Tlingit

Name

The name Tlingit (pronounced KLING-kit; sometimes TLING-kit or TLING-git) means “human beings.” Over the course of history the tribe’s name has been written many different ways: Clingats,Klinket,Thlinket, and Tlinkit. The Russians called them Koloshi or Kaliuzhi, which came from the Aleut word kalu kax, meaning “wooden dish.” This nickname came from the women’s practice of putting a labret, or wooden ornament, in a piercing in their lower lip.

Location

The Tlingit traditionally lived along the Pacific Coast in what is now southeastern Alaska and northern British Columbia and the southwestern Yukon in Canada. In the early twenty-first century Tlingit communities are scattered throughout those areas.

Population

The Tlingit population numbered about fifteen thousand prior to European contact. This figure may have included the Haida people because some early European writers believed the Haida and Tlingit were the same peoples. Following the outbreaks of disease in the 1800s and early 1900s, the Tlingit figures dropped to 3,895 in 1920. In a census (count of the population) done in 1990 by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, 14,417 people identified themselves as Tlingit. According to the 2000 census, 9,340 Tlingit lived in the United States, and 17,219 people claimed some Tlingit heritage. In 2007 the three Tlingit reserves (Canadian name for reservation) in British Columbia had a combined population of 1,533.

Language family

Athabaskan (Na-Dene).

Origins and group affiliations

The Tlingit most likely lived along the southeastern coast of Alaska for thousands of years, since the time when the land was covered with glaciers (large sheets of ice). Major Tlingit tribes include the Sitka, Auk, Chilkat, Huna, Stikine, Yakutat, and Tongass. According to Tlingit oral history, when the Athabaskans faced hunger, they sent out a group to explore the south. Historians believe these are today’s Apache and Navajo tribes. An older couple volunteered to explore the dangerous meltwater below a glacier and found a beautiful land; these explorers were the ancestors of the Tlingit. Present-day Tlingit have close ties with the neighboring Haida; both have interests in the Sealaska Corporation.

Over thousands of years the Tlingit developed a way of life that helped them survive in the rain-drenched area of Alaska known as the Panhandle. Tlingit men burned, steamed, and carved cedar wood to make canoes for fishing because they obtained most of their food from the sea. Before the arrival of European explorers and settlers, groups of Tlingit people traveled by canoe through treacherous waters for hundreds of miles to engage in war, attend ceremonies, trade, or marry. In recent times the Tlingit have led the fight for Native rights and have become involved in politics.

History

Relations with the Russians

The first Europeans in the Northwest were the Spanish, British, and Russians who came seeking furs in the mid-1700s. In 1741 Russian explorer Aleksey Chirikov (1703–1748) sent two boatloads of men on a search for drinking water in Tlingit territory near the site of present-day Sitka, Alaska. Neither boat returned, and there were few attempts to explore Tlingit land again until the 1800s.

During the nineteenth century the Tlingit people, who controlled trade in their area of southern Alaska, began trading with the Russians. Relations were friendly until the newcomers tried to settle and control trade routes. The Tlingit objected, and in 1802 Chief Katlian led a successful war party against the Russians in Sitka. They killed many Russians and Aleuts and took thousands of furs; they believed these pelts belonged to them because the animals had been hunted on tribal land. The Russians, however, soon recaptured the site, and a few years later built a new fort that became the headquarters of the Russian-American Company, a fur trading center as well as a government center, until the United States purchased Alaska in 1867.

Important Dates

1741: The Russians lose two boats in Tlingit territory.

1852: Chilkat Tlingit warriors burn Fort Selkirk.

1867: The United States purchases Alaska from Russia.

1882: The Angoon Tlingit seize boats, weapons, and hostages to force U. S. Navy to compensate them for the deaths of two of their people.

1912: The Tlingit organize the Alaska Native Brotherhood to establish equality.

1959: Alaska becomes a state.

