<p>For hundreds of generations, Alaska Native peoples have lived from the land through subsistence activities that include gathering, hunting and fishing. Throughout these years of observation, adaptation and trial-and-error method, their cultures have developed a wealth of Traditional Knowledge. Traditional Knowledge is term that refers to how Alaska Natives understand and explain the world around them, and how human beings should interact with the world. Traditional Knowledge includes Indigenous versions of all natural science fields: physics, chemistry, biology, cosmology and geology. As Alaska Natives learn to hunt, fish and gather with family and community members, they are practicing Traditional Knowledge, and also practicing forms of science. </p> <p>This curriculum aims to provide all students with resources to learn about Science – both Western science and Traditional Knowledge – and about their commonalities and differences. The lessons also aim to shine a light on the ways in which our climate is changing and how tools from these fields can be used to protect what is being threatened by these changes, including plants and wildlife. The curriculum seeks to empower students to see themselves as scientists who use the same skills as those used by people working in laboratories, museums and universities, and to see that they have the abilities to share information and educate people about what is affecting the natural resources that we all depend upon. </p> <p>This curriculum contains seven lessons designed for middle to high school students:</p> <p>Lesson 1: How Do We Know What We Know?</p> <p>Lesson 2: Ways of Knowing – Traditional Knowledge and Western Science</p> <p>Lesson 3: What Do We Harvest Locally? </p> <p>Lesson 4: How Can We Use Local Plants?</p> <p>Lesson 5: Making Dyes with Plants</p> <p>Lesson 6: Climate Change and Local Plants </p> <p>Lesson 7: How Can We Share? How Can We Help?</p> <p>Each lesson can fit into one to two 45-minute class periods and can be used independently of each other. Each lesson has sections: Learning Objectives, Materials, Background Reading for Educators, Instructions for Educators, Spotlight and Additional Educator Resources. Lessons also include: Readings, handouts, worksheets, answer keys and examples. At the end are correlation to standards. To learn more about making dyes with plants, visit the entry Batuk’enelyashi: Natural Dyes from Dena’ina Lands at <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/X1vr8AfwGB7dSc2R">https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/X1vr8AfwGB7dSc2R</a>. </p> <p><u>Written by:</u> Sierra Young, Anchorage Museum (2024)</p> <p><u>Edited by & site created by:</u> Dawn Biddison, Arctic Studies Center (Alaska office), National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution (2025)</p> <p><u>Use/Distribution:</u> For non-profit, educational purposes only and in respect of Alaska Native tangible and intangible cultural and intellectual property rights. For more information about these rights, please go the “Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights” section of the Alaska Native Knowledge Network website at http://ankn.uaf.edu/IKS/rights.html.</p>

<p>By Alice <em>Aluskak</em> Rearden (Yup'ik), 2009 <br></p> <p><strong>Sea, Land, Rivers</strong></p> <p>The Yup’ik homeland in southwest Alaska extends from Bristol Bay to Norton Sound and centers on the great delta where the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers reach the sea. It is a country of treeless tundra, countless lakes and low mountain ranges. Almost seventy Yup’ik communities are situated along the Bering Sea coast and lower courses of the two rivers, including the Kuskokwim village of Napakiak, where I grew up.</p> <p>Whenever I ask elders about the traditional way of life on this land, they always say, “<em>Caperrnarqellruuq</em> – how difficult, how daunting it was back then.” Previous generations had to master a wide range of specific knowledge that was critical to their survival. You can see the meticulous care they took in making their tools: with a harpoon, you had to know the right wood to use, where to attach the lines, and how to balance it perfectly so that it would be effective. The values they lived by—cooperation, generosity, diligence, humility and respect for others—were just as important as skill and knowledge in sustaining their communities.</p> <p>The contemporary Yup’ik lifestyle is easier than the traditional one, although people still work incredibly hard to provide for their families. We have Western schooling and such amenities as store-bought goods and clothing, although the cost of those things is high in rural Alaska. The environment around us remains the primary source of what we need, but it takes less effort to subsist by hunting and fishing with the guns, snow machines and other equipment that we depend on today than it took with the equipment of the past.</p> <p>My grandparents helped care for me during childhood, and they were hard-working people who taught us how to honor Yup’ik values and utilize the resources of the land. I remember my grandmother preparing and preserving the food that my grandfather brought home from the wilderness in different seasons—blackfish, whitefish, migratory birds, caribou and moose. He had a full-time job, but was an active subsistence hunter as well. My grandmother was very concerned that we never waste food. Although she did not explain it directly, I came to understand that she was concerned that such negligence would show disrespect to the animals and diminish my grandfather’s success as a hunter.</p> <p><strong>Community and Family</strong></p> <p>At a certain time a child becomes aware of life. A baby will be sitting and looking around when an expression of surprise and delight comes to her face. My mom will say “<em>Ellangartuq</em> – she has just become aware.” <em>Ella</em> is the word for awareness, but it also means weather, the world, the universe; as human beings we gradually wake up to a consciousness of all that exists. Different stages of awareness occur during a child’s growth. For that reason it is important to be extremely careful around babies; their early perceptions will shape the rest of their lives. They will be stronger people later on if they have a quiet environment where they are never startled, or scared, or exposed to inappropriate behavior.</p> <p>I grew up speaking Yup’ik as my first language and was also one of the first children to benefit from the bilingual education program that was started in the Napakiak schools. From kindergarten through elementary school I took classes that were taught in Yup’ik, and during those years I learned to read and write the language. Later on I took a Yup’ik course at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and after graduation used my training to work as a Yup’ik transcriber and translator. The work was extremely difficult at first! I was not an expert in the subtleties of grammar and structure, and the speakers used terminology that was new to me. I had to ask many people about some of the words and to check that I fully understood their meanings. I was excited by what I was doing and found it rewarding to learn new aspects of Yup’ik culture and history.</p> <p>In listening to elders’ words, I have been impressed by the passion they feel about young people learning to appreciate the traditional values so that they can lead better lives and contribute to the health of their communities. Elders see how much has been lost as a result of cultural and material change and the shift away from Yup’ik ways of learning, being and speaking. Alcoholism, loss of respect for others, broken families and hopelessness come from losing that vital connection to cultural knowledge and identity.