Preface

Introduction

The Story

Two Approaches

Alaska DOE Standards

Story Episodes or Main Features

About the Grid or Matrix

Grid or Matrix

The Alaska Standards

1. English/Language Arts

2. Mathematics

3. Science

4. Geography

5. Government and Citizenship

6. History

7. Skills for a Healthy Life

8. Arts

9. World Languages

10. Technology

11. Employability

References

We would like classroom teachers and administrators involved in this project to review this draft before we revise it. We respect their experience and skill, and we assume that they will have many creative and useful ideas that will improve the quality and usefulness of this working draft. We will also work with them on adding the Juneau District standards (especially for language arts and social studies) but we did not want to delay distribution of this draft any longer.

This is the most recent component of a Teacher’s packet which includes the following previously developed components: Four English language versions of the story (Tlingit texts in preparation; Haida and Tsimshian versions available on request), and "Notes on Tlingit Personal and Place Names in the Aak’wtaatseen ("Moldy End") Story, edited by Richard and Nora Dauenhauer and Thomas Thornton. The I Am Salmon collection of resources and activities is also available and recommended, but is not part of the packet. Likewise the Axe Handle Academy Working Draft Materials (June 1997) is recommended but not included here.

Richard Dauenhauer
Nora Marks Dauenhauer
Juneau, June 15, 2001

Introduction

The Story

The following activities and suggestions are ideas for teaching the story, widespread on the Northwest Coast, about the boy who goes to live with the Salmon People. We have many versions from Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian. The story is variously known as "Aak’wtaatseen," "Moldy End," "Moldy Collar-Tip," and "The Prince and the Salmon People." We have sometimes called it "Alive in the Eddy" after the translation of the boy’s Tlingit name. It has popularly been called "Salmon Boy." Several versions are included in the Teacher’s Packet.

For people in Sitka, the story offers the fullest example of place-based education. It is a local story, with local place names, and can be used with appropriate modifications at any level from elementary to middle school to high school to college. It can be used in other communities as well; the concepts can be applied locally as people read and learn about other places.

Two Approaches

There are two different directions from which to approach and use the story in teaching. Each approach is valid, and the choice depends on the teacher’s needs.

One approach is to begin with a unit in any content area and use this story as a supplementary activity; to use the story in the context of a larger curriculum about something else, such as science: when teaching about salmon, use this story as a related activity. The most highly developed example of this approach that we know of for using this story is the "First Fish: Wild Salmon" Project being developed by One Reel in Seattle. The materials for this project are available to participating schools. Please look under "One Reel" in the references for details.

The opposite approach is to begin with the story as an English and language arts activity, and expand into other areas of the curriculum suggested by the story, which is rich in possibilities.

Because the "I Am Salmon" resource materials cover the first approach so well (beginning with watershed and expanding to related materials such as stories and poetry), we decided to use the second approach here (beginning with the story and expanding to other content areas such as science, geography, history, art, etc.).

These content areas follow the order of those identified in the Alaska State standards. We will address the Alaska Department of Education content standards very briefly and generally here to present a framework for approach we are using. As noted in the Preface, Juneau District Standards will be addressed in a future draft.

Alaska Department of Education Standards

The 1999 edition of the Alaska Department of Education Standards for Alaska Students identifies 11 content areas:

1. English / Language Arts

2. Mathematics

3. Science

4. Geography

5. Government and Citizenship

6. History

7. Skills for a Healthy Life

8. Arts

9. World Languages

10. Technology

11. Employability

It seems to us that standards are met in two ways. The simple process of reading and discussing the story will automatically meet several standards in Language Arts and other areas. Then, by selecting any of the various suggested activities, additional specific content and concept standards can be addressed (such as most of the Government and Citizenship standards, which might not normally be expected or looked for in a story from Tlingit oral tradition). The story can be used in a number of ways, depending on the interests and needs of the class.

Not all standards will be addressed equally by any activity. The Salmon Story is ideal for addressing some standards, and marginal at best for others. Some elements of all standards could be addressed, depending on the situation. For example, Mathematics, World Languages, Technology, and Employability could be addressed (and suggestions are given in the narrative below) and could even be major topics (for example, if the Tlingit text is taught as a World Language activity), but these are not presented here as primary examples for most teachers. Science is excluded as a major component here only because it is addressed in detail in the "I Am Salmon" project mentioned above. It would be redundant to include it here.

Story Episodes or Main Features

To help in teaching and talking about the story, we have identified 10 episodes or main features common to all versions. The relative importance or elaboration of each episode varies from storyteller to storyteller, and this provides an interesting point of departure for a comparative study of the different versions. A given episode may be simple or elaborate.

1. The Opening. Storyteller, clan, place names, personal names.

2. Activities. Adult subsistence activities, children at play

3. Taboo violated. Boy rejects dry fish and is taken by the salmon people

4. Parents search. (Simple or elaborate)

5. Boy lives with Salmon People. (Typically rich in detail & motifs)

6. Homeward Journey. (Typically rich in detail & motifs)

7. Recognition by copper necklace.

8. Boy restored to human form. (Simple or elaborate)

9. Boy becomes a Shaman. (Simple or elaborate)

10. Conclusion. (Boy lives & prospers; mediator between human & salmon worlds)

 

About the Grid or Matrix

The grid or matrix below shows just some of the "intersections" of episodes in the story and how they address some of the content standards set by the Alaska Department of Education. This grid illustrates some of the most relevant and productive topics as an example of how the approach works. The columns refer to standards, and the rows to episodes in the story. The intersections show the most obvious places where the story addresses the standards. Details are explained more fully in the narrative.

The present version is a working draft of ideas we would use in teaching the story of Aak’wtaatseen. In earlier attempts to write up this material, we tried to organize it rigidly according to content standards and key elements, but we were repeatedly frustrated and kept grinding to a standstill. What is we think an exciting project was paralyzed. The challenge was to avoid busywork and to offer something interesting and useful-something that teachers might enjoy using.

We finally decided to do the simple grid or matrix presented below as a general index or idea of the big picture, and as an indication of where the most important information will be found. Detailed commentary is presented in the narrative. Some comment is made for all content areas of the Alaska DOE Standards, but major emphasis is on the most productive topics. In a future draft, some of the more interesting topics may be developed at sample teaching units.

The narrative follows the order of the Standards, beginning with English / language Arts. General comments about the applicability of each content area are made at Episode 1. Topics and activities are generally taken up in order of the episodes.

As a final introductory comment, we should note that for some content areas (Language arts, Skills for a Healthy Life, for example) the story is much richer than the standards. For this reason alone, it makes sense to begin with the story and list activities according to the story content, and then match them to standards, rather than to begin with a list of standards. For other content standards and key elements, it may be better or easier to begin with the standard and then design activities around the key element. For example, the map activities in Geography can easily use the story as a specific example.

	English / Lng Arts	Geog-raphy	Gov’t & Cit-ship	History	Skills for Hlth Life	Arts
1. Opening	Many	Many	Many	Many		Many
2. Activities	Some		Many		Many	Some
3. Taboo violated	Some				Some	Some
4. Parents search
5. Boy w Salmon People	Some				Some	Some
6. Journey Home					Many	Many
7. Recog-nition by copper						Some
8. Boy Restored to human						Some
9. Boy becomes shaman						Many
10. Con-clusion	Many	Many	Many		Many	Many

1. English / Language Arts

Content Standards.

Note: The content standards (listed below) are very general and can easily be met by reading, discussing, and writing about the story, and by working on related research and reporting projects.

A. A student should be able to speak and write well for a variety of purposes and audiences.

B. A student should be a competent and thoughtful reader, listener, and viewer or literature, technical materials, and a variety of other information.

C. A student should be able to identify and select from multiple strategies in order to complete projects independently and cooperatively.

D. A student should b e able to think logically and reflectively in order to present and explain positions based on relevant and reliable information.

E. A student should understand and respect the perspectives of others in order to communicate effectively.

Episode 1: Opening

Activity 1.

Read the story as a group project. (Reading and discussion of "Moldy End" told by Deikeenaak’w, Sitka, 1904, published as Swanton #99.)

Several versions of the story are included in this project. We suggest beginning with Deikeenaak’w (Swanton #99), and we use it as the basis for our organization of material. After presenting this version, other versions may also be read. English/Language Arts activities and discussion pertaining to comparative study of different versions are included as "further activities" as part of episode 10 (Conclusion).

When we teach a story like this, we like to have the class read it together, out loud, as a group. We begin by reading it out loud ourselves, then invite others to take over. We encourage all participants to read and much as they feel comfortable with, and then pass to another reader. In doing this, teachers will be guided by their knowledge of the class, and will know how to deal with students who may have trouble reading for one reason or another. Part of the reason for this is to develop confidence and skill in oral reading.

Activity 2.

Discuss the story as a group project.

Take as long as it requires. One reason for reading and discussing the story as a group is to guarantee that all students have read it and understand it. Another reason is to develop analytical skills, and skills in orally presenting and defending one’s point of view about the story.

There are at least two ways to organize the discussion. One is to go in order, starting at the beginning. Another is to begin anywhere. We usually combine the approaches. We have things we want to talk about from beginning to end. But students may have questions.

Reading a story or poem is like a puzzle. All of the pieces eventually fit together, but they are often put together randomly-a piece of this, a piece of that, the border here, a piece of sky there, etc.

We like to begin with a general and open-ended question: "What did you notice about the story?" The teacher can keep note of the topics raised as students present them. These are all pieces of the puzzle.

Two other questions we raise early on are: "What do you like about the story?" and "Is there anything you didn’t understand about the story?"

This second question is always risky. You or I as the teacher may not understand it either! What do we do then?

We like to offer this suggestion to the class. "There are two reasons why you don’t understand something. Either you’re stupid, or there is something new and different going on, and you need to figure it out. Let’s assume that we’re not stupid. That means we need to look at what’s new and different, and try to figure out the puzzle."

This approach to literature is sometimes called "Socratic Dialog." It works best with the teacher and students focussed on a shared text. In raising questions or offering solutions, teacher and students can "cite chapter and verse" by referring specifically to the text. The group can also determine which questions can be resolved within the text, and which questions need external information. The method is good for helping students develop skills in reasoning and problem solving. For information beyond the text, the method helps develop research skills.