1968: The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida receives a $7.5 million land claim settlement.

1971: The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) is passed.

1973: The U.S. government offers $90,000 settlement for Angoon casualties.

1991: The ANCSA is amended.

United States takes control

In time European diseases and other hardships weakened the Tlingit. Between 1835 and 1840 nearly one-half of the population living at or near Sitka was wiped out by epidemics (uncontrolled outbreaks of disease). About this time Americans, who came into Tlingit country looking for gold, began to occupy and control Tlingit lands. The U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 brought even more settlers. They established canneries (factories for canning fish), mines, and logging camps—businesses that went against Native traditions of taking only the resources necessary for survival. The Tlingit protested, but they were no match for American military strength and technology. The tribe was further weakened by the destruction of two of their villages in the late 1800s by the American military, caused by a disagreement over the deaths of two Native people.

Tlingit face threats

Over time the American government subjected the Alaskan Natives to the same regulations and policies as American Indians in the United States. (Alaska was not yet a state, but its white citizens enjoyed many U.S. citizenship rights.) Natives were deprived of land, and they lost their right to deal with criminal matters according to traditional customs. By the beginning of the twentieth century their way of life was eroding.

In response the Tlingit people joined with other tribes in 1912 to found the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB). Among its goals were the same citizenship and education rights enjoyed by non-Natives in Alaska. Their wish for citizenship was granted in 1915, on condition that they become “civilized” and give up certain tribal customs. Few Alaska Natives were willing to accept these conditions, so they did not become citizens. In the early 1900s, smallpox, influenza (flu), and tuberculosis epidemics struck some Tlingit villages, and the population dropped to less than four thousand.

Tlingit regain some land

At the urging of the ANB, Congress passed a law in 1935 allowing the Tlingit to sue the United States for the loss of their lands. By this time large sections of Tlingit country had been claimed for the Tongass National Forest and Glacier Bay National Monument. Farther south in Tlingit country, Annette Island had been set aside as a reserve for Natives. Some lands were returned to the Tlingit, but not enough to meet the needs of a hunting and fishing people.

The Tlingit people also actively pursued the right to vote. Unlike many Alaska Native people at the time who wished to continue living as they had lived for many generations, Tlingit leaders sought increased political influence.

Modern conflicts

In the first half of the twentieth century disputes developed around such issues as Native citizenship, the right to vote, fishing methods, and discrimination. In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, signs reading “No Indians Allowed” were a common sight on the doors of Alaska businesses. The ANB did much to fight prejudice and raise the social status of the Tlingit people as American citizens.

In the 1940s the Tlingit people, along with a neighboring tribe, actively pursued land claims. The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida fought for an $80 million settlement, claiming that the money the United States paid the Russians to buy Alaska rightfully belonged to them. After an almost thirty-year court battle, in 1968 they received $7.5 million.

In 1959 Alaska became a state. Soon afterwards oil was discovered there, and companies wanted to build a pipeline across Native lands to carry oil south. In 1971 the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) allowed Alaska Natives to retain 44 million acres of their land and gave them $962.5 million. In exchange they gave up all claim to other lands in Alaska—in all, nine-tenths of Alaska. The ANSCA also resulted in the formation of twelve regional corporations to be in charge of Native Alaskan economic development and land use.

In the early twenty-first century, although Tlingit people enjoy much more acceptance, their fight for survival continues. Their ability to live off the land and sea is constantly endangered by logging, overharvesting of the waters by commercial fisheries, government regulations, and the area’s increasing population.

Religion

The Tlingit were closely tied to nature. They believed that everything had a soul, so they respected all of nature. Ignoring or neglecting other inhabitants of the world could bring disaster, so they were careful to always treat animals and inanimate (non-living) objects well.