</p> <p><strong>Ceremony and Celebration</strong></p> <p>Our traditional spiritual life was based on the recognition that all things have <em>ella</em>, awareness. Elders were taught that if you are out walking and see a piece of driftwood sticking out of the mud, you should pull it out and turn it over so that the muddy part can dry. That piece of wood is alive and aware, and it will feel gratitude for your kindness.</p> <p>Elders have told us about the masked dance ceremonies of the past. The winter celebrations honored the <em>yuit</em>, or inner persons, of the animals, and the dances were a kind of prayer that asked for these spirits to give their physical bodies to meet the needs of the community. Shamans made carvings or masks representing animals – walrus, caribou, seals and others. When the masks were danced in the <em>qasgiq</em> (community house), it was a petition for those animals to return in the spring. During <em>Nakaciuryaraq</em>, the Bladder Festival, the bladders of seals that had been taken by hunters during the year were returned to the sea through a hole in the ice, allowing those seals to be reborn in new bodies.</p> <p><em>Kevgiq</em>, the Messenger Feast, was a spring festival for sharing and bringing communities together. People worked hard throughout the year, gathering plants, hunting furs and harvesting food, and <em>Kevgiq</em> was a time to distribute some of what they had earned to others. Parents were especially proud if one of their children had contributed to the family’s effort for the first time – a son who brought home his first game or a daughter who caught a pike through the ice. Those events were recognized as rites of passage that meant the child was beginning a lifetime of providing for kin and community. By giving away at <em>Kevgiq</em>, a family ensured the future success of its children and the prosperity of the whole group. Villages still carry out the Messenger Feast tradition of inviting guests from other places and distributing presents to them. The dancing and gift-giving represent the same values as in the past, even if some of the items are store-bought goods. It is about giving generously to others and celebrating the success of the subsistence harvest.</p> <p>Note: This is shortened version of a longer essay from the Smithsonian book <em>Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska</em>.</p> <hr> <p>Tags: Yup'ik, Alaska Native, Indigenous, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska (#arcticstudies)</p>

<p>In the education unit “Yup’ik Ingenuity: Local Materials,” students learn about the Yup’ik people of Alaska and how they have made what they needed from natural resources obtained locally. Students make connections with sustainable harvesting, renewable resources, recycling and upcycling. Photographs with in-depth captions provide information about Yup’ik people in the past and today. A map shows geographic context. Museum items provide cultural heritage examples and feature Elders' discussions for learning directly from community members, and many include historical summaries. In an essay, school teacher Dora <em>Apurin</em> Strunk writes about the usefulness of local grasses in the Yup’ik village of Quinhagak, Alaska. Questions and activities in the unit help students understand and apply what they have read, and find shared cultural values in their own lives. To learn about weaving grass from Yup'ik experts, visit this Learning Lab entry: <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/sbmuMYcg9n5Gv0QC">https://learninglab.si.edu/q/l...</a></p> <p>Contributor: <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/profile/78098">Dawn Biddison</a></p> <hr> <p><strong>Tags: </strong>Alaska, Alaska Native, Indigenous, Yup’ik, Alaska Native art, weaving, grass basket, grass bag, grass carrying-bag, issran, taperrnaq, seashore grass, Elymus arenarius, Elymus mollis, subsistence, traditional ecological knowledge, maker, activity, museum, museum objects, artifacts, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska, distance learning, culturally responsive, culturally-responsive (#arcticstudies)</p> <p></p>

<p>Athabascan peoples harvested porcupine to eat and also carefully processed its quills into a fine material to beautify special items. Some artists continue to use quill in their work. In 2013, the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska hosted the Dene Quill Art project, bringing together Koyukon Athabascan artists Shirley May Holmberg and Emma Hildbrand with ethnographic conservator Nancy Fonicello to share quillwork techniques and develop new ones by studying historic museum pieces. They shared their expertise with students, museum visitors and local Alaska Native artists, along with conservators who learned how to better care for quillwork objects in museum collections. The video set presented here introduces participants and provides detailed demonstrations of how to work with quill from cleaning and dying, to sewing, wrapping folding and weaving. Links to a selection of Alaska Native objects from the Smithsonian collections made with porcupine quill are included below.</p> <p>NOTE: The knowledge that Alaska Natives (Indigenous peoples of Alaska) have shared on this site is their cultural heritage, and they have cultural property rights for this knowledge. Please utilize what you learn from Alaska Natives with respect to their rights, which includes not using what you learn for personal gain such as selling artwork derived from this knowledge. To learn more about how to appreciate Alaska Native cultures respectfully, please go to the collection <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/Ha7AjCcnSBrgNbJt#r/44789">https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/Ha7AjCcnSBrgNbJt#r/44789</a><br>on this site where you will find a video and additional resources to learn more.</p> <p>Contributor: <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/profile/78098">Dawn Biddison</a></p> <p><strong>Tags: </strong>Alaska, Native art, Alaska Native, Indigenous, Athabascan, Dene, museum, education, Indigenous, quill, porcupine, conservator, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska (#arcticstudies)<br></p>

<p>The Sewing Salmon project was hosted in 2012 by the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center at the Anchorage Museum in Alaska and brought together three contemporary Alaska Native artists: Audrey Armstrong (Koyukon Athabascan), Coral Chernoff (Sugpiaq) and Marlene Nielsen (Yup'ik). Together they learned and taught about creating work from salmon skin through studying historic museum objects and through sharing and comparing techniques they developed. Each artist has a commitment to this almost-lost art and shared their knowledge with students and visitors, and with curators and conservators who care for museum collections. The video set presented here introduces the artists and their techniques. Links to a selection of Alaska Native objects from the Smithsonian collections made from salmon skin are included below.</p> <p>This project was made possible through the generous support of Alaska State Council on the Arts & National Endowment for the Arts, Anchorage Museum, and the generous supporters of the Arctic Studies Center in Alaska.</p> <p>NOTE: The knowledge that Alaska Natives (Indigenous peoples of Alaska) have shared on this site is their cultural heritage, and they have cultural property rights for this knowledge. Please utilize what you learn from Alaska Natives with respect to their rights, which includes not using what you learn for personal gain such as selling artwork derived from this knowledge. To learn more about how to appreciate Alaska Native cultures respectfully, please go to the collection <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/Ha7AjCcnSBrgNbJt#r/44789">https://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/Ha7AjCcnSBrgNbJt#r/44789</a><br>on this site where you will find a video and additional resources to learn more.</p> <p>Contributor: <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/profile/78098">Dawn Biddison</a><br></p> <p><strong>Tags: </strong>Alaska, Native art, museum, education, Indigenous, sew, salmon, fish skin, Athabascan, Sugpiaq, Alutiiq, Yup'ik, Iñupiaq, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska (#arcticstudies)</p>