The method encourages students to trust their feelings and intuitions about a text, but at the same time to challenge and analyze those feelings to be sure that they are accurate or defensible and can be supported by the text. For the teacher, this method involves some degree of vulnerability and risk, but it also offers more excitement, because in almost every class something new and different will happen.

Activity 3.

Writing about the story.

Whenever appropriate, the teacher may want to assign written activities about the story. These can be based on the discussion described above, or on research activities. The research activities may overlap with other content areas such as science, geography, history, etc. If computers are used for research or writing, technology standards are addressed.

Activity 4.

Discuss culture-specific details about the story. Below are some features teachers might want to point out if they do not arise naturally in the course of group discussion.

What are some of the differences between oral and written composition and publication? This story is from Tlingit oral tradition. Because it comes from a non-Western tradition, and from an oral tradition, there will be features in it that are new and different. Some of these features will be discussed at various "intersections" throughout the grid.

Oral and written style.

We will have more to say about this below in the section on comparative literature. Here we focus on the opening, other than to make this general comment. Oral style is typically laconic. This means that the storyteller may often omit details he or she thinks the audience already knows. A very real problem for modern readers of this story as told orally in Tlingit, written down from dictation, and then translated into English with the help of an interpreter, is that certain background details that may have been clear to the storyteller may not be clear to us as readers in a different language and culture 100 years later. Some of these details may be puzzling to teachers and students, including us. This is to be expected. Additional notes to this story are included in the teacher’s packet.

The storyteller.

This story was told by a man named Deikeenaak’w, who was the principal storyteller for linguist and folklorist John Swanton when he visited Sitka in 1904. It is to Swanton’s credit that he mentions the storyteller by name, because many collectors did not. It is a misconception that folklore and oral literature are "anonymous." It is unfortunately true that the names of the original storytellers are often left out of published collections. We know a little bit about Deikeenaak’w. He was a man of the Eagle moiety, the Kaagwaantaan clan, and the Box House. There is a photograph of him taken by E. W. Merrill: Merrill Collection PCA 57-137, Alaska State Library. Beyond this, we know virtually nothing about the man.

Suggested research activity (link with history): serious students with connections to Sitka may be in a good position to do oral and archival history on Swanton’s storytellers. The principal storyteller in Sitka was Deikeenaak’w, described above. Swanton’s interpreter, who also told a few stories, was Don Cameron. His storytellers in Wrangell were Katishan and a woman identified only as "Katishan’s Mother."

Narrative frame.

In our more than 30 years of fieldwork, we found that traditional Tlingit storytellers always begin their narrative with some kind of opening frame in which they provide various cultural background. These frames are often eliminated in published versions such as Swanton. The narrative frame in this story provides two valuable pieces of information, the place name and the clan name, explained below. In Tlingit and English, these words open the story. They are important for the story and for the storyteller.

Kiks.ádi. This is the name of a prominent Tlingit clan in Sitka. In Tlingit oral tradition, most stories are clan-owned. This name tells us what clan the main character belonged to, and which clan owns this story.

Daxéit. This place name tells us where the story takes place. See more under Geography. The Teacher’s Packet includes a paper on the personal and place names in the story.

Episode 3: Taboo and Taboo violated

Activity 1.

Themes in literature. A theme is a recurring pattern in literature. This episode shows a major theme in Native American Literature: taboo and taboo violated. Sometimes the taboo is clearly stated: "Don’t do such and such." Sometimes the person who breaks the taboo doesn’t realize what went wrong until much later.

Discuss this theme in the story. What taboo does the boy break? Does he know it at the time? What other stories do you know from world literature that also feature the theme of breaking a taboo, whether deliberately or out of ignorance? As you read other versions of this story compare and contrast the taboo. In the southern versions from Tsimshian oral literature, the taboo seems to be that the people haven’t eaten up last year’s dry fish yet, and therefore the fish cannot reconstitute themselves and return.

Activity 2.

Do you know any other Tlingit stories in particular that illustrate the pattern or theme of taboo-taboo violated? [Hint: Haa Shuká (Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1987) has many examples.]

Activity 3.

In Tlingit literature, a single, personal human action can have widespread social and even cosmic repercussions. Discuss this idea: each of us is responsible for the entire world in our personal thought, word, and action. Heavy stuff. How does our thought, word, and action impact our own well-being, and that of our family, community, and environment? [Stories in Haa Shuká (Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1987) offer many examples.]

Activity 4.

In many stories, several themes interact, either one after the other, or at the same time. In this story, two other major literary themes appear: the journey, and the homecoming. Discuss these themes in this story, in other Tlingit stories, and in other stories you have read or heard, or seen in movies.

Activity 5.

In Tlingit literature, several of the themes we have been discussing combine in a typically Tlingit pattern: human knowingly or unknowingly violates taboo; as a learning experience more than a punishment, the person is taken by and goes to live with the other form of life, and through this experience comes to know, understand, and respect the other. In contemporary terms, this might be called "close encounters of a third kind" or an "out of body experience." The person usually returns to his or her community and becomes a mediator between the two worlds. Sometimes the return is successful (as in this story) but sometimes the person cannot successfully re-integrate with his or her community. (Theme: "You can’t go home again.") The experience of the journey has been too great, and those who stayed at home cannot understand the message. Consider this pattern in other Tlingit stories and in world literature. Some teachers and students might enjoy reading The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.

Activity 6.

Other themes. One way to approach literature is to organize it by themes, taking examples from around the world in different times and places to see how people deal with common human problems. Some themes we find rich and interesting include: pride and arrogance; conflict of loyalty; identity and self-concept; forgiveness and revenge; death and dying; separation and loss; coming of age. Discuss examples of these themes in stories you know. Have you experienced them in your own life? See the Axe Handle Academy materials for examples.

Activity 7.

Literary devices. A literary device is a way in which some action is brought about in a story. Consider the trapping of gulls as such a device. The child is playing at this, but then through the activity of trapping, he himself is trapped by the salmon. In the version told by Katishan, he eventually receives the gull spirit.

Episode 5: Boy Is With the Salmon People

Activity 1.

Personal names.

The narrative frame often includes personal names at the beginning. In other stories, characters acquire names during the course of the action, to commemorate certain experiences. In this story, the protagonist (main character) has two names: Shanyaak’u Tlaax (which translates as "Moldy End" or "Moldy Tip") and Aak’wtaatseen (which translates "Alive in the Pond" or "Alive in the Eddy"). In the versions of this story, the different storytellers introduce the names of the main character in different episodes. Deikeenaak’w uses the name "Moldy End" in Episode 5, and then the name Aak’wtaatseen (which translates "Alive in the Pond" or "Alive in the Eddy") in Episode 6. Ultimately, the story is about the life of the stream or watershed, the relationship of people and salmon, and the watershed as a source of life.

Discuss how each of these names may be seen to stand for or encapsulate a conflicting spiritual or ecological point of view in the story. What attitudes do you associate with the name "Moldy End", and what attitudes with "Aak’wtaatseen?" (The name activity has links to: Science, Geography, Government and Citizenship, History, Skills for a Healthy Life, Arts, World Languages.)

Episode 6. The Homeward Journey

Activity 1.

Strange making. "Strange making" is a literary term used when a writer takes a very common and familiar object or activity and describes it in a new and unusual way, to make it seem strange and unfamiliar, and therefore cause us to see it in a new and fresh way. The boy experiences much of this in Episode 5, when he learns about the lifestyle of the salmon. But in Episode 6 there are many gems. The landscape and the various predators are presented from the salmon point of view; smoke houses are seen as "forts," and a fish jumping is actually the boy standing up in the canoe to get a better view.

Comparative Literature Activities

Activity 1. "The Story Itself Is Alive."

Read and discuss the following dialog about different versions of the same story. The ideas suggested lie at the philosophical basis of comparative literature, oral literature, and folklore: that when several versions of a story exist, each can be "correct." We may have favorite versions, or prefer one over another for a given purpose, but the point is that each version has a life of its own, and it is interesting to see how a storyteller shapes his or her performance according to a number of factors such as his or her personality and feelings at the time, the situation, the audience, etc.

The dialog is taken from George Wasson and Barre Toelken, "Coos and Coquelle Traditions," in Larry Evers and Barre Toelken, Eds., Native American Oral Traditions: Collaboration and Interpretation. Special issue of Oral Tradition. Vol. 13, No. 1, March 1998, Pages 176-199. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, Slavica Publishers. The excerpt is from pages 197-8, where the co-authors of the essay are discussing and debating different versions of a story, and various personal comments offered by storytellers.

Barre Toelken: In any case, it is clear to me (with the new eyes provided by this exercise) that no single answer will suffice, for the living contexts in which the story reaches articulation each time are changing constantly, and the text changes continually according to the audience, the occasion, and the feelings of the narrator; and we can probably assume (or at least allow for the possibility) that this dynamism has been a part of the picture, and thus the meaning, down through time. This was no better illustrated for me than by George’s response to my editorial suggestion that we take out all the parenthetical asides in the story text and place them among the explanatory notes, leaving the story itself clear of contemporary commentary. "First of all, it’s not accurate," he insisted, "because those words were actually there when I told the story that time. And besides, in that case the story was being told to some people who were non-Coquelles, and the explanations were a necessary part of the story, just as on some other occasion, maybe with my family, some of those things need not to be said, while others might be said anyhow, just so we could share the recollection of ‘Yes, that’s where it happened, all right."

George Wasson: The reason for retaining comments is that the story itself is alive, and so, of course, it changes from one telling to the next, depending on the situation, context, or audience. Those "incidental comments" are part of the story itself and are always there. They vary depending on when, why, and where the story is being presented. Separating those explanatory parts included at that particular telling from the rest of the text would give the impression that they resulted from later analysis and could mislead the reader as to how the telling actually took place.

Barre Toelken: Omitting explanatory comments would also add to the impressions, harbored far too long by most scholars of folkloe and literature, that the text of a story has a single, discrete form and content, that a story can exist without its context, that a narrative can mean something without reference to information about the real physical and cultural world in which it operates, that the actions of a story character are understandable without reference to the culture that constructed the story.