Other beliefs centered on a creator and spirit helpers who influenced the weather, hunting, and healing. Raven, who was not only a bird, but a human and a spirit, assisted in creation. Another being called Shagoon was the supreme god, but also represented many other things—ancestors, history, creation, and future destiny. Shagoon, however, remained distant and took little interest in human affairs. Traditionally the Tlingit believed that all members of the tribe were reborn from a common ancestor.

Changes occurred in Tlingit religion during the early 1900s as hundreds of Tlingit died in tuberculosis epidemics and were buried in mass graves. Many Tlingit lost faith in the healing powers of their medicine men, called shaman (pronounced SHAH-mun or SHAY-mun), and traditional Native ceremonies that had brought the people together nearly died out. Tlingit people turned to Christian churches for comfort. When they converted to Christianity, many Tlingit were given new names to replace their Tlingit names, which were an important basis of identity and status in their society.

The Russian Orthodox and Presbyterian faiths have had a great impact on Tlingit life and are well established in their communities. Smaller numbers of the people belong to other Christian churches. Those who continue to practice the old tribal religion usually do so privately.

Language

The Tlingit language is not closely related to any other language. Because many Tlingit sounds are made in the back of the mouth, the language sounds similar to German. It has 24 sounds not found in English, and the difference in meaning between words often depends entirely on the tone of the speaker’s voice.

In the nineteenth century a Russian Orthodox priest created the first Tlingit alphabet and developed a program to teach the Tlingit to read and write. He based his alphabet on Cyrillic, or Russian, letters. Soon after that, in their desire to have the Tlingit adopt white ways, Americans tried to suppress the use of the Tlingit language. A Native movement to teach the language to the young began in the 1960s, when language experts created the Tlingit alphabet that is commonly used today. This alphabet contains letters used in the English language as well as other symbols such as periods and apostrophes to indicate sounds not found in English.

The Tlingit Language

Unlike the English alphabet of twenty-six letters, the Tlingit language has at least thirty-two consonants and eight vowels. The alphabet was created with not only the familiar lettering of English but also with periods, underlined letters, and apostrophes to distinguish particular sounds. For example; the word yéil means Raven, and yéil’ (with the apostrophe) means elderberry.

Tlingit people do not use such greetings as hello, good-bye, good afternoon, or good evening. Some common expressions are:

• Yoo xat duwasaakw … “My name is”
• Gunalchéesh … “Thank you”
• Yak’éi ixwsiteení … “It’s good to see you”
• Wáa sá iyatee … “How are you feeling?”
• Wa.éku.aa? … “Where are you going?”
• Haa kaa gaa kuwatee … “It’s good weather for us.”

Government

Tlingit leaders were the chiefs who headed the various clans and their close relatives (see “Tlingit social system”). In the early twentieth century Tlingit leaders sought power in state politics. A Tlingit named William Paul was elected to the Alaska Territorial House of Representatives in 1924, marking the beginning of a trend toward Native political power in the state.

In modern times corporations created as a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (see “History”) have a great deal of political power. Their power comes from their ownership of valuable lands and the fact that they represent more than sixteen thousand Tlingit and other Natives. They use their power to influence state lawmakers to pass laws favorable to the Natives.

In the United States a city council headed by a mayor governs most Tlingit villages. A few villages, though, have tribal councils organized under the Indian Reorganization Act. In Canada the Taku River Tlinglit are led by a spokesperson and four clan directors, two each from the Wolf and Crow clans. Carcross Tlingit have four councils: Executive, General, Elders, and Youth. The Teslin Tlingit Council has a twenty-five member General Council with five representatives from each of the five clans, elected to four-year terms. They also have an Administration to carry out Council decisions. Administration and Council decisions are guided by advice from the Elders Council, composed of all members age 58 and older.

In addition to the tribal governments, each clan also has a leader. The clan leader is called Kaa Shaa du Heni (“headman standing up”). Clan leaders are chosen based on their character, abilities, social standing as well as their commitment to clan welfare.

