Annie Blue
Yup'ik
Nominated for: Cungauyaraam Qulivai: Annie
Blue's Stories
University of Alaska Press * 2007
As a young girl more than fifty years ago, Evelyn (Coopchiak)
Yanez listened to renowned storyteller Annie Blue of Togiak tell
her stories. During the course of this long-term project, Annie
has told many more stories. More recently, Ben and Eliza Orr,
Evelyn Yanez, and Dora Andrew-Ihrke collaborated in collecting,
transcribing, translating, and refining these stories. Because
of the long term relationship between Annie Blue and Evelyn Yanez,
and the trust developed between Annie and the Math in a Cultural
Context project, Annie was willing and eager to share her stories
so the next generation would learn.
With deep admiration for all
those who contributed to this collection of stories in honor
of Annie Blue and to Annie Blue herself for
her willingness to share her gift of storytelling, we present
this collection.
— By Evelyn Yanez and Jerry Lipka
Annie
Blue was born on February 21, 1916, in a place called Qissayaaq
along the Togiak River. She was one of nine children. Annie moved
to Togiak around 1945, where she still lives. She married Cingakaq
(Billy Blue) and had seven children; four survived birth and
one (Nellie) is still living today. She has 15 grandchildren,
25 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great grandchild. When asked
how she became a storyteller, Annie credits Saveskar, the storyteller
in her village. Today, Annie is a respected storyteller, carrying
on the oral tradition of Yup’ik storytelling.
Picture of Annie Blue and Andy Hope
Picture of Annie Blue and Walter Johnson
Walter Johnson
Dena'ina
Nominated for: Sukdu Nel Nuhtghelnek: I'll
Tell You A Story
Transcribed and edited by James Kari
Alaska Native Language Center * 2005
Sukdu Nel Nuhghelnek: I’ll Tell You A Story is
an important book for several reasons. This is the first Dena’ina
book that coordinates written text and sound. The stories are
a colorful
portrait of Dena’ina life and language, and the book and
audio CD function as language learning tools.
Walter and I had
a lot of fun with the stories as we tape-recorded them at the
Johnson’s’ home in Homer in 2002 and
2003. Walter told some of the stories spontaneously. For some
we paused the recorder to think about phrases. During proofreading
sessions, Walter made inserts and changes in some stories.
The
fourteen stories in this book and the photos, most of which were
captioned by Walter, give a vivid sense of mid-twentieth
century life on Iliamna Lake. Students of Dena’ina and
Athabascan folklore will enjoy the texts for the details on things
such as Walter’s mother’s handiwork, the low-flying
comets (possibly 'ball lightning') seen by Walter and others,
the legendary Mountain People, or the precipitous demolition
of a Dena’ina cultural shrine at the summit of Iliamna
Portage. — By Jim Kari
Walter Johnson was born
along the Kvichak River, June 14, 1922 to Alf Johnson, a man
from Estonia, and to Annie Rickteroff.
His mother was the daughter of William Rykhterov, son of a Russian
and Dena’ina woman. The youngest of twelve children, Walter
lived much of his early life as an only child. He and his mother
lived alone in Lonesome Bay in the northeast corner of Iliamna
Lake. Walter’s fluency in his native language, making him
a rarity among the Dena’ina people of Old Iliamna Village,
is due to this mother only speaking Dena’ina at home. Through
the years he used this knowledge by acting as an interpreter
of his Dena’ina language. His mother also passed on to
him much of the oral history and literature of the Dena’ina
people of the area. At the age of 24, Walter married Annie Mysee
of Old Iliamna Village. They had three children. Walter and Annie
presently live in Homer, Alaska.
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Ernestine Hayes
Tlingit
Nominated for: Blonde Indian
University of Arizona Press * 2006
Blonde Indian, an Alaska Native Memoir, traces
one life from childhood in the Juneau Indian Village through adulthood
in California and an eventual return home. Since its publication
by the University of Arizona Press in 2006, Hayes’s memoir
has earned recognition as an honest and welcome addition to Native
American literature. Called a “rewarding, evocative, ultimately
uplifting view of Native life” by Booklist and “one
of the most important books to come out of Alaska” by the
Anchorage Press, Blonde Indian received a 2007 American Book Award,
was chosen as a 2006 Book of the Month by Native America Calling,
and was named a Kiriyama Prize nonfiction finalist and a creative
nonfiction finalist in the PEN Center USA Literary Awards.