George Wasson: Coyote stories are truly like Coyote himself: each time a story is told, it experiences a new birth, a regeneration, or a fresh incarnation. Each telling is in a different setting or location, with a different audience, with a different reason for telling it. Therefore, each telling requires a new set of explanatory remarks for the benefit of the new audience. Some know more than others about the content and the meaning of the story elements, but-since repetition is a standard aspect of traditional oratory-there is never a need to apologize for telling or explaining something that some, or even most, of the listeners might already know. The present story, along with our discussion of it, is no exception.

Activity 2.

Read the other three Tlingit versions of the story. As you read, consider the audience, the context in which it was told, and the language it was told in. The four versions being considered here are:

1. Deikeenaak’w (Swanton #99). Dictated to John Swanton in Tlingit, in Sitka, 1904. Published in 1909 in Tlingit, interlinear translation, and free English translation. (This is the main version for this outline.) The free English translation is in the Teacher’s Packet; Tlingit not yet transliterated into new orthography.

2. Katishan. (Swanton #99). Dictated to John Swanton in Tlingit, in Wrangell, 1904. Published in 1909 in Tlingit, interlinear translation, and free English translation. The free English translation is in the Teacher’s Packet; Tlingit not yet transliterated into new orthography.

3. Andrew P. Johnson, 1971. This was told by A. P. Johnson into a tape recorder, in Tlingit, and was given to Nora Marks Dauenhauer, who transcribed and translated as part of the AKRSI project. The English translation is in the Teacher’s Packet. The Tlingit transcription has not yet been word processed.

4. Andrew P. Johnson, 1975. This was tape recorded by A. P. Johnson at the request of Richard Dauenhauer and Patricia Partnow, who were working at the time at Alaska Native Education Board in Anchorage. It was told in English with an intended audience of elementary school students, to be included in part of a curriculum on Southeast Alaska Native people. When ANEB disbanded, the curriculum was further developed by Pat Partnow as a project of the Anchorage School District Indian Education Program. A xerox of the original 1975 publication is included in the Teacher’s Packet.

Note: The Haida and Tsimshian versions are in hand and will be developed eventually, but are not part of the present outline or Teacher’s Packet. They can be xeroxed "as is" for any teacher wishing to include them. There are 7 Haida versions (including 3 in the Haida language) and 4 Tsimshian versions (but none in the Tsimshian language that we have yet located).

Note: any of the Tlingit, Haida, or Tsimshian versions could be used as the "main" version, depending on teacher and community preference. We chose Swanton #99 by Deikeenaak’w because the Juneau teachers working with us in 2000 and 2001 chose it as the point of departure for their shadow puppet adaptation and related activities.

Note: On organization. We will follow the episodes, comparing and contrasting the three story tellers (Deikeenaak’w, Katishan, and A. P. Johnson). It seems easiest to handle the last episodes of Deikeenaak’w in this comparative manner. We will feature only the highlights; this is not an exhaustive comparison.

Note: Swanton is the source for the version of this story worked into Frances Lackey Paul’s Kahtahah, written in 1938, published in 1976, and reprinted in 1996.

Episode 1: Opening

Activity 1.

Research as much as you can on the life of Katishan. We are putting the bits and pieces together slowly. What we have follows. We hope others can add more.

Katishan, in Tlingit Kaadashaan, was chief of the Kaasx’agweidí of Wrangell (spelled Kasq!aguedí in Swanton), a branch of the Taalkweidí of Stikine. The family left Kasaan, and settled in Wrangell. Katishan is an ancestor of Sue Stevens of Wrangell, who is researching her family history. Harold Jacobs of Sitka has done extensive research and has a family tree. [CHECK WITH HAROLD ON LATEST VERSION; INCLUDE THIS LATER.]

Swanton identifies Katishan’s mother only as "Katishan’s mother." Harold Jacobs has found out that her name is Léek. Her father was a man of the Naanya.aayí named Ts’eil. Her mother was Kindiyaa, of the Kaasx’agweidí.

The most fascinating discovery on Harold’s chart is that Katishan’s mother, Léek, was married to L.shaatxít’chx ("Shotridge"), the father of Yeil Gooxú (George Shotridge), who was the father of Louis Shotridge. Shotridge seems to have been married twice, or had two wives. The sequence is unclear from the present draft of the genealogy chart, but he was married to Léek (the mother of Katishan) and to a woman named Kaatchxixch, who was the mother of George Shotridge.

We have no further information on Katishan at the moment. Both Katishan and his mother were storytellers for Swanton, and their stories have many unusual features, possibly of Haida or Tsimshian origin. This cries out for further comparative research.

Also, we have no information at hand at the moment about Swanton’s fieldwork and working relations with the storytellers in Sitka or Wrangell. This is a story that is waiting to be told.

Activity 2.

Research the life and work of A.P. Johnson

A.P. Johnson (1898-1986) was born and died in Sitka, and was a prominent member, historian and spokesman for the Kiks.ádi clan. For a detailed biography, see Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1994, pages 304-310. For oratory by him, see Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1990, page 156. For a traditional story, see Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1987, pages 82-107.

Activity 3.

About motifs.

"Motif" is a useful term and concept in folklore and comparative literature. A motif is a striking or unusual narrative element recurring from story to story. There are many motifs in the different versions of the story. A motif can be a character or animal, such as a spirit helper; it can be an action, such as the recognition by a distinctive feature like the copper necklace; it can be an action such as restoring body parts to the salmon by properly handling the left-overs. (When you study many versions along the Northwest Coast, you will begin to see the variations: for example are the leftovers put in the water or the fire.) As you read the different version, think about the various motifs. Some of these we will be commenting on.

Activity 4.

Compare the openings of the 4 versions.

Katishan mentions the name "Lively Frog in Pond" in the opening. "Frog" is not literally present in the Tlingit name, but is supplied as explanation, presumably by Swanton’s interpreter. What are some of the implications of this?

Episode 2: Activities.

Activity 1.

Compare the time spent by the different storytellers in describing the setting.

Deikeenaak’w and Katishan both dismiss the activities in a single phrase. In contrast, A. P. Johnson goes into elaborate detail on food preparation and children at play. In the opening to his Tlingit language version, he includes many place names around Sitka. Of a 15 page story, 7 pages-almost half-is on the first two episodes-the opening and food preparation.

Activity 2.

Compare the first two episodes of the two versions by A.P. Johnson. Consider the audience of each.

In the 1975 English version, A.P. Johnson uses the English place name, Nakwasena River, and mentions it is "near Sitka." As noted above, in the 1971 Tlingit version, he gives many place names in the Tlingit language.

In the 1971 Tlingit version, he describes the motif of trapping gulls, but in the 1975 English version he spends 3 pages on food and 4 pages on play, including 2 drawings of the snare. He describes doing this himself as a child. (The motif is present in Deikeenaak’w and Katishan, but merely mentioned and not elaborated on.)

Episode 3: Taboo and Taboo Violated

Activity 1.

Consider where the names are introduced in Episodes 2 and 3.

In the 1971 Tlingit version, in Episode 2, A. P. Johnson uses the name Aak’wtaatseen. This is his human name. In Episode 3, when he breaks the taboo, the name "Moldy End" is introduced. This is what the salmon call him.

In the 1975 English version, he also uses the name Aak’wtaatseen in Episode 2, but does not use the name "Moldy End" at all in the story.

Activity 2.

This motif is present in all versions. Which version is the most elaborate?

Activity 3.

Research the Haida and Tsimshian versions of the story. What is the taboo that is broken in each?

Episode 4: Parents Search

Activity 1.

Compare the search motif in the 4 versions.

Katishan is fairly elaborate, but Deikeenaak’w devotes only 2 sentences to it. In A.P. Johnson’s 1975 English version, there is no search: they rush to the beach, and the boy is gone. But his 1971 Tlingit version includes elaborate detail. He mentions a song still sung by the Kiks.ádi to commemorate this event.

Episode 5: With the Salmon People

Activity 1.

Compare and contrast the motifs in this Episode in general. Katishan seems most elaborate. A. P. Johnson seems short, in contrast to other versions and the detail in other parts of his own story.

Activity 2.

Study the herring dance and herring egg motif in the 4 versions.

In both A. P. Johnson versions, the herring spawn is explicitly identified with the dance. This is implied in other versions, but made explicit here. There is more strange making going on here: what seems to us like eggs and spawn is to the herring a dance, and eggs are used much as humans use feathers in dancing.

Activity 3.

Study the salmon egg as dung motif in the different versions. Swanton in an interesting note mentions that Katishan censored this. Why do you think he did this?

Activity 4.

Study the Woman mentor, sore eye, and roasting motifs. These are not in A. P. Johnson or Deikeenaak’w, but is included by Katishan and is elaborate and important in most Haida and Tsimshian versions. In the south, body parts are returned to water, not fire.

Episode 6: Returning Home.

Activity 1.

Carefully compare this Episode in all versions. There are a lot of delightful motifs that most storytellers seem to savor, such as the conference of the salmon to decide which stream to go to, and the rivalry between the herring and the salmon, and the various threats to survival. Consider the theme in many stories of the encounters with monsters that the hero must overcome to get home safely. Deikeenaak’w also has rivalry among the salmon species, and connects this to Tlingit clans and their emblems. A. P. Johnson and Deikeenaak’w both describe how women should sit facing upstream. Consider the implication in Deikeenaak’w and the others that salmon give themselves to people.

Episode 7: Recognition.

Activity 1.

Study and comment on this in all four versions. This motif is central to most versions. In his 1971 Tlingit version, A. P. Johnson introduces the copper necklace early, in Episode 2, as part of play. In his 1975 English version he has an elaborate discussion of copper. In real life, Mr. Johnson worked with copper smithing and jewelry.

Episode 8: The Boy Is Restored to Human Form.

Activity 1.

Study this Episode in all versions. There seems to be more personal and cultural variation in detail in Episodes 8 and 9 than elsewhere in the story, and A. P. Johnson essentially ends his stories here. The versions involve either a basket or woven mat placed on the roof or above the door. In most versions a song is involved. The boy slowly changes from fish back to human. In both of A. P. Johnson’s versions, the story essentially ends with the song. In the English version, people think they are hearing flies buzzing, but it is the song.

Episode 9. The Boy Becomes a Shaman.

Activity 1.