<p>Alaska Native heritage is woven from the beliefs, values, knowledge and arts of the Iñupiaq, Athabascan, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Yup'ik, Unangax̂, Sugpiaq, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples. Their diverse languages, cultures and histories are the foundation for contemporary lives. </p> <p>We invite teachers, students, parents and lifelong learners to explore Alaska Native cultures, museum objects, communities, videos and educational resources shared here. Learn about the peoples of this northern world from elders, culture-bearers, scholars and artists: <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/org/sasc-ak">https://learninglab.si.edu/org/sasc-ak</a>.</p> <p><strong>About Us:</strong> In 1994, the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center (ASC) opened an office in Alaska at the Anchorage Museum, where staff members work with Alaska Natives on collaborative research and educational programs. In 2010, ASC opened the long-term exhibition <em>Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska</em>. It presents Indigenous voices, perspectives and knowledge through more than 600 masterworks of Alaska Native art and design from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian collections. Through their ongoing work, the ASC makes Smithsonian resources accessible to Alaska Natives and the general public.</p>

<p>Alaska is home to over 100,000 Indigenous residents who represent twenty distinctive cultures and languages. The maps show cities, towns and villages where most people live today, but depict Alaska Native territories as they existed in about 1890, before the main influx of Euro-American settlers. </p> <hr> <p>Map information is courtesy of Michael Krauss, Igor Krupnik, Ives Goddard and the Alaska Native Language Center (University of Alaska Fairbanks). Maps courtesy of the <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/org/sasc-ak">Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center</a>. </p> <p>(#arcticstudies)</p>

<p><strong>The Tsimshian People and Their Culture</strong></p> <p>By David Boxley (Tsimshian), 2009 <br></p> <p><strong><strong>Land, Sea, Rivers</strong></strong></p> <p>Most Tsimshian live along the coast of northern British Columbia between the Nass River and Queen Charlotte Sound. The shores and islands are covered by northern rain forests of hemlock, spruce, fir, red cedar and yellow cedar, woods that were the basic raw materials of our culture. Tsimshian territory extends into the mountainous interior as well, following the valley of the Skeena River.</p> <p>At one time at least eight thousand Tsimshian lived there, located in twenty winter villages and many seasonal camps. Today about thirty-five hundred live in seven Canadian towns. In 1862, a Tsimshian group led by an Anglican missionary, William Duncan, broke away from Fort Simpson to found a religious colony at Old Metlakatla. Twenty-five years later they moved again, building New Metlakatla on Annette Island, in southeast Alaska. Generations have lived there since, and that is the community in which I was born and grew up. I was very fortunate to be raised by my grandfather and grandmother, Albert and Dora Bolton, who gave me a strong foundation in our culture. When I was young they took me with them to their fish camps and on trips all over our island for subsistence activities.</p> <p>Most people still rely a great deal on fish, seals, berries and other traditional foods, supplemented by commercial fishing and other sources of cash income. In historical times, the year’s food gathering began in spring when the ice broke up on the Nass River and the eulachon began running there. People traveled from their winter villages to harvest the fish in nets, drying some and fermenting and boiling the rest to extract the oil. Trade in eulachon grease, which no other people could produce in such quantity, was one of the sources of Tsimshian wealth and prosperity. In spring they also gathered seaweed and herring eggs, fished for halibut, and collected bird eggs and abalone. During summer and fall they relocated to fishing sites on the rivers to catch salmon with weirs and traps, drying and smoking them for winter. At the winter villages they gathered clams, cockles and mussels, and if you visit those old settlements today you can still see the mounds of discarded shells. At different times of the year they hunted seals, sea lions, deer, elk, mountain goats and mountain sheep.</p> <p>Archaeological sites in Prince Rupert Harbour demonstrate that this way of life goes back at least five thousand years. Crest objects such as chiefs’ headdresses and masks are connected to origin stories and to the succession of clan leaders who have owned and passed them down to their descendants, along with name titles and titles to land. This is important in British Columbia where the Tsimshian Nation is attempting to reclaim territories that were taken by the Canadian government in the 1870s. Crest objects and the histories attached to them validate those aboriginal claims and link the people to specific places on the land where they lived and harvested food in the old days.</p> <p><strong>Family and Community</strong></p> <p>My people are divided into four equal groups. Each is a <em>pteex</em> (clan) with its own principal crest: Eagle (<em>Laxsgiik</em>), Raven (<em>Ganhada</em>), Wolf (<em>Laxgibuu</em>), and Killer Whale (<em>Gisbutwada</em>). Crests are symbols of matrilineal connection, so whatever <em>pteex</em> your mother comes from, you will be the same. Because clans marry out, your father will be from a different one of the four. Within each <em>pteex</em> are multiple lineages, like branches on a family tree. Eagle, Raven, Wolf, and Killer Whale each have as many as twenty-five subcrests, a few available that are to everyone in the clan and the rest limited to certain branches. As a <em>Laxsgiik</em>, I may use the Eagle, Beaver, and Halibut crests; I inherited other, more restricted crests from my close maternal ancestors.</p> <p>Crests represent social identity and its corresponding rights and privileges. Crest images appear on robes, button blankets, headdresses and other regalia that people wear at potlatches to show their ancestry. They are shown on ceremonial drums, staffs and rattles; on dishes and ladles used for serving food at potlatch feasts; and on the totem poles, house fronts, posts and screens of traditional lineage houses.</p> <p>If you could go back in time to visit a coastal Tsimshian village of two centuries ago, you would see our social system at work. The community is built along the shore, with palisades around back to guard against possible attack from land. You arrive by canoe and announce your person and business while still afloat, waiting for permission to land. Jumping ashore without proper protocol would have been life threatening in those days. Coming up from the beach in the company of your hosts, you see the big red-cedar longhouses, lined up in a row with their doorways facing the water. Each is home to thirty or forty people, most of them matrilineal relatives but including wives and children of other clans.