A member
of the Wolf House of the Kaagwaantaan, Ernestine Hayes’ work
has been published in anthologies, journals, and other media. She
has been an assistant professor of English at the University of
Alaska Southeast Juneau campus since receiving a Master of Fine
Arts in Creative Writing and Literary Arts from the University
of Alaska Anchorage in 2003. She is the grandmother of four.
Clarissa Hudson
Tlingit
Nominated For: Jennie Weaves An Apprentice: A
Chilkat Weaver's Handbook
Artstream Press * 2005
Jennie Weaves an Apprentice: a Chilkat
Weaver’s
Handbook, by Clarissa Hudson, is a beautiful portrayal of the time-honored
apprentice relationship. It is also a handbook for weavers that
depicts weaving techniques, offers tips and includes stories surrounding
Clarissa’s work. Her essays are varied, from her trip to
museums “visiting the relatives,” to her world view
on subjects such as northwest coast art, to living an honorable
life. The book is rich with creative spirit and it is an honor
that this talented artist, writer, weaver has chosen to share her
knowledge with others. Jennie Weaves an Apprentice should be on
the shelf in every Tlingit home. Although I would like to see this
book published by a national publishing house, currently it is
a limited edition. It deserves a wider audience.
— By Vivian Martindale
Clarissa Hudson is Tlingit, Raven T’akdeinaaan
(Sea Tern), Snail House in Hoonah, born and raised in Juneau, Alaska. She is
a world-renowned weaver
and artist whose award wining creations are in various private, corporate,
public art collections nationwide and internationally. Since
1980, Clarissa has focused
on artwork inspired by her Alaska Native heritage. Between 1983 to 2005, she
designed and created 50 traditional Alaskan ceremonial robes, including Chilkat,
Ravenstail and Button Blanket robes as well as numerous traditionally-inspired
carvings, paintings, small weavings, and collages.
Michael Krauss, Editor
Nominated for: In Honor of Eyak: The Art of Anna
Nelson Harry
Alaska Native Language Center * 1995
(reprint from 1982)
In Honor of Eyak includes
stories told by Annie Nelson Harry in Eyak that were translated
by her husband.
She told us that she had learned them from “Old Chief Joe.” We
are fortunate to have several of these tales told not in only
one version, but in two by Anna herself — an earlier version
in 1933 when she was a young woman of 27, living where she was
born and raised, and married to another Eyak, and a later version
from Anna now thirty to forty years older, after living a long
time in Yakutat, married to Sampson Harry. For the earlier version
we have only her first husband’s English translations,
and for the later we have Anna’s Eyak originals. It is
very interesting to compare the two versions, not for their language,
of course, but for the difference in content of the story, which
is often very great, and reflects very deeply the story of Anna’s
life and Eyak history. The versions she hold in her later life
are now much fuller with personal meaning, wit, and wisdom that
could only be Anna’s, and Eyak.
I have presented these
in chapters that I have entitled with the names of the issues
they really treat at their deepest level:
(I) On Greatness and Smallness; (II) On Goodness and Evil; (III)
On Husband and Wife; (IV) On Identity and Conflict; and (V) On
the Beginning and End of Eyak History. Yet in spite of their
real significance, and in spite of all the misery, horror and
tragedy that Anna lived through, her style is basically cheerful
and war-hearted. She is sometimes masterfully satiric, but her
soul is not embittered by human foibles or inscrutable fate,
no matter how cruel these have been to her. Her spirit is indomitable.
She is a survivor.
— Michael Krauss
Michael Krauss, Professor Emeritus,
joined the University of Alaska faculty in 1960, has been a professor
of linguistics since
1968, and director of the Alaska Native Language Center since
the center was established by state legislation in 1972 until
his retirement in June 2000. |