Study this Episode in all versions. A. P. Johnson omits this entirely in his 1971 Tlingit version, and in the 1975 English version he mentions that the boy becomes a shaman, but there is no technical detail. In contrast, both Deikeenaak’w and Katishan have very elaborate treatments of this Episode.

Deikeenaak’w is very difficult to follow in places, and includes various tests: the waterfall test and the land otter test. These seem unique to him, and may be motifs from other stories. They also involve Sitka place names. In Deikeenaak’w, people perform the rituals and the boy is restored. There seems to be a shaman directing this, in addition to the boy. Then, the boy trains to become a shaman, and goes on a journey to test the spirits.

Katishan is probably easier to follow. Here, also, people perform the ritual, and the boy slowly becomes human, by degrees. It seems that the spirits talk to him, come to him, and the boy shamanizes as part of the process of becoming human. An interesting array of spirit powers visit the boy, as if recapping events in the story: Moldy End Spirit, Sandhill Crane and Amusement Creek Spirits; Seet Spirit; Woman Spirit; Herring Spirit; Seagull Spirit; Salmon People Canoe Spirit. Shamanic instruments are described: rattle, apron, drum, necklace. Various protocols and purity taboos are described (celibacy, food, water, payment). The boy is able to communicate with the Salmon people, and predict death and hunting.

Episode 10: Conclusion.

Activity 1.

Compare the endings in all versions. In all versions, the boy lives well and prospers. In Deikeenaak’w he lives more than 100 years. The final reference to turning about in one place is unclear to us as of this writing. Ask elders you know about this.

In Katishan, the boy becomes rich and lives to be very old. A. P. Johnson ends his 19871 Tlingit version with the song. For him, this is an important link between then and now. The song is still in the Kiks.ádi clan repertoire, and this is the source of it. In his 1975 English version, he ends with reference to yarn dancing. Again, this is also contemporary practice, and the story connects to its origin.

Activity 2.

As a class, divide into four teams, each responsible for one version of the story. Make a large grid or matrix on butcher paper, with 10 rows for the Episodes, and 1 column for each version of the story. As a group, review the versions by Episode, with each team filling in the comparative details.

Activity 3.

Using the grid, or the sequence of activities above, discuss what is common to all versions and what is unique to each storyteller. How do the stories reflect the concerns and personalities of the tradition bearer? How do the different versions sometimes clarify what is unsaid but assumed in other versions? You have an interesting range of examples: with A. P. Johnson, the same storyteller but in two different languages for two different audiences. With the others, two tellings in the same tradition from about 70 years earlier, one in the same town (Sitka), one in Wrangell. A. P. Johnson would have been six years old when Swanton was collecting in Sitka. If Haida and Tsimshian versions are consulted, different narrative traditions and languages enter the equation.

Activity 4.

Comparing the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian versions, what observations can you make about how the same story is contextualized to local place and social structure?

2. Mathematics

In the present draft, Mathematics is not a significant content area for the study of the Salmon Story. However, math is important in several other content areas, that teachers might want to consider. Here are some links that come to mind.

1. Map study: scale, coordinates, contour intervals

2. Charts: fathoms, points of compass, navigation, deviation

3. Reading tide tables

4. Measuring and weighing fish when caught

5. Fisheries policy: estimating fish caught and escapement; quotas

6. Proportions in recipes for brining fish

Calendars.

How do different cultures measure time? This is very conceptual and philosophical activity. Calendars are important to all cultures. There are many different ways of organizing experience and time.

For example:

1. Solar vs. lunar calendars (12 vs. 13 months)

2. Julian vs. Gregorian calendar. (The Julian or "Old Calendar" is still used by the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia and in most parishes in the Diocese of Alaska; the Gregorian or "New Calendar" is used by Western Christians and most other Orthodox jurisdictions.) How and why was the "new" calendar developed? (A hint: how many days are there in a year, and what is the origin of leap year?) George Washington was born on the Old Calendar.

3. Did you know that: the traditional Tlingit calendar was lunar and had 13 months. The new year began in July, called Xáat Dísi, "Salmon Month."

4. Study various cultural and religious calendars that people in your community may use: Jewish, Islamic, Chinese, Baha’i.

5. Research Mayan and other Native American calendars.

6. When is New Year on various calendars such as Chinese, Baha’i, Jewish, Orthodox Christian, and Roman Catholic liturgical calendars? Study the connection of harvest and the new year in many traditional calendars, including Tlingit.

7. Research the meaning of the names of the months in English, Tlingit, Finnish, Polish and other languages. What do the names mean? How are they connected to annual subsistence cycles, if at all? (The naming of months links to World Languages.)

[Note: We have quite a bit of material on this and could write it up as an activity if anybody is interested.]

3. Science

As noted in the Introduction, Science is not addressed in the present version of this outline. Although science is one of the most significant links to the story, notably the life cycle of the salmon and the importance of watershed, this connection has been well made elsewhere. Most schools already have a salmon unit in place, and it would be redundant to discuss the salmon cycle here. We leave it to the teachers to link with this story in ways they find useful and interesting.

See especially the "I am Salmon" curriculum materials in the reference section.

See also:

Kawagley and Barnhardt 1997,

Taylor 1999,

Wilkinson 2000,

Wolf and Zuckerman 1999.

In addition to science, there are also fishery links (which are described in detail in this draft) to Geography, Government and Citizenship, History, and Skills for a Healthy Life.

An activity also well underway in Juneau and many other districts is to connect with local Native culture camps, so that indigenous science traditions can be studied along with western science.

Check with programs such as Seagrant and Ecotrust for other links.

A suggested link that we have not personally tried is www.forsea for a marine science curriculum.

4. Geography

Content Standards.

Note: The content standards for geography (listed below) and a large number of the key elements apply extremely well to this story. While the story is site-specific to Sitka, the concepts can be applied locally anywhere.

Links.

Several of the geography standards overlap with Government and History where law, official policy, and history regarding land use are involved (for example, fish traps, subsistence, quotas, limited entry, etc.). We strongly recommend that teachers consult with the I Am Salmon materials, especially Part One (dealing with mapping the watershed and finding one’s "ecological address"). Teachers might also want to check in Goldschmidt and Haas for material on Sitka and other communities. Some communities may also be involved with Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative cultural atlas projects, which add an electronic component.

A. A student should be able to make and use maps, globes, and graphs to gather, analyze, and report spatial (geographic) information.

Key elements 1-6 deal with making and using maps.

B. A student should be able to utilize, analyze, and explain information about the human and physical features of places and regions.

Key elements include physical features of places (1), naming (2), how people shape places (3) and identify with them (4), how places serve as cultural symbols (5), serve as work and residential sites (6), are part of a bioregion (7), and change over time (8).

C. A student should understand the dynamic and interactive natural forces that shape the earth’s environments.

All key elements (1-3) apply to the study of watershed

D. A student should understand and be able to interpret spatial (geographic) characteristics of human systems, including migration, movement, interactions of cultures, economic activities, settlement patterns, and political units in the state, nation, and world.

All key elements (1-5) deal with migration, settlement, and interaction of cultures.

E. A student should understand and be able to evaluate how humans and physical environments interact.

All key elements (1-6) apply in exploring resource use and development.

E.3 deals explicitly with watershed. Many links here to policy and history.

F. A student should be able to use geography to understand the world by interpreting the past, knowing the present, and preparing for the future.

All key elements (1-6) offer potential links for study of policy and history of land and watershed use.

Episode 1: Opening

Activity 1.

Find the story site on the map.

The story opens by mentioning Daxéit (a place near Sitka) and Kiks.ádi (a prominent Sitka Tlingit clan). Identify these. Consider what kinds of maps and other resources you will need. No single resource will provide all the information you need. Consider the purpose and limitation of each. As you read other versions of the story, repeat this activity for those sites. Here are some places to start.

• Standard maps of Sitka area. Maps are land oriented and come in different scales with greater and lesser detail. Topographical maps show details of mountains and valleys, etc. Political maps usually omit these details.

• Standard charts of Sitka area. Charts are sea oriented, with details needed for navigation, but with little detail about land.

• Most standard maps and charts do not include the Tlingit place names and political divisions mentioned in the story. You may need to turn to special maps such as the "Traditional Tlingit Country" map edited by Andrew Hope III and published by Tlingit Readers, Inc. (2nd edition, revised, 1998). Many communities have Tlingit place name maps in progress, either on paper or electronic versions, as part of Cultural Atlas projects of AKRSI and other funding. See also Activity 4, below.

• When the existing, published, standardized maps fail, what do you do?

Activity 2.

Map your own community.

The story is site-specific to Sitka, but you can apply the concepts of map study to any area, including your own. You can decide on what features you want to emphasize and what information you want to include. Perhaps work with elders to generate maps with Native place names.

Activity 3.

Stories about places.

Are there places in your community that have stories about them? These can be traditional stories such as the Salmon Story featured here, or other kinds of stories such as local history, events in family history, or personal experience. Students, teachers, and community members of any age can relate experiences that happened someplace. They may be cautionary tales about narrow escapes or the death of others, or funny stories.

Episode 6: The Homeward Journey

Activity 1.

Read the paper "Notes on Tlingit Personal and Place Names in the Aak’wtaatseen (Moldy End) Story" (included in the Teacher’s packet).

The teacher’s packet includes our most recent research on this subject with the input of Sitka elders and researchers. Tom Thornton of UAS-Juneau worked especially closely with Sitka elders, and each revision of the paper brings additional "ecofacts" from the local elders. The research in progress suggests that some of these place names are human and commonly known and used, but others are from the point of view of the migrating salmon and are unique to this story!

Activity 2.

Fish Migration

Episode 6 is especially rich in potential activities. Here the salmon have a conference and decide who will go where, which species to which watershed. On a map, find the rivers mentioned in the story. What are the salmon streams in your area?

In the story, the route from the open ocean to the spawning area is made explicit. For Sitka-specific details, see also the notes on place names mentioned above. For your own area, check with local elders, fishermen, and biologists. What is the migration route of local salmon from the open ocean to the spawning streams in your area? Standards B and C mention physical features and dynamic forces such as tide, reefs, and currents. How do these figure for both the fish and the fisherman?

Episode 10: Conclusion

Activity 1.

Human Migration.