</p> <p>The village chief’s house is the largest and is located in a central position. Its painted front panels show his crests. The other dwellings are positioned in relation to the chief’s house according to the social ranking of their household heads. In front of prestigious homes are totem poles, carved with crest emblems and figures. Poles are sculptural narratives, telling who lives in a house, the ancient origin and recent history of their lineage, and the achievements of their deceased chiefs and nobles.</p> <p>Entering one of the longhouses requires that you stoop down to pass through a low door, a vulnerable position for any would-be attacker. Depending on the status of the house, the interior is lined with one or more levels of wood-planked sleeping platforms, like wide bleachers that step down to the central fire pit. The platforms are divided into family living areas, cordoned off with mats or boards. The house chief and his family have a private apartment at the far end of the house, behind a carved and painted wooden screen. Inside the house you see lots of preserved food—dried salmon and halibut, bentwood boxes filled with fish oil, seal grease, and berries; containers of dried meat. All of this came from hunting and fishing territories owned by the house members.</p> <p>The original Tsimshian way of life began to change when British, Spanish and American fur traders arrived in the late 1700s. The Hudson’s Bay Company built Fort Simpson at the mouth of the Nass River in 1831, and missionaries of several Christian denominations came to work among the Tsimshian, Haida and Tlingit people who had gathered near the fort for trade. The missionaries were successful at converting a large part of the population, which was in rapid decline as a result of smallpox and other new diseases. The people gave up their traditional beliefs, ended their ceremonies and even cut down many of the totem poles.</p> <p>The converts who followed William Duncan from Fort Simpson to Old Metlakatla and then to Alaska were making a new start, trying to survive in a world that was rapidly changing. Now, more than one hundred years later, Metlakatla is a pretty distinctive place. Little about its everyday appearance would remind a visitor of the lifeways of the past, but we are still proudly Tsimshian, with a strong sense of our unique identity. Our language, <em>Sm’Algyax</em>, has changed from the way it is spoken in Canada, and unfortunately Metlakatla has only a few fluent speakers left, all elders. That frightens me, and I’ve been trying very hard to hold on to what I know and to learn more. We are who we are, but we are what our language makes us, too.</p> <p><strong>Ceremony and Celebration</strong></p> <p><em>Halaayt</em> is spirit power, which comes from above. It gave chiefs and high-ranking people the knowledge and strength they needed to be leaders and to make good decisions. <em>Halaayt</em> enabled them to be the link between their people and the next world, where our ancestors dwell, and to communicate with the spirits of animals. The frontlet of a chief’s ceremonial headdress was a symbol of his <em>halaayt</em>. The face in the center was a crest, surrounded by abalone, sea lion whiskers, feathers and ermine fur. The chief’s headdress, woven robe and Raven rattle all represented his leadership and spiritual power.</p> <p>Historically, potlatch feasts celebrated events and transitions in the community – death, marriage, the completion of a new house, the raising of a totem pole, or the settlement of a dispute between clans. The largest and most important of these feasts were memorial potlatches, when new chiefs were installed and took the names of their predecessors. Potlatches have always been based on a whole system of reciprocity. During the feast, hosts of one clan recognize and repay debts that they have incurred through services given to them by people of other clans, who come as guests.</p> <p>Three things are essential to a potlatch. First, it has to be done publicly. The guests are there to serve as witnesses to what is taking place, and that is what makes it legal. Second, the hosts have to gift every guest in payment for his or her witness. Finally, everyone must be fed and fed very well. More than they need. The food they take home with them is another gift.</p> <p>In 1982, I set out to organize Metlakatla’s first potlatch. For our community it would be the revival of a tradition that we had left behind over a century before in the historical move to Alaska. Many potlatches have been held in Metlakatla since then, and one of the largest was in 1994. It was originally planned as a celebration of my grandfather’s hundredth birthday, but it became his memorial after he passed away at age ninety-eight. I realized that in order for the potlatch to happen on the scale that I had hoped, it would have to include all four clans. Their involvement not only ensured the amazing success of the event but also paved the way for the future, because so many participated and learned so much. We fed a thousand people every evening, three totem poles were raised, and over fifty-five button robes were dedicated on the first night alone. I feel lucky to have come along when I did, at a time when it was right for these changes to take place. The way I grew up, and the gifts of language and culture that my grandparents gave me, prepared me for the journey. </p> <p>Note: This is shortened version of a longer essay from the Smithsonian book <em>Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska</em>.</p> <hr> <p>Tags: Tsimshian Alaska Native, Indigenous, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska (#arcticstudies)</p>

<p>By Jeane Breinig (Haida), 2009 <br></p> <p><strong>Sea, Land, Rivers</strong></p> <p>It’s an endless cycle – gathering food, putting it up, sharing it among the people. Subsistence is fundamental to our being, even for city-dwellers. Every summer since the kids were little, we would return to Kasaan to join in harvesting activities with family and friends. Our traditions pass on through the foods, the seasons and the generations. I am Haida <em>Yáahl-Xúuts </em>(Raven–Brown Bear), of the <em>Taslaanas</em> clan (The Sandy Beach People) at Kasaan, Alaska. By the custom of our matrilineal society, I trace my descent and clan affiliation through my mother, her mother and a long line of Raven women going back through the centuries.</p> <p>Haida identities are linked to the history of our people. Alaskan Haida look south to Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands, Canada) as their ancestral homeland. The present villages of Masset and Skidegate were the only settlements that remained after a smallpox epidemic ravaged Haida Gwaii in 1862. Survivors from at least seventeen other communities found refuge there. Alaskan Haida are the descendants of emigrants who left Haida Gwaii sometime before European contact. Residents of Old Kasaan, one of the original Alaskan villages, moved to (New) Kasaan in 1902, and people from Howkan, Klinkwan, and other early Alaskan Haida settlements consolidated at Hydaburg in 1911. The distance from northern Haida Gwaii to Prince of Wales Island is not great, only about thirty-five miles. It is easy to imagine our forebears going across in their canoes: the Haida are justly famous as seafarers and boat builders. Our red-cedar canoes, some large enough to carry forty passengers, traveled up and down the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia and were sought in trade by Tlingit, Tsimshian and other peoples.