Download or read book Alaska Native Cultures and Issues written by Libby Roderick and published by University of Alaska Press. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making up more than ten percent of Alaska's population, Native Alaskans are the state's largest minority group. Yet most non-Native Alaskans know surprisingly little about the histories and cultures of their indigenous neighbors, or about the important issues they face. This concise book compiles frequently asked questions and provides informative and accessible responses that shed light on some common misconceptions. With responses composed by scholars within the represented communities and reviewed by a panel of experts, this easy-to-read compendium aims to facilitate a deeper exploration and richer discussion of the complex and compelling issues that are part of Alaska Native life today.

Download or read book Native Cultures in Alaska written by Alaska Geographic Association and published by Graphic Arts Books. This book was released on 2012-11-15 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the minds of most Americans, Native culture in Alaska amounts to Eskimos and igloos....The latest publication of the Alaska Geographic Society offers an accessible and attractive antidote to such misconceptions. Native Cultures in Alaska blends beautiful photographs with informative text to create a striking portrait of the state's diverse and dynamic indigenous population.

Download or read book The Alaska Native Reader written by Maria Sháa Tláa Williams and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-25 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alaska is home to more than two hundred federally recognized tribes. Yet the long histories and diverse cultures of Alaska’s first peoples are often ignored, while the stories of Russian fur hunters and American gold miners, of salmon canneries and oil pipelines, are praised. Filled with essays, poems, songs, stories, maps, and visual art, this volume foregrounds the perspectives of Alaska Native people, from a Tlingit photographer to Athabascan and Yup’ik linguists, and from an Alutiiq mask carver to a prominent Native politician and member of Alaska’s House of Representatives. The contributors, most of whom are Alaska Natives, include scholars, political leaders, activists, and artists. The majority of the pieces in The Alaska Native Reader were written especially for the volume, while several were translated from Native languages. The Alaska Native Reader describes indigenous worldviews, languages, arts, and other cultural traditions as well as contemporary efforts to preserve them. Several pieces examine Alaska Natives’ experiences of and resistance to Russian and American colonialism; some of these address land claims, self-determination, and sovereignty. Some essays discuss contemporary Alaska Native literature, indigenous philosophical and spiritual tenets, and the ways that Native peoples are represented in the media. Others take up such diverse topics as the use of digital technologies to document Native cultures, planning systems that have enabled indigenous communities to survive in the Arctic for thousands of years, and a project to accurately represent Dena’ina heritage in and around Anchorage. Fourteen of the volume’s many illustrations appear in color, including work by the contemporary artists Subhankar Banerjee, Perry Eaton, Erica Lord, and Larry McNeil.

Download or read book Living Our Cultures Sharing Our Heritage written by Aron A. Crowell and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2010-05-18 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska features more than 200 objects representing the masterful artistry and design traditions of twenty Alaska Native peoples. Based on a collaborative exhibition created by Alaska Native communities, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, and the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, this richly illustrated volume celebrates both the long-awaited return of ancestral treasures to their native homeland and the diverse cultures in which they were created. Despite the North's transformation through globalizing change, the objects shown in these pages are interpretable within ongoing cultural frames, articulated in languges still spoken. They were made for a way of life on the land that is carried on today throughout Alaska. Dialogue with the region's First Peoples evokes past meanings but focuses equally on contemporary values, practices, and identities. Objects and narratives show how each Alaska Native nation is unique—and how all are connected. After introductions to the history of the land and its people, universal themes of “Sea, Land, Rivers,” “Family and Community,” and “Ceremony and Celebration” are explored referencing exquisite masks, parkas, beaded garments, basketry, weapons, and carvings that embody the diverse environments and practices of their makers. Accompanied by traditional stories and personal accounts by Alaska Native elders, artists, and scholars, each piece featured in Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage evokes both historical and contemporary meaning, and breathes the life of its people.