The story is about salmon migration, but mentions how the local people also migrate to fish camp for summer activity. The story dates from the pre-contact period, before the Tlingit people had met any Europeans. Because of the natural resources and beauty of the environment, many people have migrated to Sitka and other places in Alaska. What are the ethnic groups represented in your community? What brought them to the community? For southeast Alaska, many ethnic groups (Norwegians, Filipinos, etc.) were attracted by salmon-related activities such as fishing or cannery work. Others (Serbs, etc.) were attracted by gold mining, others by logging, etc. How do all of the groups in the community impact on each other, the natural resources, and the environment?

Activity 2.

Other Stories linked to Place; Spiritual Geography

Geographic places can have powerful symbolic value. For example Israel contains places that for historical reasons are important for the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions. Many Tlingit stories are linked to specific places. Often these stories, like Aak’wtaatseen, are very serious, and explain the relationship of the people to the place and its other forms of life. One term used for this concept is Spiritual Geography. Using standard collections of Tlingit oral literature, try to make connections between the stories and where they took place. Perhaps local elders would be willing to explain why certain places are spiritually important.

5. Government and Citizenship

Episode 1: Opening (specifically the land and the clan using it)

Content Standards.

Note: The content standards for Government and Citizenship apply especially to episodes 1 and 2 of the story as they relate to traditional and contemporary Tlingit social and political organization, concepts of property, traditional resource use, and conflict of law. Under Episode 1 we organize and address the Tlingit clan as the basic governmental unit of traditional social and political organization.

Under Episode 2 (Activities), we address policies dealing with land ownership and resource use, such as citizenship, sovereignty and subsistence use. There is much overlap here with History standards, because we are dealing with the history of Indian policy.

A. A student should know and understand how societies define authority, rights, and responsibilities through a governmental process.

Key element 2 deals with the concepts of property and sovereignty

Key element 3: how nations organize their governments

Key element 4: compare and contrast how different societies have governed themselves over time and in different places.

 

Activity 1.

Use the standard published sources to research and understand the basic concepts of traditional Tlingit social and governmental structure: moiety, clan, house, kwaan or "tribe." The sources include Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1994, Goldschmidt and Haas 1998, Hope 1998, Nyman and Leer 1993, Olson 1997, and Tripp et al. 1996. Use also human resources in the community, as appropriate.

As mentioned elsewhere, the opening words of the story identify a specific Tlingit clan and place. Most Tlingit stories are contextualized in this manner, as happening to a specific group, often in a specific place.

Traditional Tlingit social and governmental organization was based on the clan. Clans are matrilineal (in contrast to western tradition, which is patrilineal). Clans owned real property such as land, and symbolic property such as spirit powers. Clans also owned, and continue to own, names, songs, stories, and artistic designs such as crest animals. Clans had leaders, set their own "foreign policy," made war and peace.

Episode 2: Activities (in the story, specifically subsistence fishing)

Content Standards

Note: Episode 2 (Activities), seems the best place to address Government policy toward Native Americans. Here we address policies dealing with land ownership and resource use, such as citizenship, sovereignty and subsistence. There is much overlap here with History standards, because we are dealing with the history of Indian policy. However, we emphasize that the issues raised here are not quaint, antiquarian things of the past, but ongoing concerns. As this draft is being written (June 2001) many issues of ownership and use of Alaska land and resources remain unresolved and are being disputed among the federal, state, and tribal governments. Our concern with the standards and key elements listed below is with how they relate to salmon fisheries, including rivalries among commercial, sport, and subsistence fisheries; how prices and quotas are established for various users; and the role Alaska plays in negotiating international fishing treaties. (In other contexts, other resources could be examined, such as oil and gas.)

B. A student should understand the constitutional foundations of the American political system and the democratic ideals of this nation, and should

Key element 1. understand the ideals of this nation. . . as expressed in the United States … Constitution; 

Key element 7. distinguish between the constitution-based ideals and the reality of American political and social life; 

Key element 8. understand the place of law in the American political system; and

Key element 9. recognize the role of dissent in the American political system.

 

Activity 1.

Discuss the concept of sovereignty. Indian tribes are mentioned in the US Constitution on an equal basis with "foreign countries." (Section 8, re: the powers of Congress.) Some students might want to read A Long and Terrible Shadow (Berger 1991). This activity directly relates to Standard B, key elements 1,7,8,9.

C. A student should understand the character of the government of the state, and should:

Key element 4. understand the importance of the historical and current roles of Alaska Native communities;

Key element 5. understand the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and its impact on the state;

Key element 6. understand the importance of the multicultural nature of the state

Key element 7. understand the obligations that land and resource ownership place on the residents and government of the state; and

Key element 8. identify the roles and relationships among the federal, tribal, and state governments and understand the responsibilities and limits of the roles and relationships.

 

Activity 1. (C-4)

What are the Tlingit governing organizations in your community today? Consider the Alaska Native Brotherhood, Tlingit and Haida Central Council, IRA organizations, ANCSA regional and village corporations. Consider also SEARHC medical facilities, and profit and non profit corporations as well as culture and heritage foundations. How are they constituted and what are their mandates and missions?

Activity 2. (C-4)

Using all available resources, research the changing and contemporary concepts of Tlingit social and political organization, comparing and contrasting the traditional clan structure with the governing bodies today. Consider what domains the clans retain their traditional influence over, and in which domains their traditional power has been replaced by other governmental bodies.

The traditional, clan-based or clan-centered social and political organization has changed in the last 100 years, and is now largely replaced by western, individual and community-based concepts and by governing structures such as Alaska Native Brotherhood, IRA organizations, Tlingit and Haida Central Council, and the ANCSA regional and village corporations.

This activity is more complicated than researching the traditional clan system of a century ago, because it is more controversial and the living dynamics are less clear. See Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer (2002) and R. Dauenhauer 2000.

Activity 3. (C-5)

Research the history of ANCSA. A good starting place is Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1994; Arnold 1978 is also accessible to high school readers.

Activity 4.

Research the history of subsistence fishing in SE Alaska. (C 6-8)

Since the first contact between Native Americans and Europeans on the Northwest Coast, there has been intense competition for fish as a resource. There have been three main interest groups: Native subsistence users, sport fishermen, and commercial fishermen (with the related cannery industry). This is a complex problem and is not resolved today. There are several research strategies: contact working fishermen from the different groups; contact spokespersons for Native organizations such as ANB; contact spokespersons for governmental offices; contact organizations and projects such as Seagrant and Ecotrust.

For print and media sources, see the Larry Goldin video This Land is Ours (1996), and Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1994 for start. See also references in the activities below.

D. A student should understand the role of the Unites States in international affairs, and should:

Key element 1. analyze how domestic politics . . . and economics affect relations with other countries;

Key element 3. understand how national politics and international affairs are interrelated with the politics and interests of the state.

Key element 5. analyze the causes, consequences, and possible solutions to current international issues.

 

Activity 1.

Research treaties involving Alaska, such as the North Pacific Salmon Treaty. What countries and fishing interests are involved? What are the issues involved? To what extent are Native people of Alaska and Canada involved? Perhaps contact the Governor’s office for current information regarding material and spokespersons. Check the newspapers for stories about the Canadian fishermen protesting by blockading the Alaska State ferry. For related issues involving Puget Sound Indians, see Wilkinson 2000. (D-1, 3, 5)

E. A student should have the knowledge and skills necessary to participate effectively as an informed and responsible citizen, and should

Key element 1: know the important characteristics of citizenship

Key element 3: exercise political participation by . . . voting

Activity 1.

Briefly research the history of Tlingit civil rights, using the video This Land is Ours (Goldin 1996) and the Introduction and biographies of Elizabeth Peratrovich, William Paul, and Peter Simpson in Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1994. (For more detail see the Tlingit Civil Rights materials compiled by R. Dauenhauer as an Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative project, available on request.) Indians are mentioned among "foreign nations" in the US Constitution, and, as James Madison noted in Federalist paper #42, their precise status was never defined regarding membership in the United States (and wasn’t for about 150 years). Native Americans were not made citizens of the US until 1924. Before and after that date, Tlingits were involved in struggles for civil rights including: citizenship, voting, integrated schools and public facilities. (E 1, 3)

F. A student should understand the economies of the Unites States and the state and their relationships to the global economy, and should:

Key element 1. understand how the government and the economy interrelate through regulations….;

Key element 2. be aware that economic systems determine how resources are used to produce and distribute goods and services;

Key element 4. understand the role of price in resource allocation;

Key element 5. understand the basic concepts of supply and demand, the market system, and profit;

Key element 7. understand the role of self-interest, incentives, property rights, competition, and corporate responsibility in the market economy;

Key element 9. understand those features of the economy of the state that make it unique, including the importance of natural resources, government ownership, and management of resources, Alaska Native regional corporations. . . .

 

Activity 1.

Research the regulations for fishing in Alaska. Consider quotas, limited entry, the historical controversy over fish traps, the history of canneries, environmental issues, and the impact of regulations on traditional Native fishing. (F 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9)

Two places to start are the Goldin video (1996) and Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1994 . See also: Mobley 1993, Price 1990, Taylor 1999, Wilkinson 2000, Wolf and Zuckerman 1999.

G. A student should understand the impact of economic choices and participate effectively in the local, state, national, and global economies, and should:

Key element 2. understand that choices are made because resources are scarce;

Key element 3. identify and compare the costs and benefits when making choices;

Key element 5. understand how jobs are created and their role in the economy;

Key element 7. understand that economic choices influence public and private institutional decisions.

 

Activity 1

Consider and research the economic choices regarding salmon in your immediate family and community. Consider: supermarket prices, prices paid by buyers to fishermen, cannery wages, etc. You, your friends, or family members may be personally involved in some aspect of the salmon economy. (G 2,3,5,7)

Activity 2

Consider and research non-commercial aspects of salmon fishing, such as sport or subsistence fishing, and smoking or home canning or jarring fish. What kinds of labor and costs are involved? How would you put a price on it? (G 2,3,5,7)

6. History

Episode 1: Opening (specifically the land and the clan using it)

Content Standards.

Note: The content standards for History overlap to some extent with those of Government and Citizenship regarding the history of fisheries, regulations, and treaties. The history activities here are different from those in the previous section. See also I Am Salmon, Part II for additional relevant ideas and activities.

