SHI RECEIVES GRANT TO TELL STORY OF STATEHOOD FROM NATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has received a $100,000 grant to research Native perspectives during the fight for statehood and to tell the story from the Native point of view.

The two-year grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum will fund a statewide effort by Native scholars and leaders to interview elderly Native people who were active during the statehood era and to research archival materials.

The project, A Retrospective Analysis of Alaska Statehood from a Native Perspective, will initially result in an electronic publication, said SHI President Rosita Worl, noting the institute will raise funds to print the book later. The effort will finally add Native voices to the history of statehood, said Worl.

“We’re very excited that we’re going to have an opportunity to have Alaska Native people tell the story of statehood from their perspective. It’s very exciting to us. It responds to an unmet need,” said Worl, a Tlingit who holds a PhD in Anthropology and will serve as project director.

The late Native leader Frank Peratrovich was a delegate to the constitutional convention and active in the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB), a nonprofit fraternal organization founded in 1912. During the statehood era, the ANB was fighting to secure citizenship for Native people, but it’s unclear how Native people felt about other issues, such as subsistence, maintaining cultural identity and land claims. The constitution did not address the legal rights of Native people, setting the stage for later battles over land and subsistence. The project will explore whether Native peoples’ views paralleled or conflicted with the framers of the constitution, Worl said.

“Were they at that time looking at the legal status of Native people that would actually set us apart from the other citizens of the state? Those are questions we really need to look at and answer,” Worl said.

Some of the research will be derived from historical materials archived at SHI’s Special Collections Research Center. Materials include the Dr. Walter Soboleff Collection, twenty boxes of historical papers that document activities of the ANB from 1929 to 1995, and the even larger Curry-Weissbrodt Collection, which documents the struggle for the legal rights of Alaska Natives prior to, during and after the statehood period. The interviews will be conducted with Native people identified through the Alaska Federation of Natives network. In addition, non-Natives who were actively involved in the statehood discussion will be interviewed about the issues that were not addressed in the constitution.

SHI is a Native nonprofit established in 1980 to administer educational and cultural programs for Sealaska, a regional Native corporation formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The institute’s mission is to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures. Language revitalization is a priority of SHI.

Sealaska Native Artist Market & Necklace Donation

As some of you may know, the Sealaska Heritage Institute hosts a Native Artist Market during our biennial Celebration festival. Sealaska does this to encourage and support Native artists and their artistic abilities. From what our records show Celebration 2008 (held June 5-7) was the mostly widely attended Celebration festival to date, which demonstrates that Celebration and its associated events, such as the Native Artist Market, continue to grow in popularity.

At the conclusion of a successful Native Artist Market one particular Tlingit artist, Myra Rudolph-Dore who currently resides in the state of Washington, donated a beautifully crafted beaded necklace from her inventory to SHI as a show of her gratitude. The necklace was designed by Rudolph-Dore in this way because it reminded Rudolph-Dore of when she was a little girl walking home in Tenakee and seeing the blue berries being eating by the brown bears, hence the brown bear has a blue tongue. It measures 18 inches at the longest point and contains a 4 inch by 4 inch beaded bear head. Rudolph-Dore was born in Juneau and grew up in Juneau, Tenakee, and at the Wrangell Institute. This item is truly a great addition to our holdings and a sentimental piece which SHI gratefully accepts.

SHI Special Collections Research Center seeks to collect all types of Native art and ethnographic items in order to document the achievements of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people. Those interested in donating to SHI Special Collections or those with questions about this subject should contact SHI’s archivist.

The Future of SHI’s Special Collections

I wanted to let everyone know that we will be opening a new research facility for SHI’s Special Collections Research Center within the next few months. Construction is already underway to build our new facility. For patrons this new facility will host a more accommodating research area or Reading Room, which consists of a room for patrons to come in and sit down at a workspace, obtain computer access, and conduct research by using our materials. We plan to use the Reading Room to host other small educational events as well. The move to the new facility is especially great for Special Collections because we are getting more storage space for our growing collection holdings. As for location, our new Reading Room will remain on the third floor of the Sealaska Building, but move to the east end of the building. All in all, this is a great improvement whereby we hope to better serve our patrons. Announcements about when the project is near completion will be posted. Thanks.

A new find of old Tsimshian photographs

SHI was fortunate in recently obtaining two original historic photographs that show views of Tsimshian Natives in the town of Metlakatla, Alaska. This is great for SHI because we have a fair amount of Tlingit and Haida material, but not as much Tsimshian material as we would like. In short, I am working to balance our holdings and seek for more Tsimshian materials. Please contact the archivist if you have any materials you would like to donate. All donations to SHI are tax deductible and photos are available for viewing by the public for research and educational purposes.

Regarding these photos, both date to circa 1890s. The first image, seen on the above right, is a stereoview photo showing a Tsimshian family seated on the front porch of their home (click on the image for a close-up view). The caption refers to “New Metlakatla,” which is interesting because the term ‘New’ was dropped in 1888 (for additional information about the history of Metlakatla click here). While it appears the photographer of the image scratched the year date of ‘1897’ on the image (on the door), it’s possible this image is older since the term ‘New’ was used. The reverse of the stereoview contains a handwritten note that the stereoview was given as a gift to someone during Christmas 1900.

The second image is an 8 x 5 inch cabinet card showing a unique view of students from the Native Girls School in Metlakatla. Taken by Miller-Chase photographers, the image likely also dates to circa 1890s because of the clothing worn and since the photo is in cabinet card format.

All in all, both images are great recent additions to SHI’s Special Collections Research Center. Special Collections staff is pleased to obtain Tsimshian material and we hope to locate more. Special Collections offers its services to anyone interested in the study of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian.

SHI Historical Photograph Collections Go Online

These past few weeks, in conjunction with our posting of the W. A. Soboleff papers online, we have been processing many of our photograph collections and are now beginning the task of putting some of our historical photograph collections online, which can be viewed here. (featured picture is a stereoview image of a Whale Totem at Wrangell, circa 1900.) Our aim is to have all or at least a good portion of our images online someday, but that is a large project and one that will take a great deal of time. That said, I have begun this process and will be adding photographs to our online Picasa Web Album roughly each week. What I have accomplished so far serves to let On occasion I will solicit for information to identify places and people in various pictures, and I welcome your comments on images. First off, the below photograph of this band, can anyone identify the people or from which city this band came from? This image has been held by SCRC for some time, but we have no information about it and it contains no label. I would welcome any information about this photograph.

Lastly, SHI Special Collections is looking to collect original photographs (and postcards) that document all aspects of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian culture. Our photograph collections are open to the public and copies can be generated for researchers. We have had two great photograph donations recently, PO014 Linn A. Forrest Photograph Collection and PO019 Harold Wheaton Photograph, and we hope to continue this momentum. If you have any historic photographs that you would like to donate please contact me, the archivist. Thanks.