Tlingit Population

In 2000 U.S. Census takers asked people in the United States to identify the groups to which they belonged. Many of those who identified themselves as Tlingit lived in the villages listed below. Some of these villages also contain non-Natives or other tribes; the total shows the combined number of Tlingit residing in all 14 villages as well as elsewhere in the United States. These numbers do not reflect the 1,533 Tlingit living on three reserves in British Columbia and Yukon, Canada. In 2007 the population figures for those reserves were: Taku River Tlingit, 374; Teslin Tlingit Council, 558; and Carcross/Tagish First Nations (combined Tagish and Tlingit), 601.

“2000 Census of Population and Housing. Matrix 7: American Indian and Alaskan Native summary file.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Data User Services Division, American FactFinder, 2004.

Economy

For centuries the Tlingit economy centered on trade. The people traded food, furs, canoes, shells, fish oil, and the beautiful woven Chilkat robes (see “Weaving”) with other tribes. The price of a Chilkat robe in the mid-1800s was about $30—a very large sum at that time. Only caribou hides, copper, and later, guns, came close to the value of the Chilkat robe. An elderly woman who was a good bargainer often accompanied a trading party; she also kept track of exchange values.

By 1900 many Tlingit worked in canneries, and their economy came to be based on work for wages and commercial fishing (fishing for profit, not food). A number of people moved from small villages to larger towns where this work was more available.

Although the American way of life has greatly altered the Tlingit lifestyle, many of the people have adapted. Most Tlingit work in logging and forestry, fishing, tourism, and other business enterprises. Because the tribe emphasizes the importance of education, a number of Tlingit work in professional positions as lawyers, health-care specialists, and educators. Corporations created after the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act provide some employment in manual labor, office work, and business management.

Daily life

Buildings

Before their first contact with Europeans Tlingit families belonging to the same clan lived together in large homes made of spruce or cedar planks. They painted crests (family symbols) on the front of the house and decorated the interior with intricate carvings and pictures of birds and animals. The only openings were a small oval doorway and a hole in the center of the roof that allowed smoke to escape.

Inside their houses the Tlingit dug out the center of the floor for the fire and placed platforms around it to make benches for eating. The highest bench was reserved for the head of the household; it also served for funerals (see “Death”). Another layer of higher platforms formed sleeping compartments; wooden partitions divided these. They built floors of smooth wooden planks and hung large woven mats from the ceiling to separate living areas. Outside walls could be removed to turn the house into an amphitheater for large celebrations.

A house could hold six families plus their slaves, in all, a total of forty to fifty people. The rear of the house was reserved for nobility, the people who owned the house. A carved and painted wooden screen usually hid this area from view. Commoners (poorer kin or laborers) had beds along the sides of the house. Slaves (usually war captives) slept by the front door. Each family had its own small fire, but the central fire was used to cook meals for the nobles or for guests at celebrations.

The four posts that held up the roof were carved and painted with totem or ancestor figures. Dark areas under the benches served as prisons for witches, who were tied up and left to starve until they confessed. Girls were also confined there during their puberty rituals. A trapdoor near the fire led to a small cellar for steambaths. Outside on the beach families kept canoes, fish drying racks, and fish smoking sheds. Palisades (high fences made of sharpened logs) surrounded some villages. In summer the people moved to fishing camps where they lived in temporary shelters.

Europeans influenced the Natives to build their houses on raised wooden posts, but the Tlingit kept their custom of carving wood figures on the posts. They added windows, multiple doors, inside walls, stoves instead of fireplaces, and porches. In modern times many Tlingit live in cities. Those who remain in villages live in single-family homes of various styles.

Clothing

Tlingit men and women traditionally wore loincloths (two pieces of cloth hanging from the waist in front and back) and skirts made of cedar bark. Because of the frequent rainy weather, they made raincoats from natural substances such as spruce root or cedar bark. The Tlingit wore hair ornaments and bracelets and practiced ear and nose piercing, face painting, and tattooing. The wealth of a Tlingit woman could be determined by the size of her labret, a wooden disc inserted in a slit cut into the lower lip. As a woman grew older and richer, larger and large discs were inserted, until finally her lip might flap loosely on her chin.

