These past few weeks SHI's Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) obtained a number of new books on Tlingit history and culture for inclusion in our growing library. Two of which were works by scholar and Dartmouth College professor Sergei Kan; such as New Perspectives on Native North America: Cultures, Histories, and Representations (2006) and Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries (1999). He is also the author of Symbolic Immortality: The Tlingit Potlatch of the Nineteenth Century (1993) which we have as well. Born in Moscow, Russia Kan obtained his PhD in Anthropology from University of Chicago in 1982 and Symbolic Immortality is a published version of his dissertation. He has vested a great deal of time and research in his work and seems to be well connected with many locals in the Sitka area. In 1980 he was adopted into the Kook Hit (Box House) of the Kaagwaantaan.
I recently made contact with Kan via email, complimenting his work and inquiring about what projects he is currently working on. He stated a 2nd edition of Symbolic Immortality will soon be released and he is working on a book focusing on the photographs of Vincent Soboleff.
After reading the introduction and conclusion to Memory Eternal I was very interested in his ideas. He states that “The goal of this book is to establish why in the late nineteenth century many of the northern Tlingit embraced Russian Orthodoxy despite the fact that after the sale of Alaska to the United States its mission was much weaker in terms of finances and staff than its rival Protestant missions, particularly those of the Presbyterians.” (xix) He answers these questions by exploring the “economic and especially the sociopolitical and the ideological factors that influenced the Native choice.” (xix) As part of this he refutes the idea and portrayal of “Native people as helpless victims of progress” but actually argues that they asserted themselves in new ways. This occurs as they transformed or ‘Tlingitized’ Russian Orthodoxy and used it as a vessel to stay connected to their Native heritage and way of life. The book demonstrates that “the Tlingit neither totally resisted Christianity nor embraced it in its entirety, but accepted only some if its aspects, especially those which were either meaningful in terms of core indigenous values and social relations or useful in their effort to accommodate to the colonizers without being assimilated…” (548) Overall, this study portrays the Tlingit as active in shaping their own culture and not falling prey to Westernization in ways previously argued in older studies. In short, this work does a good job at recognizing the cultural strength of the Tlingit people amidst a dramatically changing world.
I found this to be a very interesting argument and wanted to know what others thought, as well as any additional opinions about Kan’s works. Thanks.