</p> <p>When the salmon start jumping in Kasaan Bay, it’s time to begin gathering the foods of our land. We pick <em>s<u>g</u>hiw</em> (black seaweed) during the minus tides of May, when you can get out to the rocks where it grows. They spread it out on flat rocks to dry in the sun, took it home in gunnysacks, ground it up, and stored it as a savory food for winter. We love to eat it by the handful or sprinkle it on fish soup. As the summer goes on we fish for halibut and the different species of salmon that arrive in our waters. Sockeye from the Karta River, a staple of the diet in Kasaan, are smoked and preserved using an endless variety of family recipes. Clams, abalone, “gumboots” (chitons), crabs and shrimp are also harvested, and salmonberries, blueberries and huckleberries are picked as they ripen in succession. The men go deer hunting in the fall. Another staple is hooligan (eulachon) oil or “grease,” called <em>satáw</em> in the Haida language. Haida traditionally bartered for fish grease and soapberries from the Tsimshian in exchange for our dried seaweed and halibut. That kind of trading still goes on at the annual Alaska Federation of Natives convention every October, when everyone brings specialties from home to exchange for favorite foods from other places.</p> <p><strong>Family and Community</strong></p> <p>In a traditional Haida village, cedar-plank longhouses stood side by side, each paired with a tall pole displaying the crest animals of the clan members who resided there. An opening through base of the pole, representing the mouth or stomach of the lowest crest figure, served as the doorway to some houses. Like other southeast Alaskan peoples, the Haida are socially divided between Ravens and Eagles, each half (moiety) composed of numerous matrilineal clans. Traditional marriages were always between a member of a Raven clan and a member of an Eagle clan. The residents of a longhouse included multiple generations of male clan members and women of other clans who came there to live with their husbands.</p> <p>Much of a child’s education was the responsibility of clan mentors outside the nuclear family: for a boy, this was his maternal uncle, and for a girl, her maternal aunt. On their pathways to adulthood, children received the names of ancestors, as well as piercings and tattoos that signified their clan and rank. Children still learn through watching and participating in the activities of the community. Our oral tradition is another participatory way of learning. Elders teach through stories, although the message may be indirect. If you seek an elder’s counsel, you might hear a tale about another place and time. It is up to you to think about the meaning and apply it to your own life.</p> <p>The worst horrors of Haida contact with the West were waves of epidemic disease – smallpox, influenza, tuberculosis, whooping cough and others – that consumed the aboriginal population, unchecked by natural immunity. Perhaps fourteen thousand Haida in the 1780s had withered to six hundred by 1915. It is hard to imagine loss on that scale, not only of life, but also of culture and heritage. Most of the clan leadership was gone, and consolidation of the widespread population into just a few villages almost destroyed the complex social system as it had functioned until then.</p> <p>Haida oral literature is renowned for its epic tales of battles and migrations, transformations from animals to human beings and vice versa, and journeys to spirit worlds in the sky and underwater. Other Haida tales, especially Raven stories, are simply fun with a touch of mystery. Raven, the comical trickster is always in trouble. Elders say that he turned black by getting stuck in the smoke hole of a house and being too fat and lazy to escape.</p> <p>Today there are fewer than a dozen fluent Alaskan Haida speakers. I am fortunate that my mother, Julie Coburn, is one of them. Her Haida name is <em>Wahlgidouk</em>, “Giver of Gifts,” meaning a person who brings in presents to be distributed at a ceremonial giveaway, or potlatch. She has been giving the gifts of language and literature throughout her life. Keeping her language was a kind of heroism under all the pressures for acculturation. Her parents, concerned about their children’s survival in Western culture, spoke Haida to them at home but asked them to answer in English. At her boarding school in Sitka, speaking Haida was harshly punished. But as an adult in her fifties, she recognized that the language was fading away, so she relearned it and now has had the good fortune also to teach others. She participated in the Haida Society for the Preservation of Haida Language and Literature and contributed to work accomplished at the Alaska Native Language Center when Haida elders developed a standardized writing system.</p> <p><strong>Ceremony and Celebration</strong></p> <p>In 1880, Chief Son-I-Hat built <em>Neyúwens</em> ("Great House") near Kasaan Bay, a mile from the location where New Kasaan was later founded. That structure, today called the Whale House, was restored in 1938 by Haida craftsmen working for the Civilian Conservation Corps. The restoration included the house’s crest pole and carved interior posts, which portray <em>Coon-Ahts</em>, a legendary figure who captured the monster <em>Gonaqadate</em> and put on his skin to hunt whales. Surrounding the house are additional totem poles brought over from Old Kasaan and restored, along with copies of several more. The Whale House is the only surviving traditional Haida clan house in Alaska.</p> <p>The English word potlatch has been used for traditional Haida ceremonies that centered on feasting, dancing and the distribution of property by chiefs and other leaders. The Haida word is <em>'wáahlaal</em>. The largest potlatches marked the completion of a new clan house or the death of a chief and succession of his heir. Chief Son-I-Hat, one of the wealthiest Haida leaders, hosted numerous potlatches before his death in 1912. Potlatches were outlawed by the Canadian government in 1884, and they were discouraged by Christian missionaries who came to the Haida region in the 1870s and 1880s.</p> <p>Despite attempts to suppress of our traditional ceremonies, we still hold feasts and memorial potlatches, but now in transformed ways. Traditionally, potlatches represented a time for the deceased person’s clan to repay those from other clans who had helped them at the time of the death. In many respects, a potlatch can be viewed as a social occasion but with very formal aspects, acknowledging the sadness of the loss but also marking the end of mourning. Potlatches are also the time to repay those who have served as witnesses for naming ceremonies. By accepting a gift, recipients acknowledge that the name is legally granted within the traditional Haida system.</p> <p>We are celebrating and revitalizing Haida culture in southeast Alaska. Teaching the language and rebuilding the Whale House are just a part of it. Every summer in Kasaan, a culture camp for the kids is held, with storytelling, dancing and subsistence activities. They want to learn and are so proud of their heritage. What does it mean to be Haida? The answer now is different from that of the past, obviously. We need to know our history and learn from it. We need to know our culture and draw strength from it. We need to make it work for us today.</p> <p>Note: This is shortened version of a longer essay from the Smithsonian book <em>Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska</em>.</p> <hr> <p>Tags: Haida, Alaska Native, Indigenous, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska (#arcticstudies)</p>