People wore various types of highly decorated robes (see “Weaving”) for ceremonies. In modern times many people wear a button blanket, or dancing robe, made from red, blue, or black felt. Women appliqué intricate designs of clan emblems outlined with mother of pearl (shell) buttons. These robes are worn to display one’s lineage and family crest at gatherings, in much the same way as they once used the Chilkat robe.

Headdresses ranged from simple headbands to colorful carved cedar hats inlaid with pretty shells and finished with ermine fur. The wealthy often wore carved hats stacked high with wooden rings; each ring represented a time the headpiece had been given at a potlatch. Today, most Tlingit people dress in modern clothes, but they often display their clan or family crest on clothing or jewelry.

Food

The traditional Tlingit diet centered on foods from the rivers and sea, including seal, seaweed, clams, herring, salmon eggs, and fish (primarily salmon, plus halibut, cod, and herring). Fish was smoked, baked, roasted, boiled, or dried for later use. Berries, seaweed, and deer meat were also important. Bear provided food and fur for robes. The men also hunted mountain sheep and goats, birds, gulls, and ducks. Ocean catches included seal, sea lion, sea otter, and sometimes small whales. Only poor families ate porpoise, because it gave people a bad body odor.

Before leaving on a hunt, a man purified himself by bathing and fasting (going without food or drink). His wife and children had to stay quiet at home while he was gone to avoid disturbing his luck. After killing an animal, hunters prayed to it to ask forgiveness. The Tlingit never killed land otter because that was the shape a shaman’s spirit usually took.

Women gathered roots, ferns, sweet potatoes, cow parsnips, and the sweet inner bark of the hemlock (a special treat). They cooked in watertight boxes or baskets by dropping in hot rocks. Other cooking implements were spits over fires and earth ovens lined with leaves. To start a fire, they used a wooden hand drill or iron pyrite and quartz to make a spark. To help the fire catch quickly, they put wax from their ears on the tinder.

In modern times the Tlingit use cooking methods learned from the Norwegians, Russians, Chinese, and Filipinos who have immigrated to Alaska, and rice has become one of their most common foods. Fry-bread is used for everyday meals and for special occasions, and certain fish oils are still considered a luxury.

Education

Traditionally uncles and aunts taught Tlingit children how to survive and how to participate in society. Anyone within the clan could reprimand or guide a child. Today most Tlingit children are raised in typical American one-family homes, and the role of the aunts and uncles is not as great. In the smaller Tlingit communities, however, some children are still raised according to the old ways.

Beginning in 1905, two separate systems of education were set up in the Alaska Territory—one for Natives run by the federal government and one for whites run by the territorial government. It was not until 1949 that schools in Alaska were integrated.

Many Tlingit go on to receive degrees in higher education. In addition to regular schooling, children sometimes attend dance groups, traditional survival camps, art camps, and Native education projects.

Healing practices

The Tlingit believed that sickness was the sign of possession by an evil spirit, and shaman had to drive out the evil spirits. Shaman’s spiritual helpers were called yeks. Each yek had its own special name and could assume both animal and human forms. A shaman’s success at healing depended on the number of yeks he controlled and the quality of his relationship with them. Shaman were paid in advance for their services. If they failed to cure someone, they often claimed that bad spirits interfered with them and requested further payment to continue their services.

While many shaman were men, some powerful women also became healers. Shaman never cut or combed their hair. They wore aprons of animal hides and decorated their shoulder robes and crowns with animal claws and carved bones. When engaged in healing dances, they often wore masks that looked like one of their yeks. They shook rattles and charms, and chanted, groaned, and hissed themselves into a trance-like state.