Download or read book The Native People of Alaska written by Steve Langdon and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introductory guide to the Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts. Focus is on their life-styles, traditions, and culture.

Download or read book Blonde Indian written by Ernestine Hayes and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring, the bear returns to the forest, the glacier returns to its source, and the salmon returns to the fresh water where it was spawned. Drawing on the special relationship that the Native people of southeastern Alaska have always had with nature, Blonde Indian is a story about returning. Told in eloquent layers that blend Native stories and metaphor with social and spiritual journeys, this enchanting memoir traces the author’s life from her difficult childhood growing up in the Tlingit community, through her adulthood, during which she lived for some time in Seattle and San Francisco, and eventually to her return home. Neither fully Native American nor Euro-American, Hayes encounters a unique sense of alienation from both her Native community and the dominant culture. We witness her struggles alongside other Tlingit men and women—many of whom never left their Native community but wrestle with their own challenges, including unemployment, prejudice, alcoholism, and poverty. The author’s personal journey, the symbolic stories of contemporary Natives, and the tales and legends that have circulated among the Tlingit people for centuries are all woven together, making Blonde Indian much more than the story of one woman’s life. Filled with anecdotes, descriptions, and histories that are unique to the Tlingit community, this book is a document of cultural heritage, a tribute to the Alaskan landscape, and a moving testament to how going back—in nature and in life—allows movement forward.

Download or read book Making History written by Patricia H. Partnow and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Documents about the Alutiiq people of the Alaska Peninsula, written by outsiders, tell a familiar story of political subjugation, economic deprivation, and cultural loss. But recordings of oral traditions and personal histories by the Alutiiqs themselves tell a different tale. These narratives, woven together here with written records and scholarly commentary into an ethnohistory, show that Alutiiqs have been making their own history for millennia. Through stories and actions, Alutiiqs not only affect the course of their lives, but in so doing express a unique perception of the very nature of history. Illustrated with numerous photographs and maps, the author offers interviews and tales from storytellers from Alaska Peninsula villages. She gives historical and cultural context to each voice, allowing people to speak for themselves while helping readers comprehend the unspoken significance and implications each account contains. Alutiiq history is revealed here as an ongoing, complex, multivocal expression of a people's actions and reactions, decisions and compromises."--taken from back cover.

Download or read book Against Culture written by Kirk Dombrowski and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a small Tlingit village in 1992, newly converted members of an all-native church started a bonfire of "non-Christian" items including, reportedly, native dancing regalia. The burnings recalled an earlier century in which church converts in the same village burned totem poles, and stirred long simmering tensions between native dance groups and fundamentalist Christian churches throughout the region. This book traces the years leading up to the most recent burnings and reveals the multiple strands of social tension defining Tlingit and Haida life in Southeast Alaska today. ø Author Kirk Dombrowksi roots these tensions in a history of misunderstanding and exploitation of native life, including, most recently, the consequences of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. He traces the results of economic upheaval, changes in dependence on timber and commercial fishing, and differences over the meaning of contemporary native culture that lie beneath current struggles. His cogent, highly readable analysis shows how these local disputes reflect broader problems of negotiating culture and Native American identity today. Revealing in its ethnographic details, arresting in its interpretive insights, Against Culture raises important practical and theoretical implications for the understanding of indigenous cultural and political processes.

Download or read book Alaska Native Education written by Ray Barnhardt and published by Alaska Native Knowledge Network. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past century, the outside world has increasingly encroached on Alaska Native communities, and one of the consequences of that change has been a shift in the purpose and structure of schools in Alaska Native communities. Alaska Native Education brings together a variety of experts in the field of indigenous education to show the ways in which Alaska Natives have adopted and adapted outside ideas and rules regarding education and how they have frequently found them problematic and insufficient. The authors follow their analysis with suggestions of ways forward, emphasizing the benefits of blending new and old practices that will simultaneously prepare Alaska Native students for the future while preserving and strengthening their ties to the past."