A. A student should understand that history is a record of human experiences that links the past to the present and the future., and should:

Key element 5. understand that history is a narrative told in many voices and expresses various perspectives of historical experience;

Key element 6. know that cultural elements, including language, literature, the arts, customs, and belief systems, reflect the ideas and attitudes of a specific time and know how the cultural elements influence human interaction

Key element 7. understand that history is dynamic and composed of key turning points;

Key element 8. know that history is a bridge to understanding groups of people and an individual’s relationship to society; and

Key element 9. understand that history is a fundamental connection that unifies all fields of human understanding and endeavor.

 

Activity 1. (A 5)

Discuss what particular voice, perspective, and experience the Aak’wtaatseen story brings to the history of Sitka and SE Alaska.

Activity 2. (A 6)

Discuss the attitudes, ideas, and belief system in the Aak’wtaatseen story. How to they compare and contrast with those of the Euro-American culture?

Activity 3. (A 7)

What are some of the key turning points in the history of Sitka and SE Alaska? Consider the arrival of Euro-Americans, the Battles of Sitka of 1802 and 1804, the sale of Alaska by Russia to the United States, the arrival of various American settlers and institutions, the destruction of Kake and Angoon. (Link also to the history of fisheries discussed under Government and Citizenship. See also Geography standards.)

Activity 4. (A 6, 7)

On a more mythic level, how could the Aak’wtaatseen story be considered a key turning point in Tlingit cultural history?

Activity 5. (A 8)

Discuss the ways in which Aak’wtaatseen bridges understanding between the Tlingit people and the Salmon people. What are the ecological implications of this today? In what ways can the story bridge understanding between Tlingit and non-Tlingit people today?

Activity 6. (A 9)

How do some of the history standards listed here relate to other areas of study such as English and Language Arts, Science, Geography, Government and Citizenship, Skills for a Healthy Life, Arts, World Languages, and Technology? How can your study of the Aak’wtaatseen story connect some of these disciplines?

B. A student should understand historical themes through factual knowledge of time, place, ideas, institutions, cultures, people, and events, and should:

Key element 1. comprehend the forces of change and continuity that shape human history through the following persistent organizing themes:

1.a. the development of culture . . . and the accomplishments and mistakes of social organizations;

1.b. human communities and their relationships with climate, subsistence base, resources, geography, and technology;

1.c. the origin and impact of ideologies, religions, and institutions upon human societies;

1.e. major developments in societies as well as changing patterns related to class, ethnicity, race, and gender;

Key element 2. understand the people and the political, geographic, economic, cultural, social, and environmental events that have shaped the history of the state, the United States, and the world.

Key element 3. recognize that historical understanding is relevant and valuable in the student’s life and for participating in local, state, national, and global communities.

Key element 4. recognize the importance of time, ideas, institutions, people, places, cultures, and events in understanding large historical patterns.

 

 

Activity 1. (B 1. a, b, c)

In what ways did climate, resources and geography contribute to the development of traditional Tlingit culture, technology, subsistence base, and ideology? How are they reflected in the Aak’wtaatseen story? What were the impacts of Euro-American culture, technology, and ideology on traditional Tlingit culture?

Activity 2. (B 1.e)

What changing patterns can you see related to class, ethnicity, race, and gender between the time of the Aak’wtaatseen story and the present?

Activity 3. (B 1.e, B 2)

What are some of the political, economic, cultural, and social changes that have shaped Tlingit culture in the last 200 years? (See also fisheries and civil rights activities in the Government and Citizenship standards.)

Activity 3. (B 3)

How might your personal life be different today if historical events in SE Alaska had been different? Take some of the key events you have identified elsewhere, and pretend you have a time machine and can go back and change the outcome or direction. Perhaps imagine a "Star Trek" episode in which you visit SE Alaska at that time.

Activity 4. (B 4)

Review the Government and Citizenship activities regarding the history of fisheries, Tlingit civil rights, the Alaska Native Brotherhood, the land claims suit, and the passage of ANCSA.

Standards C and D.

NOTE: Standards C 1-4 and D 1-6 apply well to almost all research activities suggested here and above, especially to those under the Government and Citizenship standards. We can assume that most activities address these standards. The activities in this section emphasize personalizing history through using oral accounts or autobiographical materials written by elders.

C. A student should develop the skills and processes of historical inquiry, and should:

Key element 1. use appropriate technology to access, retrieve, organize, and present historical information;

Key element 2. use historical data from a variety of primary resources, including letters, diaries, oral accounts, archeological sites and artifacts, art, maps photos, historical sites, documents, and secondary research materials, including almanacs, books, indices, and newspapers;

Key element 3. apply thinking skills, including classifying, interpreting, analyzing, summarizing, synthesizing, and evaluating, to understand the historical record; and

Key element 4. use historical perspective to solve problems, make decisions, and understand other traditions.

 

D. A student should be able to integrate historical knowledge with historical skill to effectively participate as a citizen and as a lifelong learner, and should:

Key element 1. understand that the student is important in history;

Key element 2. solve problems by using history to identify issues and problems, generate potential solutions, assess the merits of options, act, and evaluate the effectiveness of actions;

Key element 6. create new approaches to issues by incorporating history with other disciplines, including economics, geography, literature, the arts, science, and technology.

 

Activity 1. (C 2, B 3), D 1)

Contact local elders; use oral accounts and written accounts such as memoirs, diaries, and journals to research the lifestyle described in the story. Sitka students are in a unique position to do this, with the collaboration of elders, because the events of the story took place in Sitka, and many community members are connected to the story and place. The Aak’wtaatseen story offers many opportunities for students to research their own place at the same time as making links to the world at large, linking one’s own community to others.

One excellent example of this is the Journal being written by Martin Strand. As a young boy, Martin was at the Nakwasina site with his grandfather, Ralph Young. The personal "line of descent" helps all of us to appreciate how past events can be part of our personal lives today. Oral histories help to "humanize" information we get from other sources such as archives or statistics.

Activity 2. (C 2, B 3, D 1)

Contact Roby Littlefield regarding visiting the Dog Point Fish Camp. This camp is located near to the spot associated with events in the story. Camp staff such as Martin Strand and others help bring the Aak’wtaatseen story to life by personal accounts of their life in the same place.

Activity 3. (C 2, B 3, D 1)

Link with activities in the I Am Salmon curriculum. The curriculum uses the life cycle of salmon as a metaphor for human growth and development, inviting participants to move at the same time into the self and out to the North Pacific rim, linking self, community, watershed, and others.

7. Skills for a Healthy Life

Content Standards.

Note: The content standards for Skills for a Healthy Life link especially well with the concepts and activities in the I Am Salmon curriculum. The curriculum uses the life cycle of salmon as a metaphor for human growth and development. A major part of a salmon’s life is spent in avoiding predators. Likewise, human growth and development is threatened by risks and dangers. The modern world especially, with drugs, alcohol, and AIDS , seems more risk-filled in this regard than earlier times. The disruption of cultural contact and conflict is undoubtedly connected in some way to the large number of dysfunctional families. Sexual abuse is widespread. There seems to be an increase in violence and hostility, in families and communities. The teen pregnancy rate in SE Alaska is among the highest in the world.

The episodes of the Aak’wtaatseen story suggest departure points for discussion of values and activities that might contribute to a healthy life. The Aak’wtaatseen story is richer than the standards and offers much potential for use in classes about Skills for a Healthy Life. (For example, there is nothing in the standards about the value of Native food in the diet.)

Standards that most generally (or specifically apply) are: A 1,2, 7, 8; B 3, 4, 5; C 6 (=B 3?).

In this section, we will follow the episodes of the story and suggest activities.

Episode 1: Opening.

As a family and clan social and economic unit, people are following a seasonal routine by camping at a salmon stream and putting up food.

Activity 1.

Discuss how this differs from modern family living for most families. Consider the value of camping for physical and mental health.

Activity 2.

Discuss activities such as family camping or participating in local fish camps.

Episode 2: Activities

Adults are involved in putting up food for the winter. Discuss how this differs from modern family living for most families.

Activity 1.

Research the food values of Native food. Check with SEARHC and public health offices. Is there a "food pyramid" for Native foods?

Activity 2.

Research the traditional annual cycle of subsistence food gathering in your area. Where did people go, and when, and for what? What is involved in doing some of this today?

Activity 3.

The children in many versions of the story are involved in games. With elders in your community, research traditional Tlingit children’s games. (This may be difficult. As a general rule of folklore, kids learn children’s games from older kids, and not from adults, and most adults can no longer remember the rules!)

Episode 3: Taboo violated

The boy violates a taboo by rejecting the dryfish because it is moldy. See the English and Language Arts discussion for more on this. Here we focus on cultural attitudes toward food and techniques of preparing it.

Activity 1.

Discuss traditional values regarding respect for food. One obvious point here is that the boy is not to complain about the food and reject it. In more southern versions of the story, the taboo broken is that the people didn’t eat it all up by the end of the salmon run. Either way, the salmon are offended and the relationship between humans and salmon needs to be restored and maintained in harmony.

Activity 2. (C-5)

Research the techniques of smoking fish. Why does it get moldy? There are many links here to science and understanding what happens when food dehydrates. Links to skills for a healthy life include how to preserve food safely, avoiding the dangers of spoilage and botulism.

Activity 3.

What kinds of salmon are smoked and dried? What are the best ways to dry the various species (half-dried, etc.)

Activity 4.

Today, most people store smoked fish in a freezer. What are other traditional ways of storing it (such as in seal oil, or in a cache)? (Perhaps the boy’s fish was moldy because it was the first in and the last out of the storage place.)

Activity 5.

What other kinds of fish and meat can be smoked? (Halibut, seal, deer.)

Episode 5: The Boy Lives with the Salmon People

The boy lives with the salmon people and constantly needs to be socialized to appropriate behavior. In most versions of the story, this episode is the most confusing.

Activity 1.

Discuss the events in this episode in comparison with human life. For example, salmon eggs are compared to dung, and the boy is cautioned not to eat them. This may compare to the human world where people eat herring eggs after they are spawned onto branches, seaweed, or kelp, but usually take salmon eggs before the spawn, not collecting them from the beach like a waste-product.

Activity 2.

Discuss the process of socialization-how children (and newcomers to a culture) are taught proper manners and behavior and how to learn to function as productive and contributing members of the society. What is the role of literature (including stories) in this?

