Books about the Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, & Tsimshian Peoples

Painful beauty : Tlingit women, beadwork, and the art of resilience

Megan A. Smetzer
2021
ISBN: 9780295748948

"For over 150 years, Tlingit women artists have beaded colorful, intricately beautiful designs on moccasins, dolls, octopus bags, tunics, and other garments. Painful Beauty suggests that at a time when Indigenous cultural practices were actively being repressed, beading supported cultural continuity, demonstrating Tlingit women's resilience, strength, and power. Beadwork served many uses, from the ceremonial to the economic, as women created beaded pieces for community use and to sell to tourists. Like other Tlingit art, beadwork reflects rich artistic visions with deep connections to the environment, clan histories, and Tlingit worldviews. Contemporary Tlingit artists Alison Bremner, Chloe French, Shgen Doo Tan George, Lily Hudson Hope, Tanis S'eiltin, and Larry McNeil foreground the significance of historical beading practices in their diverse, boundary-pushing artworks. Working with museum collection materials, photographs, archives, and interviews with artists and elders, Megan Smetzer reframes this often overlooked artform as a site of historical negotiations and contemporary inspirations. She shows how beading gave Tlingit women the freedom to innovate aesthetically, assert their clan crests and identities, support tribal sovereignty, and pass on cultural knowledge. Painful Beauty is the first dedicated study of Tlingit beadwork and contributes to the expanding literature addressing women's artistic expressions on the Northwest Coast"-- Provided by publisher.

Fighter in velvet gloves : Alaska civil rights hero, Elizabeth Peratrovich student/teacher

Annie Boochever with Roy Peratrovich Jr
2021
ISBN: 9781602233706

""No Natives Allowed!" blared the storefront sign at the young Tlingit Indian girl. The sting of those words would stay with Elizabeth Peratrovich all her life. They would also make her deter-mined to work for change. Years later, a seasoned fighter for equality, she would deliver her own eloquent message, one that helped change Alaska and the nation forever. Writ-ten in collaboration with Elizabeth's eldest son and only living child, Roy Peratrovich Jr., Fighter in Velvet Gloves tells the life story of this inspirational Alaskan and American hero, for readers 10 and up. This book is intended as a study guide for teachers and students to use with Fighter in Velvet Gloves"-- Provided by publisher.

The tao of raven : an Alaska native memoir

Ernestine Hayes
2016
ISBN: 9780295999593

"In her first book, Blonde Indian, Ernestine Hayes powerfully recounted the story of coming back to Juneau and to her Tlingit home after many years of wandering. The Tao of Raven takes up the next and in some ways more interesting question: once the exile returns, then what? Using motifs from the story Raven and the Box of Daylight to deepen her narration and reflection, Hayes expresses an ongoing frustration and anger at the obstacles and prejudices still facing Alaska Natives in their own land, but also recounts her own story of attending and completing college in her fifties and becoming a professor and a writer. Now seventy years old and thinking very much of the generations who will come after her, Hayes speaks for herself but also has powerful things to say about the possibilities and complications of her Native community -- Provided by publisher.

Haa léelk'w has aaní saax'ú : our grandparents' names on the land

edited by Thomas F. Thornton
2012
ISBN: 9780295988580

Publisher description: Haa Leelk'w Has Aan' Saaxu / Our Grandparents' Names on the Land presents the results of a collaborative project with Native communities of Southeast Alaska to record indigenous geographic names. Documenting and analyzing more than 3,000 Tlingit, Haida, and other Native names on the land, it highlights their descriptive force and cultural significance. With community maps, tables, and photographs, this book will be invaluable for those seeking to understand Alaska Native geographic perspectives. As Tlingits from the Hoonah Indian Association explain in the book: "Long before Russian, French, Spanish, and British explorers mapped and named the mountains and bays of the Huna Tlingit homeland, we identified special places in our own vibrant, descriptive ways. Tlingit place names reflect important natural resources, ancestral stories, sacred places, and major geological and historic events. Our place names describe more than just inanimate locations for we perceive the mountains, glaciers, and streams to be as alive and aware as ourselves. Rather, they capture the history, emotions, and stories of our enduring relationship with a living, evolving landscape."

Haida eagle treasures : traditional stories and memories from a teacher of the Tsath Lanas Clan

Pansy Collison ; with original artwork by Paul White
2017
ISBN: 9781550597486

"Take a journey into the heart of Haida culture as it is lived and experienced by a single, extraordinary woman. Pansy Collison, a Haida woman born on Haida Gwaii, delivers a rich collection of stories that blend past and present. Drawn from the Elders' deep well of knowledge and her own life, Pansy interweaves an oral history of her people with a moving personal narrative."-- Provided by publisher.

Celebration : Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian dancing on the land

Rosita Worl ; with foreword by Byron I. Mallott and essays by Maria Williams and Robert Davidson ; edited by Kathy Dye ; principal photography by Bill Hess
2008
ISBN: 9780295988290

Featuring work by the noted Alaska photographer Bill Hess, the book includes images from the first Celebrations to the present-day festivals."--BOOK JACKET.