When a shaman died, he or she passed healing powers on to a younger clan member. These junior healers knew they had been chosen because they would become dizzy or ill following the funeral; they might also faint or have seizures. An assistant then took this novice into the woods to encounter an animal spirit. A land otter was the spirit most of the time. The shaman would get its power by killing it and cutting off a slice of its tongue. Every time he went into the woods after that, he would obtain other spirit helpers.

In the early twenty-first century Tlingit people have access to modern medical treatment, but healing through diet and traditional local medicines still takes place.

Arts

Dance

Dances were performed at potlatches (special gift-giving ceremonies) or around the evening fire. People told stories, made fun of people, or extended apologies through dance movements accompanied by the music of drums and carved rattles. One Tlingit dance told the story of a funeral. The “corpse” was dressed in fancy clothing with his back against the wall and another man danced the part of his widow. He would cry sorrowfully and throw himself on the “corpse” and tickle it. As the dance ended, the “corpse” sat up and grinned.

Dancers wore masks carved and painted with animals and mythical figures. They also wore headdresses made of sea lion whiskers and birdfeathers that they showered down on guests to show good wishes. Dancers sometimes put on beautiful Chilkat robes (see “Weaving”) with fringe that made a wonderful visual effect as they moved.

Weaving

Two types of traditional ceremonial dress, Chilkat and Raven’s Tail robes, are still worn today. The intricately designed Chilkat robe is made from mountain goat wool and cedar bark strips. It can take a weaver up to five years to complete one robe. The Raven’s Tail robe is woven of black and white fibers in geometric patterns. Both types of robes were signs of wealth. These art forms nearly died out, but during the twentieth century the skill revived when elderly weavers were encouraged to pass down their knowledge to younger ones. Chilkat and Raven’s Tail weaving techniques are also used in leggings, medicine bags, dance purses and aprons, tunics, and shirts.

Totem poles

The Tlingit carved totem poles in the shape of animals and humans. Totems could be as high as 90 feet (145 kilometers) tall and told family stories and legends. They honored chiefs or loved ones and commemorated events such as a birth or a successful hunt. Memorial totems held the ashes of deceased loved ones. Occasionally, totems were created to make fun of someone who had wronged the clan or village.

Leaders often hired a carver and selected crest designs from their elite ancestors. They placed the finished pole in a doorway or used it as a pillar honoring a dead relative or as a memorial on the beach. After the totem pole was completed, the owner gave a potlatch. His guests helped him erect the pole. Then everyone feasted, gifts were dispensed, and the owner told the tales of each figure on the totem.

Tlingit rock art often has the same clan crests found on totem poles. Other rock art designs include sailing ships, mythological figures, ancestors, and symbols of wealth or victory.

Customs

Tlingit social system

The Tlingit social system was very complex. From birth each person belonged to the same group as the mother, either Eagle or Raven, and was only permitted to marry a person from the other group.

The Raven and Eagle groups were divided into clans. Each clan had its own crest (an animal symbol). A person could be Eagle and belong to the Killer Whale or Brown Bear Clan, or to several other existing clans; Ravens could belong to the Frog Clan, Sea Tern Clan, Coho (Salmon) Clan, and so on.

Clans were further divided into houses or extended families. Before the Tlingit had contact with Europeans, “houses” were real houses or lodges in which members of that clan or family lived. Today “houses” are one of the ways in which Tlingit people identify themselves and their relationship to others. Some examples of houses include the Snail House, Brown Bear Den House, Owl House, Crescent Moon House, Coho House, and Thunderbird House.

Beyond family and clan groupings, the Tlingit were divided into units called kwan, which were communities of people who lived in a mutual area, shared residence, intermarried, and lived in peace.

Festivals

Potlatches have always been an important part of Tlingit life. A potlatch is a great feast where people show respect, pay debts, and display their wealth. The host of the potlatch gives gifts to everyone present. In modern times potlatches are held for a variety of occasions such as funerals, adoptions, the naming of a baby, raising a totem pole, or building a lodge. They may take years of planning; in the past they lasted four weeks or more, but they seldom last that long today.