<p><strong>The Sugpiaq (Alutiiq) People and Their Culture</strong></p> <p>By Gordon L. Pullar (Sugpiaq), 2009<br></p> <p><strong>Sea, Land, Rivers</strong></p> <p>The Sugpiaq homeland is large, spanning Prince William Sound, the Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak Island, and the Alaska Peninsula. Our climate is wet and stormy but mild. Massive glaciers flow from the high coastal mountains, but the sea remains unfrozen. Spruce forests cover the eastern areas but dwindle in the west, so that much of Kodiak Island and the Alaska Peninsula are treeless, windswept tundra. Along our coasts you can fish for salmon, halibut and crabs, hunt seals or sea lions, and walk the shore at low tide to collect shellfish and seaweed. Depending on the season you might search out an octopus under beach rocks, gather eggs on a seabird island, pick berries or go hunting in the hills for bears, caribou or deer.</p> <p>Traditional Sugpiaq hunting depended on the <em>qayaq</em> (kayak) and <em>angyaq </em>(large open boat), both covered with seal or sea lion skins. Ancestral equipment included throwing boards, harpoons and arrows. Many communities today depend on commercial fishing for cash income, but in recent years that industry has faltered. Part of the problem today is the high cost of fuel for boats and home heating. An increasing number of people can no longer afford to stay in the villages and are migrating to cities such as Kodiak and Anchorage.</p> <p>When the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in 1989 people were deeply shocked and depressed. Eleven million gallons of oil poured into Prince William Sound and then drifted west on the wind and currents, polluting fifteen hundred miles of shoreline. The huge spill coincided roughly with the geographic boundaries of the Sugpiaq culture area. Most sea life eventually recovered, but the communities that relied most heavily on fishing and coastal subsistence were disrupted for years and suffered deep economic losses. Today oil can still be found on the beaches, lying just below the rocks and sand. Its pollution still leaches slowly into the sea.</p> <p><strong>Community and Family</strong></p> <p>History has proven the Sugpiaq people to be highly resilient, despite the traumatic events of conquest and oppression. Russian traders in search of sea otter furs first conquered and then enslaved the Native population of southern Alaska. In 1784 a force led by Grigorii Shelikhov used guns and cannons to slaughter hundreds of Sugpiaq men, women and children on Kodiak Island. Men were forced to hunt otters in fleets of kayaks, sometimes paddling hundreds of miles and being gone from their homes for months at a time. Others had to provision the Russians with whales, fish and game. Women prepared plant foods, dried fish and clothing for the traders. During these years people suffered from disease and malnutrition. It was a dark, traumatic period when many thousands died.</p> <p>After 1818 reform in the management of the Russian-American Company brought some relief. Alaska Natives officially became employees instead of slaves. Atrocities ended, and health care and education systems were put in place. Missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church were influential in seeking better conditions. The U.S. government took over Alaska in 1867. In the new government and mission schools, children were beaten for speaking either Sugcestun or Russian. Educational policies were aimed at bringing about the assimilation of all to American speech, values and beliefs.</p> <p>This history created complex feelings about identity. During two hundred years of Western contact and cultural change, Indigenous identity had been devalued and even shamed. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971 put a new twist on the situation. Anyone who had a one-quarter of Native blood was eligible to enroll, meaning that he or she would receive shares in the village and regional Native corporations. This was the first time for many that being Native had any positive benefits. The new opportunity generated tension when people redefined themselves and heard comments such as “He was never a Native before land claims!”</p> <p>There was much turmoil, infighting, and litigation during the early days of ANCSA. The Kodiak Area Native Association (KANA), a nonprofit established to pursue land claims and later ran Native health and education programs, came under fire. When I became president of KANA in 1983, I was asked to rebuild the organization. Elders advised that the biggest reason for our problems was that people had lost touch with who they were. They didn’t know their history, and the traditional values of sharing and cooperation had been lost. We turned our efforts to cultural rebuilding through dance, traditional arts, kayak building, language renewal, archaeology, oral history, youth-elder programs and more. The idea was to build knowledge, pride, visibility and self-esteem as a pathway for healing. From the beginning we wanted to have a museum and cultural center that people would feel belonged to them and where they could celebrate their culture. The Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository opened its doors in 1995 and has realized the vision we held.</p> <p><strong>Ceremony and Celebration</strong></p> <p>Most Sugpiat have a firm belief that if not for the Russian Orthodox Church, the people would have been lost entirely. The population was in serious decline when Orthodox monks traveled to Kodiak in the 1790s. They were shocked at the conditions they saw, and the Church exerted its influence with the czar to ameliorate illegal practices of the Russian-American Company. That is why the Orthodox faith was embraced and why it has persisted so strongly to the present day.</p> <p>Sugpiaq people recognized connections and similarities between their own spiritual concepts and those of the new religion. They believed in <em><u>L</u>am Sua</em>, the “person of the universe,” who as a supreme and all-knowing deity became equated with God. Their <em>kassat</em> (wise men) consulted with deities subordinate to <em><u>L</u>am Sua</em> and directed the performance of religious ceremonies. In these functions they were similar to priests who conducted Orthodox worship.</p> <p>Traditional hunting ceremonies, held in October through March, were a means of communicating with sky gods and the spirits of animals. Performances and rituals wove together the arts of song, narrative, masking and dance. Visitors were invited from neighboring villages to share in rich feasts, gift giving and trade. These rituals continued in some communities until the late 1800s, coexisting with widespread Orthodox conversion. Over time, the Native practice of Russian Orthodoxy has absorbed certain aspects of the older winter ceremonies.</p> <p>Cultural revitalization has taken hold in the Sugpiaq region since the 1980s, bringing new confidence and visibility to our people and culture. We have come a long way since the days when many suffered embarrassment and even shame to see the dance, regalia and cultural vibrancy of other Alaska Native peoples while not having our own to share publicly. We’ve listened to elders, encouraged Native language and arts, and reconsidered the meaning of events, some terrible and traumatic, that shaped who we are today. Sugpiaq young people have gained an appreciation for their rightful place in the world.</p> <p>Note: This is shortened version of a longer essay from the Smithsonian book <em>Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska</em>.</p> <hr> <p>Tags: Sugpiaq, Alutiiq, Alaska Native, Indigenous, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska (#arcticstudies)</p>

