded from the 1960s to the present by twelve tradition bearers who where passing down for future generations the accounts of haa shuka, which means “our ancestors.” Their narratives tell of the origin of social and spiritual concepts and explain the complex relationships among members of a given clan to their relatives in other clans, to spirits of the land where the vents took place, to the spirits of departed ancestors, and to the spirits of various animals, including killer whale and bear.

The focus here is on the stories and story tellers themselves, who lived amazingly different lives, reflecting in a small way the complexity of Tlingit life in the twentieth century, a period characterized by unprecedented political, economic, and social change. The stories were told in Tlingit and then transcribed from the tape recorded versions. The editors have attempted to write these stories the way they were told, and to then translate them into English keeping the unique Tlingit oral style.

This book will be of interest to the general reader of Native American literature and comparative literature, as well as to folklorists, linguists, and anthropologists. Of special interest to linguist will be the new texts (transcribed in three different Tlingit dialects) containing many hitherto unattested grammatical forms.

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Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narratives

Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narratives

Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narratives

Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narratives

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Overview

These gripping and powerful prose narratives relate monumental events in the lives of the forebears of Tlingit clans, from the prehistoric migration to the coast of Southeast Alaska to the first contact with Europeans. The stories were recorded from the 1960s to the present by twelve tradition bearers who where passing down for future generations the accounts of haa shuka, which means “our ancestors.” Their narratives tell of the origin of social and spiritual concepts and explain the complex relationships among members of a given clan to their relatives in other clans, to spirits of the land where the vents took place, to the spirits of departed ancestors, and to the spirits of various animals, including killer whale and bear.

The focus here is on the stories and story tellers themselves, who lived amazingly different lives, reflecting in a small way the complexity of Tlingit life in the twentieth century, a period characterized by unprecedented political, economic, and social change. The stories were told in Tlingit and then transcribed from the tape recorded versions. The editors have attempted to write these stories the way they were told, and to then translate them into English keeping the unique Tlingit oral style.

This book will be of interest to the general reader of Native American literature and comparative literature, as well as to folklorists, linguists, and anthropologists. Of special interest to linguist will be the new texts (transcribed in three different Tlingit dialects) containing many hitherto unattested grammatical forms.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780295964959
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Publication date: 07/01/1987
Series: Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature , #1
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 532
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.19(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Nora Marks Dauenhauer (1927–2017) was a Tlingit author, poet, and scholar. She was a member of the Lukaax̱.ádi (Sockeye Salmon) clan and the Shaka Hít (Canoe Prow House) and Tlingit was her first language. She studied anthropology at Alaska Methodist (now Pacific) University in Anchorage. She authored numerous collections of poetry and prose and served as writer laureate of Alaska from 2012–2014.

Richard Dauenhauer (1942–2014) was a poet, linguist, and scholar of Tlingit culture. He earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 1975 from the University of Wisconsin, with a dissertation titled Text and Context of Tlingit Oral Tradition. He was a professor of literature at Alaska Methodist University and later of Alaska Native languages and culture at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. From 1981 to 1988, he was the poet laureate of Alaska.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Narratives

— Robert Zuboff, Basket Bay History

— Robert Zuboff, Mosquito

— A.P. Johnson, Kaax' achgook

— Willie Marks, Naatsilanei

— J.B. Fawcett, Naatsilanei

— Frank Johnson, Strong Man

— Willie Marks, Kaakex' wti

— Tom Peters, The Woman Who Married the Bear

— Frank Dick, Sr., The Woman Who Married the Bear

— J.B. Fawcett, Kaats'

— Susie James, Glacier Bay History

— Amy Marvin, Glacier Bay History

— Charlie White, First Russians

— Jennie White, Raven Boat

— George Betts, The Coming of the First White Man

Notes

Biographies

References

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