War and hunting rituals

The Tlingit were a warlike people who raided neighboring tribes and other clans to seek revenge for insults or injury. Tlingit warriors wore shirts of untanned moose hide covered with armor made of wooden slats that covered the body from the neck to the knees. They sometimes took women and children as slaves, but men were considered too dangerous and were instead slain and their heads or scalps taken.

Courtship and weddings

Marriage was viewed by the Tlingit as a way to strengthen the family’s social and financial position, and parents chose spouses for their children. The boy’s family gave the girl’s family valuable gifts. If her family found the gifts acceptable, they gave generous gifts in return. Gift exchanges continued throughout the couple’s married life.

Death

The Tlingit believed that people who died naturally went through a thorny forest and crossed a river to reach the Town of the Dead (the cemetery). They stayed warm from the heat of the cremation fire and ate the food and drink their relatives put in the fire. They were also fed by food people ate in their memory at potlatches. Anyone who died by violence went to heaven, while evil people went to Raven’s Home or Dog Heaven.

Relatives mourned a man’s death for eight days. The clan met to sing songs and give money toward the funeral. Men from the opposite moiety painted the clan symbol on the deceased’s face, dressed him in ceremonial clothing, and propped him up on the highest bench in the house with his treasures. His body stayed there for the four days until cremation. Sometimes important chiefs remained on this bench of honor until they decomposed.

Mourners, wearing old clothes and rope around their waists, sang clan songs every morning and evening. Widows cut off their hair and burned it in the cremation fire. They also fasted (did not eat or drink) for eight days, except for a little food in the evening every other day. They always put some of each meal into the fire to feed their dead husbands. People from the opposite moiety cheered up the deceased’s family with songs and games. It was considered dangerous to cry too much because grief might cause another relative to die.

On the day of cremation men removed a plank from the wall, and took the body out to be burned. They threw the deceased’s most valuable possessions, and sometimes a slave, on the funeral pyre. Afterwards they collected the ashes in a blanket and put them in a grave box or mortuary totem pole. Then everyone feasted at a potlatch.

For the Tlingit, three potlatches (feasts and giveaways) were required to properly send a deceased person off to the spirit world. During the first, they prepared the body for cremation or burial (more common today), cooked food for the feast, and disposed of the body. Then later they held a potlatch in honor of the deceased person’s clan. The third potlatch took place a year later; it ended with a celebration of life and happy stories and songs.

The Ghost Land

Lacking a written language, the Tlingit used storytelling and plays that included music and dancing to pass down their history. In the following story a young man whose wife has died does not participate in her funeral potlatch ceremony. Instead he follows the Death Trail, and his unusual action leads to strange results.

The young wife of a chief’s son died and the young man was so sorrowful he could not sleep. Early one morning he put on his fine clothes and started off. He walked all day and all night. He went through the woods a long distance, and then to a valley. The trees were very thick, but he could hear voices far away. At last he saw light through the trees and then came to a wide, flat stone on the edge of a lake.

Now all the time this young man had been walking in the Death Trail. He saw houses and people on the other side of the lake. He could see them moving around. So he shouted, “Come over and get me.” But they did not seem to hear him. Upon the lake a little canoe was being paddled about by one man, and all the shore was grassy. The chief’s son shouted a long while but no one answered him. At last he whispered to himself, “Why don’t they hear me?”

At once a person across the lake said, “Some one is shouting.” When he whispered, they heard him.

The voice said also, “Some one has come up from Dreamland. Go and bring him over.”

When the chief’s son reached the other side of the lake, he saw his wife. He was very happy to see her again. People asked him to sit down. They gave him something to eat, but his wife said, “Don’t eat that. If you eat that you will never get back.” So he did not eat it.