Episode 6: The Return.

There are many interesting details here, described more fully in the standards for English and Geography. In terms of food, though, there are some interesting connections.

Activity 1.

Discuss the rivalry between the salmon and the herring. In the story, the salmon and herring are rivals and are making fun of each other. The salmon ridicule the herring because while salmon cheeks are sizeable and are nice eating, herring cheeks are too small to eat. The herring reply by comparing the bounty of herring eggs in contrast to salmon, whose eggs, while individually larger, are much smaller in yield. Each single salmon egg is larger than a single herring egg, but the herring spawn is massive. (As noted above, salmon eggs are usually removed from the salmon when the fish is caught and cleaned, but herring eggs are gathered by putting branches in the sea and retrieving them after the spawn.)

Activity 2. (A 2)

In the story, the homeward bound salmon are subjected to many dangers and predators. This might be a good place to discuss issues of safety when engaging in traditional lifestyle activities such as boating, fishing, and hunting.

Activity 3. (A 7, A 8)

In the life cycle of the salmon, the return journey completes the cycle of maturity, reproduction, and death. This might be a good place to link to standards A 7 and A 8 dealing with sexual development, maturity and life changes.

Episode 10: Conclusion

Activity 1 (B 3, B 4, B 5, C 6)

Consider the roles of narrative, myth, and ritual in well being. Several standards address the effects of culture, heritage and tradition on personal well being. An important role of narrative and literature, whether oral or written, is to contribute to mental health and spiritual well being of people. They can play a healing role in cases of injury, or help to work through eternal questions of the relationship of humans to the land and environment and spirit world.

Activity 2.

Consider what is called the myth of eternal return: the renewal of nature. In traditional cultures , the pattern is usually of animals giving themselves to humans, but of expecting to be treated with dignity and respect by humans, like honored guests, so that they will return again. How is this reflected in the story?

8. Arts

Note on standards. The Aak’wtaatseen story offers many possibilities for activities in traditional and contemporary art forms. The most relevant standards are noted below, and activities suggested by episode. Emphasis here is on visual and performing arts; please see English and Language Arts for features of literature, comparative literature, and folklore.

A. A student should be able to create and perform in the arts, and should:

Key element 1. participate in dance, drama, music, visual arts, and create writing;

Key element 2. refine artistic skills and develop self-discipline through rehearsal, practice, and revision;

Key element 3. appropriately use new and traditional materials, tools, techniques, and processes in the arts;

Key element 5. collaborate with others to create and perform works of art.

 

B. A student should be able to understand the historical and contemporary role of the arts in Alaska, the nation, and the world, and should:

Key element 1. recognize Alaska Native cultures and their arts;

Key element 3. recognize the role of tradition and ritual in the arts;

Key element 4. investigate the relationships among the arts and the individual, the society, and the environment;

Key element 5. recognize universal themes in the arts such as love, war, childhood, and community;

Key element 7. explore similarities and differences in the arts of world cultures.

C. A student should be able to critique the student’s art and the art of others, and should:

Key element 2. examine historical and contemporary works of art, the works of peers, and the student’s own work as follows:

a. identify the piece;

b. describe the use of basic elements;

c. analyze the use of basic principles;

D. A student should be able to recognize beauty and meaning through the arts in the student’s life, and should:

Key element 3. recognize that people tend to devalue what they do not understand;

Key element 5. consider other culture’s beliefs about works of art;

Key element 6. recognize that people connect many aspects of life through the arts.

 

Episode 1: Opening

Activity 1. (B. 1, 3, 4, 7; D. 3, 5, 6)

What is the social context of visual art?

As noted in sections on other standards, in Tlingit culture, clans own stories, songs, dances, and artistic designs. Therefore, the first step in study of Tlingit art is to appreciate the connection of a particular design with a clan. Clans may use more than one emblem, and a given emblem may be shared by several historically related clans. Check with local elders and published sources regarding clans in your area and their crests.

Activity 2. (Arts A. 1, 2, 5, 6; World Language A 4)

Do a play based on the Aak’wtaatseen story.

Ms.Diana Saiz of Floyd Dryden Middle School in Juneau has developed and performed a dramatic version over two seasons. Contact her for details. The play involves narration, spoken and acted parts, and shadow puppets. Tlingit words and phrases are incorporated.

Activity 3. (A. 1, 2, 5, 6)

If you were doing a movie with special effects or an animated version of the story, how would you envision the shape shifting and transformations that take place?

Episode 2. Activities

Activity 1. (B 5)

Discuss various themes found in the story: childhood, taboo-taboo violated; the journey, the homecoming. See the English and Language Arts section for more on this.

Episodes 5 and 6: With the Salmon People and Homecoming

Activity 1. (C 2, a, b, c)

Herring and several species of salmon are mentioned in the story. Learn how these are stylized in Tlingit visual art; for example, how can you tell a coho from a sockeye?

Episode 7: Recognition

Activity 1. (B. 1, 3, 4, 7; C 2, a, b, c; D. 3, 5, 6)

The most famous passage in the story is when the parents recognize their son by his copper necklace. Study the use of copper in Tlingit art, including necklaces, bracelets, rings, and the shield-like objects called "Tinaa" or "copper."

Episode 8: Restoration to Human Form

Activity 1. (B. 1, 3, 4, 7; C 2, a, b, c; D. 3, 5, 6)

Most versions of the story describe some use of baskets, mats or other woven objects. Study the use of weaving in Tlingit art, including spruce root and grass; baskets, hats, and mats.

Activity 2. (D. 6; see also math standards)

Tlingit Math and Basketry Design. For some time, we have wanted to work with math teachers to design some units and activities involving Tlingit basketry designs and math concepts, involving computer programming. In spring semester, Monica Haygood and Dirk Miller, teachers at Gastineau Elementary in Douglas, worked on a prototype project to launch this. Contact them or us for more information.

Episode 9: The Boy Becomes a Shaman.

Activity 1. (A. 1, 2, 5, 6; B. 1, 3, 4, 7; D. 3, 5, 6)

Some versions of the story mention specifically songs and dances that go with this story. These are owned by the Kiks.ádi clan, and are still performed by the Sitka dancers. Check with dance groups in your area for more about these songs and dances.

Activity 2. CHECK THIS ONE

There is an old popular song called "I Love My Alaska Salmon." Can you find a recording or someone who knows it?

9. World Languages

Note: World Languages standards are not addressed in this draft. The extent to which World Languages standards can be addressed is directly related to the amount of Tlingit language activities included by the teacher or district. For example, if the story is read in Tlingit as part of ongoing Tlingit language instruction, this is a major activity; if only a few vocabulary words are used, it is a minor activity; if there is no language component at all, the unit does not address the World Languages standards.

Several Tlingit components of the Salmon unit are in preparation. These range from the Tlingit language texts of several versions of the story (#99, #100, A. P. Johnson) to a detailed vocabulary of parts of the fish.

At present, few if any schools in SE have Tlingit language courses and teacher training advanced to the level where the texts can be taught, so there is no immediate rush for the Tlingit texts. We will work on them as time permits.

Tlingit vocabulary and phrases dealing with salmon can be easily used at any level of instruction, and can be used as language components for activities in other content areas, such as science.

Several salmon-related activities are being developed by teachers in the Juneau District. These include:

• "Go Fish." (An interactive computer game developed by Nora and Richard Dauenhauer and Henry Hopkins.)

• Computerized materials developed by Ms Angela Lunda and her students.

[GET AND ADD DETAIL.]

• [UPDATE THIS WITH MATERIALS FROM CLASS]

See also the personal and place name activities under Geography standards.

Please see also the report on Program Options for Tlingit as a Second Language being developed by Richard Dauenhauer for the Juneau School District (Most recent update, September 2000) for suggestions on ways to incorporate Tlingit language.

10. Technology.

Note. Technology standards are not a major part of this draft, but easily may or could be, to the extent that teachers use computers and technology in the activities.

Possible student computer uses include:

• word processing and emailing reports

• accessing websites for research information

• programming

• running instructional programs

• using or programming Cultural Atlas Projects

• using or programming GIS maps

• using electronic mail to network with I Am Salmon project sites

Several computer projects are being developed. These include:

• AKRSI Cultural Atlas sites (available on CD for Angoon and Kake; Haines area in progress)

 • ISER’s Alaskool.org website, which will post some of the materials developed in Juneau

 

Several salmon-related activities are being developed by teachers in the Juneau District. These are generally interactive and include graphics and sound files. These include:

• Dauenhauer and Hopkins prototype materials: "Go Fish." (An interactive computer game developed by Nora and Richard Dauenhauer and Henry Hopkins.)

• Nancy Douglas materials in print and electronic

• Paula Dybdahl electronic materials on Tlingit sounds and geography terms

• Monica Haygood and Dirk Miller, materials on Tlingit Basketry and Math involving computers and digital photos

• Ray Imel’s electronic version of the Tlingit Noun Dictionary

• Angela Lunda’s computerized materials

[ADD MORE DETAIL; ALSO THOSE DONE BY HER STUDENTS]

• UPDATE THIS WITH MATERIALS FROM CLASS

11. Employability

Note: Employability standards are not a major component of this draft, but may apply in some cases.

The most critical question facing Tlingit language instruction today is: Where is the next generation of language teachers coming from? They must be among the students learning the language today.

Some short-range employment possibilities include:

• Materials development for Tlingit language, literature, and culture

• Teaching of Tlingit language, literature, and culture

• Cultural interpreting for the Juneau summer tourist industry:

Native corporation enterprises such as the Mt. Roberts Tramway, Glacier Bay and Tracy Arm cruises

US Forest Service Marine Highway program and visitor centers

NPS at Glacier Bay and other sites

Note: this is a general listing. Please see our Civil Rights Unit for more detailed and technical references on ANCSA

Arnold, Robert D., et al. 1978. Alaska Native Land Claims. Revised Edition. Anchorage: Alaska Native Foundation. First published in 1976. (This book is out of print, but maybe available in libraries. It is an introduction to ANCSA aimed at high school and college readers.)

Berger, Thomas R. 1991. A Long and Terrible Shadow. White Values, Native Rights in the Americas. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (A history of Indian policy in the New World. Powerful; useful for teachers, and probably accessible by high school students.)