Download or read book So How Long Have You Been Native written by Alexis C. Bunten and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2015-03 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: So, How Long Have You Been Native? is Alexis C. Bunten's firsthand account of what it is like to work in the Alaska cultural tourism industry. An Alaska Native and anthropologist, she spent two seasons working for a tribally owned tourism business that markets the Tlingit culture in Sitka. Bunten's narrative takes readers through the summer tour season as she is hired and trained and eventually becomes a guide. A multibillion-dollar worldwide industry, cultural tourism provides one of the most ubiquitous face-to-face interactions between peoples of different cultures and is arguably one of the primary means by which knowledge about other cultures is disseminated. Bunten goes beyond debates about who owns Native culture and has the right to "sell" it to tourists. Through a series of anecdotes, she examines issues such as how and why Natives choose to sell their culture, the cutthroat politics of business in a small town, how the cruise industry maintains its bottom line, the impact of colonization on contemporary Native peoples, the ways that traditional cultural values play a role in everyday life for contemporary Alaska Natives, and how Indigenous peoples are engaging in global enterprises on their own terms. Bunten's bottom-up approach provides a fascinating and informative look at the cultural tourism industry in Alaska.

Download or read book Village Journey written by Thomas R. Berger and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act passed by Congress in 1971, hailed at the time as the most liberal settlement ever achieved with Native Americans, granted 44 million acres and nearly $1 billion in cash to a new entity -- Native corporations. When this book was published in 1985, that settlement was bitterly resented by the Alaska Natives themselves. Thomas R. Berger, invited by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference to head the Alaska Native Review Commission, traveled to sixty-two villages and towns, held village meetings and listened to testimony from Inuit, Aboriginal peoples, and Aleuts. His report, Village Journey, suggests changes in the law and public attitudes that will be required to reach a fair accommodation with the Alaska Natives and enable them to keep their land for themselves and for their descendants. The author's new Preface deals with problems still facing Alaska Natives and their corporations. This is a new release of the book published in May 1995.

Download or read book Alaska written by Stephen W. Haycox and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new paper edition of the state's history, which focuses on Russian America and American Alaska.

Download or read book Alaska Native Art written by Susan W. Fair and published by University of Alaska Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rich artistic traditions of Alaska Natives are the subject of this landmark volume, which examines the work of the premier Alaska artists of the twentieth century. Ranging across the state from the islands of the Bering Sea to the interior forests, Alaska Native Art provides a living context for beadwork and ivory carving, basketry and skin sewing. Examples of work from Tlingit, Aleutian Islanders, Pacific Eskimo, Athabascan, Yupik, and Inupiaq artists make this volume the most comprehensive study of Alaskan art ever published. Alaska Native Art examines the concept of tradition in the modern world. Alaska Native Art is a volume to treasure, a tribute to the incredible vision of Alaska's artists and to the enduring traditions of all of Alaska's Native peoples.