Then his wife said, “You had better not stay here long. Let us go right away.” So they were taken back in the same canoe. It is called Ghost’s Canoe and it is the only one on that lake. They landed at the broad, flat rock where the chief’s son had stood calling. It is called Ghost’s Rock, and is at the very end of the Death Trail. Then they started down the trail, through the valley and through the thick woods. The second night they reached the chief’s house.

The chief’s son told his wife to stay outside. He went in and said to his father, “I have brought my wife back.”

The chief said, “Why don’t you bring her in?”

The chief laid down a nice mat with fur robes on it for the young wife. The young man went out to get his wife, but when he came in with her, they could see only him. When he came very close, they saw a deep shadow following him. When his wife sat down and they put a marten skin robe [a marten is a weasel-like mammal] around her, it hung about the shadow just as if a person were sitting there. When she ate, they saw only the spoon moving up and down, but not the shadow of her hands. It looked very strange to them.

Afterward the chief’s son died and the ghosts of both of them went back to Ghost Land.

Judsen, Katharine Berry, ed. “The Ghost Land.” Myths and Legends of Alaska. Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1911.

Current tribal issues

An important issue for the Tlingit is having their own tribal courts and judges. One of the reasons this is so important is that American courts do not understand traditional Tlingit values. Most sentences do not reflect Tlingit ideas of justice. In deciding cases in tribal court, they try to choose consequences that will help the accused learn a lesson and modify future behavior.

Tlingit culture has undergone a rebirth that began in the 1970s. There has been a revival of dances, songs, potlatches, language, artwork, and stories. Discussions are taking place about discrimination: how it can actually make people feel sick and what can be done to help the victims.

Notable people

Elaine Abraham (1929–), the first Tlingit to enter the nursing profession, went on to a career in education. Her accomplishments include co-founding the Alaska Native Language Center in Fairbanks, teaching the Tlingit language at Anchorage Community College, and working as Director of Alaska Native Studies for the University of Alaska in Anchorage.

Tlingit activist Elizabeth Peratrovich (1911–1958) made a moving plea for justice and equality for Alaska Natives in 1945 that led to the passage of an anti-discrimination bill. The State of Alaska officially recognized her efforts as a civil rights leader in 1988 with “The Annual Elizabeth Peratrovich Day.”

Beck, Mary G. Heroes and Heroines: Tlingit-Haida Legend. Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Books, 2003.

Bial, Raymond. The Tlingit. New York: Benchmark Books, 2003.

Brown, Tricia, and Roy Corral. Children of the Midnight Sun: Young Native Voices of Alaska. Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Books, 2006.

Grinev, Andrei Val’Terovich. The Tlingit Indians in Russian America, 1741–1867. Tran. Richard Bland and Katerina G. Solovjova. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.

Hancock, David A. Tlingit: Their Art and Culture. Blaine, WA: Hancock House Publishers, 2003.

Liptak, Karen. North American Indian Ceremonies. New York: Franklin Watts, 1992.

Nichols, Richard. A Story to Tell: Traditions of a Tlingit Community. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1998.

Steward, Hilary. Looking at Totem Poles. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993.

Swanton, John R. Social Condition, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit Indians. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2006.

Thornton, Thomas F. Being and Place among the Tlingit. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007.

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“Language Resources.” Sealaska Heritage Institute. (accessed on September 9, 2007).

Nicholas Galanin.(accessed on September 9, 2007).

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Teslin Tlingit Council. (accessed on Septmeber 9, 2007).

The Tlingit Language. (accessed on September 9, 2007).

“Tlingit Tribes, Clans, and Clan Houses: Traditional Tlingit Country.” Alaska Native Knowledge Network. (accessed on September 9, 2007).

Edward D. Castillo (Cahuilla-Luiseño), Native American Studies Program, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California

Laurie Edwards

Daniel Boxberger, Department of Anthropology, Western Washington University

Laurie Edwards