<p>By <em>Paapi</em> Merlin Koonooka (St. Lawrence Island Yupik), 2009<br></p> <p><strong>Sea, Land, Rivers</strong></p> <p><em>Sivuqaq</em>, the Yupik name for St. Lawrence Island, rises out of the Bering Sea in the heart of a vast and bountiful marine ecosystem. All around us, depending on the time of year, we have walrus, whales and seals. Standing on the point at Gambell, you can watch ducks and seabirds flying by in endless motion over the sea. Our island lies just below the Arctic Circle, so the winters are long and often extreme. The wind gusts at fifty miles per hour, and the wind chill can get to minus fifty degrees Fahrenheit or lower. When spring and summer bring longer daylight and new life, people travel out from the villages of Gambell and Savoonga to their hunting and fishing camps around the island. Many of those places are ancient settlements where our ancestors lived up to two thousand years ago.</p> <p>I was born and raised in Gambell and have been a subsistence hunter there for my entire life, going back to when we traveled with dog teams instead of on snow machines and all-terrain vehicles. Marine mammals, fish, birds, eggs, reindeer and wild plants are important in the island diet throughout the year, far more so than store-bought foods. On the tundra and mountainsides people gather <em>ququngaq</em> (willow leaf), <em>nunivak</em> (roseroot), <em>angukaq</em> (dwarf fireweed) and various edible roots. In late summer the <em>aqavzik</em> (cloudberry) and <em>pagunghaq</em> (crowberry) ripen.</p> <p>Walrus have always been essential to our way of life. We hunt them in open water and later on the frozen ocean, making use of nearly everything as either food or material. The meat and fat are bundled into large <em>tuugtuq</em> (meatballs) to store in underground food cellars, and in the past that meat sustained our dog teams as well. Good-quality hides of female walrus are stretched, split, cured and stitched to cover the <em>angyapik</em> (hunting boat). Walrus stomachs become heads for drums, and their intestines, ivory and whiskers are transformed into adornment and art. Our predecessors used the skins to make tough rope and covers for the <em>nenglu</em> (traditional house) and interior <em>aargha</em> (sleeping room). They spun walrus sinew into thread and carved the tusks into tools and sled runners.</p> <p>I am a whaling captain like my grandfather, granduncles and father before me, and I serve on the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission. Traditionally, the captain prepared for whaling in a religious way, using charms, special songs and rituals that showed the great respect we feel for this animal. While these rituals are no longer practiced, strict hunting protocols and the responsibility of the captain remain unchanged. A bowhead whale is so immense and powerful that hunters, even though armed with modern weapons, are really at its mercy. We use skin-covered boats and sails rather than motors during the approach, keeping absolute silence, because whales have a very sharp sense of hearing. But they know we are there even if there is no sound. That is why we say that a whale decides to let itself be taken, not the other way around. One whale provides an abundance of food that is shared with families on the island and across Alaska.</p> <p>Our hunting lifestyle has never been harmful to the animal species. Nature has her own way of opening up the ice and sea for us or withholding access. During storms we have to stay at home and wait for a change. When the weather is nice, the conditions may still not be right for going out, even if walrus are floating by on top of the ice floes. Sometimes we will be punished this way if we’ve failed in our respect. But as long as the creatures make themselves available to us, we will gather them for food and traditional needs.</p> <p><strong><br></strong></p> <p><strong>Community and Family</strong><br></p> <p>The people of the island have close ties to the Yupik communities of Ungaziq and Sireniki on the Siberian coast, and we speak dialects of the same language. Before the cold war began in the late 1940s, our families traveled back and forth to visit, trade and seek marriage partners. The forty-mile trip took a full day in a skin boat using sail and paddles. Visits resumed in the 1980s after glasnost took hold in Russia, and now with a fast powerboat and calm seas, the crossing takes only two or three hours.</p> <p>Some of my best memories from childhood are of traveling with my dad. He had a wonderful dog team, and in the wintertime we would go on the sled to trap white fox. Even in the summer we’d take it across the gravel and tundra. When I started raising a family I did the same thing. We would hitch up a team of twelve dogs to pull our heavy sled, which was nine feet long with steel runners. As a child you really look forward to going out with your parents and elders for food gathering and hunting, because you want to learn.</p> <p>I sometimes think of early days when everyone was living in <em>nenglut</em> (traditional houses). They would go seal hunting on the ice, pulling whale baleen toboggans behind them to bring back the meat. You had a backpack and a rifle slung over your shoulders and an ice tester to see where it was safe to walk. You had to observe the ice and the direction it was moving, making sure not to get caught on an outgoing current. Boys were doing all that by the age of ten or twelve, and by fifteen you had to know everything. Your parents and elders made sure you were ready, or you weren’t allowed to go alone.</p> <p>Our culture is changing rapidly in some ways, more slowly in others. Fluency in the Yupik language is declining in the younger generations, although among the older people our daily conversation continues to be in Yupik. There is less respect among some young people now for their parents and elders, too much television and video gaming, problems with drugs and alcohol. We need to find a balance between traditional and modern ways, and I believe the best way to do that is through education. If you can be successful in your formal education, you will be in a strong position to help preserve your Yupik heritage. I’m glad to see so many young people still going out with their families to the places where we have always hunted and fished, even if now they travel on machines instead of on foot or by dog sled. They are still eating the same foods that we have always gathered and staying connected to our land and way of life.</p> <p>  </p> <p><strong>Ceremony and Celebration</strong> </p> <p>The remoteness of the island has helped to sustain some of the ways of our forebears. The practices of <em>atuq</em> and <em>aghula</em> (Yupik drumming, singing and dancing) were never interrupted, despite the introduction of Christianity, and people continue to compose new songs and motions. Both communities on the island hold dance celebrations where we welcome visitors and performers from mainland Alaska, Russia and beyond. Other ceremonies are more family-oriented, marking life events such as marriage and the birth and naming of a child. When a young person catches his first seal, a special small celebration is held to share the catch with relatives, making sure that everyone gets a taste. The same thing happens with your first bird.</p> <p>Many of the former ceremonial practices pertained to hunting, especially whaling. To prepare for the season, a captain would use certain songs that were specific to each clan. The purpose was to please the whale spirits. When the hunters captured a whale, the boats would come back in a line with the successful captain and crew in front. Everyone was deeply thankful, and they celebrated by feasting, singing and dancing. That feeling of appreciation and gratitude for the food that has been provided is just as strong today, even though our beliefs and customs have been modified.</p> <p>The Yupik culture has a very long, rich history, and at the Smithsonian you will see artifacts that our ancestors created hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Today many of the island’s residents are world-renowned Native artists whose work is shown in national and international museums and art galleries. Some of the ivory they use comes from archaeological sites, and this material, crucial to sustaining life generations ago, is equally important today because of the income generated by art sales. But much more than that, their work is a celebration of our culture, heritage and continuing way of life.</p> <p> Note: This is shortened version of a longer essay from the Smithsonian book <em>Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska</em>.</p> <hr> <p>Tags: St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Yupik, Alaska Native, Indigenous, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska (#arcticstudies)</p>

