Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage

Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage
Author: Aron A. Crowell
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2010-05-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1588342700

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.

The Native People of Alaska

The Native People of Alaska
Author: Steve Langdon
Publisher:
Total Pages: 84
Release: 1989
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

Introductory guide to the Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts. Focus is on their life-styles, traditions, and culture.

Alaska Native Cultures and Issues

Alaska Native Cultures and Issues
Author: Libby Roderick
Publisher: University of Alaska Press
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2010-07-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1602230927

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.

Native Cultures in Alaska

Native Cultures in Alaska
Author: Alaska Geographic Association
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2012-11-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0882409026

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.

The Alaska Native Reader

The Alaska Native Reader
Author: Maria Sháa Tláa Williams
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2009-09-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822390833

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.

Children of the Midnight Sun

Children of the Midnight Sun
Author: Tricia Brown
Publisher: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co.
Total Pages: 49
Release: 2006-10
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0882406175

Children of the Midnight Sun was chosen as one of Parenting Magazine's 1998 Books of the Year and School Library Journal's Best Books of 1998. For Native children, growing up in Alaska today means dwelling in a place where traditional practices sometimes mix oddly with modern conveniences. Children of the Midnight Sun explores the lives of eight Alaskan Native children, each representing a unique and ancient culture. This extraordinary book also looks at the critical role elders play in teaching the young Native traditions. Photographs and text present the experiences and way of life of Tlingit, Athabascan, Yup'ik, and other Native American children in the villages, cities, and Bush areas of Alaska.

Space-Time Colonialism

Space-Time Colonialism
Author: Juliana Hu Pegues
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1469656191

As the enduring "last frontier," Alaska proves an indispensable context for examining the form and function of American colonialism, particularly in the shift from western continental expansion to global empire. In this richly theorized work, Juliana Hu Pegues evaluates four key historical periods in U.S.-Alaskan history: the Alaskan purchase, the Gold Rush, the emergence of salmon canneries, and the World War II era. In each, Hu Pegues recognizes colonial and racial entanglements between Alaska Native peoples and Asian immigrants. In the midst of this complex interplay, the American colonial project advanced by differentially racializing and gendering Indigenous and Asian peoples, constructing Asian immigrants as "out of place" and Alaska Natives as "out of time." Counter to this space-time colonialism, Native and Asian peoples created alternate modes of meaning and belonging through their literature, photography, political organizing, and sociality. Offering an intersectional approach to U.S. empire, Indigenous dispossession, and labor exploitation, Space-Time Colonialism makes clear that Alaska is essential to understanding both U.S. imperial expansion and the machinations of settler colonialism.

Fifty Miles from Tomorrow

Fifty Miles from Tomorrow
Author: William L. Iggiagruk Hensley
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2009
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780374154844

Documents the author's traditional childhood north of the Arctic Circle, his education in the continental U.S., and his lobbying efforts that convinced the government to allocate resources to Alaska's natives in compensation for incursions on their way of life.

Possessing the Pacific

Possessing the Pacific
Author: Stuart Banner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674020529

During the nineteenth century, British and American settlers acquired a vast amount of land from indigenous people throughout the Pacific, but in no two places did they acquire it the same way. Stuart Banner tells the story of colonial settlement in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. Today, indigenous people own much more land in some of these places than in others. And certain indigenous peoples benefit from treaty rights, while others do not. These variations are traceable to choices made more than a century ago--choices about whether indigenous people were the owners of their land and how that land was to be transferred to whites. Banner argues that these differences were not due to any deliberate land policy created in London or Washington. Rather, the decisions were made locally by settlers and colonial officials and were based on factors peculiar to each colony, such as whether the local indigenous people were agriculturalists and what level of political organization they had attained. These differences loom very large now, perhaps even larger than they did in the nineteenth century, because they continue to influence the course of litigation and political struggle between indigenous people and whites over claims to land and other resources. "Possessing the Pacific" is an original and broadly conceived study of how colonial struggles over land still shape the relations between whites and indigenous people throughout much of the world.