Download or read book Culture Politics written by Kirk Dombrowski and published by . This book was released on 2014-01-08 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the history of indigenous land claims in Southeast Alaska. Based on three years of residence and over two decades of research and writing, Culture Politics lays out how Native land claims in Alaska came about, and why they have proven so divisive for many Alaska Native communities. Reframing and going beyond Dombrowski's earlier book, Against Culture, the current volume looks in depth at the trials and tribulations of subsistence hunters and fishers in villages like Hydaburg, Kake, Klawock, and Hoonah. Each of these communities has faced the same onslaught of timber harvesting and the collapse of the local fishery. Some have grown as a result, while others have shrunk. And some have spawned radical Pentecostal churches that have taken a stance against Native culture. Reactions like these are surprising, more so when they are most stridently advocated by Natives themselves. This book describes why this is so, and traces these processes back to the Land Claims process itself. Culture Politics is aimed at both popular and academic audiences. While the social and political processes it describes are complex, the language of the text is intended for ordinary adult readers. Those interested in Native American affairs, the history of Alaska, or the effect of environmental development on northern communities will find much to appreciate in this compelling, first-hand telling of life on the edge of America. Reviews of Dombrowski's last book on Alaska: "Dombrowski's ethnography provides a timely intervention for developing a comparative understanding of liberal state interventions in the sphere of indigenous rights. He provides us with a nuanced understanding of the post-colonial world of indigenous peoples in his study of the Tlingit and Haida of southeast Alaska today. . . . This ethnography deserves to be read widely. It is most powerful in dealing with the internal fractures evident in indigenous communities, but does not ignore the interplay that exists between legislative processes, the exigencies of market forces, and the legacies of over-exploited finite resources."-Barry Morris, Australian Journal of Anthropology (Barry Morris Australian Journal of Anthropology ) "Well written and based on diligent research, the book will appeal to anyone interested in contemporary Native American issues. [Recommended for] all levels and collections."-Choice (Choice ) "Anyone who has attempted to sort out the intricacies of Native American Sovereignty movements or more generally, the nuances of Federal-Indian law, will immediately appreciate Dombrowski's trenchant formulations, the hallmark quality of which is a penetrating analysis of the ways that nativism and world capitalism are neither wholly separate nor wholly antagonistic but, rather, frequently connected and interdependent in surprising and unsettling ways."-Greg Johnson, The Journal of Religion (The Journal of Religion ) "Against Culture is most productively surprising in the multiple ways the analysis grows beyond both its theoretical origins and its ethnography, to become widely useful, particularly for the development of new ways of understanding indigenous peoples' continuing histories."-Gerald Sider, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Download or read book Yuuyaraq written by Harold Napoleon and published by Alaska Native Knowledge Network. This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This document traces the influence of various epidemics (such as smallpox in 1835-1840, and influenza and measles, known as the 'Great Death', in 1900) on the Yup'ik Eskimo peoples of northwest Alaska, and suggests that they resulted in Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS) which may underlie current social problems, such as alcoholism and dysfunctional behaviours.

Download or read book Not Just a Pretty Face written by Molly Lee and published by University of Alaska Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in a full-color second edition, Not Just a Pretty Face is an engaging exploration of the role of dolls and doll making in Alaska Native cultures. From ancient ivory carvings to the thriving tourist market, dolls and human figurines have played integral parts in the ritual, economic, and social lives of Native Alaskans. Dolls served as children's playthings, represented absent community members at ceremonies, and predicted the movements of game animals for shamans. Not Just a Pretty Face surveys these and other uses of dolls and figurines, illustrating in beautiful color photographs the diversity of the doll-making tradition in Eskimo, Athabaskan, and Northwest Coast Native communities. Authors explore the ethnographic literature, twentieth-century oral histories, and photographic documentation of dolls and the doll-making process. Contemporary doll makers explain, in their own words, how they learned to make dolls and what doll making means to them. The second edition features a photo essay on Rosalie Paniyak of Chevak, one of the most influential doll makers in Alaska today. Not Just a Pretty Face provides a panoramic view of an ancient tradition and situates the art of doll making within a contemporary context. Scholarly, yet accessible, Not Just a Pretty Face is a lively contribution to the literature on dolls, anthropology, and Native studies.

Download or read book A Yupiaq Worldview written by Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Oscar Kawagley is a man of two worlds, walking the sometimes bewildering line between traditional Yupiaq culture and the Westernized Yupiaq life of today. In this study, Kawagley follows both memories of his Yupiaq grandmother, who raised him with the stories of the Bear Woman and respectful knowledge of the reciprocity of nature, and his own education in science as it is taught in Western schools. Kawagley is a man who hears the elders' voices in Alaska and knows how to look for the weather and to use the land and its creatures with the most delicate care. In a call to unite the two parts of his own and modern Yupiaq history, Kawagley proposes a way of teaching that incorporates all ways of knowing available in Yupiaq and Western science."--BOOK JACKET.