Dauenhauer, Nora Marks and Richard Dauenhauer. 1987. Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narratives. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (An introduction to Tlingit social structure and narratives about clan ancestors.)

Dauenhauer, Nora Marks and Richard Dauenhauer. 1990. Haa Tuwunáagu Yís, For Healing Our Spirit: Tlingit Oratory. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (An introduction to Tlingit spirituality and the connection in Tlingit folklife among visual art, verbal art, and social structure.)

Dauenhauer, Nora Marks and Richard Dauenhauer. 1994. Haa Kusteeyí, Our Culture: Tlingit Life Stories. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (An introduction to Tlingit social and political history.)

Dauenhauer, Nora Marks and Richard Dauenhauer. 1997. Axe Handle Academy Working Draft Materials. A Project of the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative, Southeast Region. (A green, comb-bound binder of resource materials for place-based education. Available by request for cost of xeroxing.)

Dauenhauer, Nora Marks and Richard Dauenhauer. 1998. Civil Rights Resource Unit Using Examples from Southeast Alaska. A Project of the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative, Southeast Region. (Final working draft,December 1998. The set consists of an annotated bibliography, xerox copies of rare or hard-to-get articles, and suggested activities. Available by request for cost of xeroxing, or on floppy disc.)

Dauenhauer, Nora Marks and Richard Dauenhauer. 2002? Forthcoming. "Evolving Concepts of Tlingit Clan and Identity." To be published in a book of papers delivered at the Northwest Coast Ethnology Conference, Collège de France, Paris, June 21-23, 2000.

Dauenhauer, Nora Marks. 2000. Life Woven With Song. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. (A collection of essays, autobiographical material, poems, stories, and plays. Much of the writing describes traditional salmon fishing.)

Dauenhauer, Richard. 2000. "Synchretism, Revival, and Reinvention: Tlingit Religion, Pre- and Postcontact." In Lawrence E. Sullivan, Ed., Native Religions and Cultures of North America. From the Series Anthropology of the Sacred. New York and London: Continuum. (About changing concepts of Tlingit Religion.)

Goldschmidt, Walter R. and Theodore H. Haas. 1998. Haa Aaní, Our Land. Tlingit and Haida Land Rights and Use. Edited with an Introduction by Thomas F. Thornton. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (First issued as a report in 1946, this is a classic study of Native land use in SE Alaska. The 1998 edition contains much information not included in the original report, such as the original Native testimony and many maps and tables. Teachers and students are encouraged to read the sections dealing with their community.)

Hope, Andrew III. 1998. Traditional Tlingit Country. (Map). Second edition, revised. Juneau: Tlingit Readers, Inc. (This attractive poster-map is useful for reference and as classroom decoration. It shows the traditional 19^th century territories of local groups, and has a list of clans and houses as best as can be reconstructed.)

Kawagley, Angayuqaq Oscar and Ray Barnhardt. 1997. "Education Indigenous to Place: Western Science Meets Native Reality." (This draft, xerox, February 1997, Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative, University of Alaska Fairbanks. To be published in Gregory Smith and Dilafruz Williams, Ecological Education in Action, SUNY Press, 1997. CHECK FOR ACTUAL PUBLICATION DATA (The essay explains the basic concepts of the movement for place-based, bioregional approaches to education in Alaska.)

Langill, Jane Corddry, Judith Roche, Rie Taki, and David George Gordon, editors. 1999. "I Am Salmon. An Exploration of Salmon and Self. An Educator’s Collection of Resources and Activities For the Interdisciplinary Study and Appreciation of Watersheds and People of the North Pacific Rim." (Seattle. One Reel. First Fish: Wild Salmon Project. PO Box 9750, Seattle, WA 98109-0750. Telephone 206-281-7788.) (An excellent collection, based on the life cycle of the salmon and linking to many other activities in human physical, emotional, spiritual, and artistic development.)

Mobley, Charles M. 1993. "The Klawock Oceanside Packing Company, Prince of Wales Island, Alaska." A report prepared by Charles M. Mobley and Associates, 200 W. 34^th St., #534, Anchorage, AK 99503, under contract to the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, 320 W. Willoughby Avenue #300, Juneau, AK 99801. (A history of one cannery in Klawock.)

Nyman, Elizabeth, and Jeff Leer. 1993. Gágiwdul.àt: Brought Forth to Reconfirm: The Legacy of a Taku River Tlingit Clan. Whitehorse, Yukon and Fairbanks, AK: Yukon Native Language Centre and Alaska Native Language Center. (Stories and data of interest to communities such as Juneau and Douglas, with connections to the Taku River people.)

Olson, Wallace. 1997. The Tlingit: An Introduction to Their Culture and History. Auke Bay, AK: Heritage Research. (Very useful and readable introduction to Tlingit culture and history. First published in 1991.)

One Reel. 1999. Please see Langill et al.

Paul, Freance Lackey. 1996. Kahtahah. A Tlingit Girl. Anchorage, Seattle, and Portland: Alaska Northwest Books. (Illustrated by Rie Munoz. Written in 1938, first published in 1976, and republished in 1996, this is a very accessible and charming children’s book. The salmon story from Swanton is worked into the story. Some of the editorializing, probably deriving from William Paul, is questionable.

Price, Robert. 1990. The Great Father in Alaska: The Case of the Tlingit and Haida Salmon Fishery. Douglas, AK: First Street Press. (Distributed by Sealaska Heritage Foundation.) (A very good, but technical history of the SE fishery; more for teachers than students, but includes valuable testimony and documentation.)

Roche, Judith, and Meg McHutchinson, Eds. 1998. First Fish, First People. Salmon Tales of the North Pacific Rim. Seattle: One Reel and University of Washington Press. (Writing and photographs about salmon from around the North Pacific Rim. Please see Langill et al. for more about the larger Wild Salmon Project and I Am Salmon curriculum. Includes work by Nora Dauenhauer and other Native American writers, and their counterparts in Japan and Russia.)

Rossiter, Clinton, Ed. 1961. The Federalist Papers. New York: New American Library, Mentor Books. (A convenient collection of the Federalist Papers, with the US Constitution in the appendix. Any edition will do for the Federalist Papers and the Constitution. The Federalist Papers make for interesting reading because many of the issues discussed by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay over 200 years ago remain hotly debated in Alaska today.)

Swanton, John. 1970 [1909]. Tlingit Myths and Texts. New York and London: Johnson Reprint Corporation. (First published in 1909, this is the "classic" collection of Tlingit stories.)

Taylor, Joseph E. III. 1999. Making Salmon. An Environmental History of the Northwest Fisheries Crisis. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (This is exciting and accessible reading for the nonprofessional wanting to make sense of a controversial issue with a complex history. More for teachers than high school students, who might find it intimidating , but could probably handle it).

Tripp, Angela et al. 1996. Alaskan Native Cultures. Vol. 1: Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian. Santa Barbara, CA: Albion Publishing Group. (An attractive and useful, popular but accurate introduction to the cultures of SE Alaska.)

Wilkinson, Charles. 2000. Messages from Frank’s Landing. A Story of Salmon, Treaties, and the Indian Way. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (In the 1960’s, Frank’s Landing (on the Nisqually River, in Puget Sound) became a focal point for the assertion of tribal fishing treaty rights in the Northwest. The attractive book is well illustrated with maps and powerful photographs. Accessible to high school readers.)

Wolf, Edward C. and Seth Zuckerman, Eds. 1999. Salmon Nation. People and Fish at the Edge. Portland, OR: Ecotrust. (A collection of essays on various issues regarding salmon survival. An attractive book, accessible to high school readers. Several maps, charts, and photographs.)

Note: most, if not all, of these tapes are available through Sealaska heritage Foundation.

Frankenstein, Ellen, and Sharon Gmelch. 1992. A Matter of Respect. Institutional purchasers should contact the distributor directly: New Day Film Library, 22D Hollywood Avenue, Ho-ho-kus, NJ 07423 (201) 652-6590. (A documentary about modern Tlingit, this stimulating video portrays a diverse group of contemporary people, mostly from Sitka, each expressing his or her own sense of what it means to be Tlingit in today’s world. VHS. 30 min.)

Goldin, Laurence. 1982. Angoon: One Hundred Years Later. Angoon: Kootznoowoo Cultural and Educational Foundation. VHS. 28 min. (This is one of the finest video tapes produced on Tlingit history. In a well-written narrative accompanied by historical photographs and contemporary footage, it reviews the historical events of 1882 that culminated in the U. S. naval bombardment of Angoon.)

Goldin, Laurence. 1996. This Land Is Ours. Aurora Films. VHS. 58 min. (This is the very best video tape to begin with, and we recommend it as a "core viewing" for any course on Tlingit history and culture. It offers a concise history of the major battles in Tlingit civil rights.)

Kawaky, Joe. 1981. Haa Shagoon. Chilkoot Indian Association. VHS. 29 min. (Institutional purchasers must order directly from the distributor: University of California Extension, Center for Media and Independent Learning, 2000 Center St., 4^th Floor, Berkeley, CA 94704. (510) 642-0460. (This remarkable video follows Austin Hammond and other Tlingit elders in documenting a day of Tlingit Indian ceremony along the Chilkoot River in 1980. It culminates in the peace ritual, performed both as a cultural event and as an appeal for justice in the struggle of the Tlingit people against the exploitation of their tribal lands and water. The fish weir is a central issue.)

Shea, Ester. 1994. Esther Shea. The Bear Stands Up. Ketchikan: UAS Ketchikan and Woody Creek Productions. VHS. 29 min. (This is a well-written, well-edited video presentation on the life and times of Esther Shea, capturing and expressing not only her life, but the experience of her entire generation in coping with life in two worlds-traditional Tlingit and incoming white. An elder of the Taantakwaan (Tongass) Teikweidí, Esther was born in Quadra, in the Misty Fjords area, and was raised in a traditional lifestyle in remote camps. This came to an end with her boarding school experiences of the 1920s, which prohibited and punished all Tlingit cultural expression. After abandoning Tlingit language and lifestyle for many years, at the age of fifty, she was asked to teach these subjects. Older viewers especially will recognize and appreciate her experience as their own-the struggle of the Native people to regain and restore, teach, and transmit a part of their life and personality that was suppressed and abandoned for two generations.)