<p>By Beverly Faye Hugo (Iñupiaq), 2009<br></p> <p><strong>Sea, Land, Rivers</strong><br></p> <p>There’s ice and snow, the ocean and darkness – darkness in the winter and twenty-four hours of daylight in the summer. Barrow was originally called Utqiaġvik (meaning, “the place where <em>ukpik</em>, the snowy owl, nests”). That’s where my people, the Iñupiat, have survived and lived, and I am doing as they have done. On the Arctic coast you can see vast distances in all directions, out over the ocean and across the land. The country is very flat, with thousands of ponds and lakes, stretching all the way to the Brooks Range in the south. It is often windy, and there are no natural windbreaks, no trees, only shrubs. Beautiful flowers grow during the brief summer season. The ocean is our garden, where we hunt the sea mammals that sustain us. Throughout the year some seasonal activity is going on. We are whaling in the spring and fall, when the bowheads migrate past Barrow, going out for seals and walrus, fishing, or hunting on the land for caribou, geese, and ducks.</p> <p>Whaling crews are made up of family members and relatives, and everyone takes part. The spring is an exciting time when the whole community is focused on the whales, hoping to catch one. The number we are permitted to take each year is set by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and the International Whaling Commission. Whaling is not for the faint of heart. It can be dangerous and takes an incredible amount of effort – getting ready, waiting for the whales, striking and pulling and towing them. But the men go out and do it because they want to feed the community. Everyone has to work hard throughout the whaling season. People who aren’t able to go out on the ice help in other ways, such as buying supplies and gas or preparing food. You have to make clothing for them; they need warm parkas, boots, and snow pants.</p> <p>We believe that a whale gives itself to a captain and crew who are worthy people, who have integrity – that is the gift of the whale. Caring for whales, even after you’ve caught them, is important. After a whale is caught and divided up, everyone can glean meat from the bones. Each gets his share, even those who don’t belong to a crew. No one is left out.</p> <p>We are really noticing the effects of global warming. The shorefast ice is much thinner in spring than it used to be, and in a strong wind it will sometimes break away. If you are out on the ice, you have to be extremely conscious of changes in the wind and current so that you will not be carried off on a broken floe. We are concerned as well about the effects of offshore drilling and seismic testing by the oil companies. They try to work with the community to avoid problems, but those activities could frighten the whales and be detrimental to hunting.  </p> <p><strong>Community and Family</strong> </p> <p>Iñupiaq residents of Barrow, Wales, Point Hope, Wainwright, and other coastal communities, are the Taġiuqmiut, “people of the salt.” People who live in the interior are the Nunamiut, “people of the land.” The Nunamiut used to be nomadic, moving from camp to camp with their dog teams, hunting and fishing to take care of their families. They packed light and lived in skin tents, tracking the caribou and mountain sheep. My husband, Patrick Hugo, was one of them. For the first six years of his life his family traveled like that, but when the government built a school at Anaktuvuk Pass in 1959 they settled there.</p> <p>My parents, Charlie and Mary Edwardson, were my foremost educators. They taught me my life skills and language. When I came to awareness as a young child, all the people who took care of me spoke Iñupiaq, so that was my first language. Our father would trap and hunt. We never went hungry and had the best furs for our parkas. Our mother was a fine seamstress, and we learned to sew by helping her. My mother and grandmother taught us to how to care for a family and to do things in a spirit of cooperation and harmony.</p> <p>I was a child during the Bureau of Indian Affairs era, when we were punished for speaking Iñupiaq in school. My first day in class was the saddest one of my young life. I<em> had</em> to learn English, and that was important, but my own language is something that I value dearly and have always guarded. It is a gift from my parents and ancestors, and I want to pass it on to my children and grandchildren and anyone who wants to learn.  </p> <p><strong>Ceremony and Celebration</strong> </p> <p><em>Nalukataq </em>(blanket toss) is a time of celebration when spring whaling has been successful. It is a kind of all-day picnic. People visit with friends and family at the windbreaks that the crews set up by tipping the whale boats onto their sides. At noon they serve <em>niġliq</em> (goose) soup, dinner rolls, and tea. At around 3:00 P.M. we have <em>mikigaq</em>, made of fermented whale meat, tongue, and skin. At 5:00 they serve frozen <em>maktak</em> (whale skin and blubber) and <em>quaq</em> (raw frozen fish). It’s wonderful to enjoy these foods, to talk, and catch up with everyone at the end of the busy whaling season.</p> <p><em>Kivgik</em>, the Messenger Feast, was held in the <em>qargi</em> (ceremonial house). The <em>umialgich</em> (whaling captains) in one community sent messengers to the leaders of another, inviting them and their families to come for days of feasting, dances, and gift giving. They exchanged great quantities of valuable things – piles of furs, sealskins filled with oil, weapons, boats, and sleds. That took place until the early years of the twentieth century, when Presbyterian missionaries suppressed our traditional ceremonies, and many of the communal <em>qargich</em> in the villages were closed down.</p> <p>In 1988, Mayor George Ahmaogak Sr. thought it was important to revitalize some of the traditions from before the Christian era, and <em>Kivgik</em> was started again. Today it is held in the high school gymnasium. People come to Barrow from many different communities to take part in the dancing and<em> maġgalak</em>, the exchange of gifts. You give presents to people who may have helped you or to those whom you want to honor.  <em>Kivgiq</em> brings us together as one people, just as it did in the time of our ancestors.</p> <p>Note: This is shortened version of a longer essay from the Smithsonian book <em>Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska</em>.</p> <hr> <p>Tags: Iñupiaq, Inupiaq, Alaska Native, Indigenous, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in Alaska, whale, whaling, human geography (#arcticstudies)</p>