Haa Kusteeyi, Our Culture: Tlingit Life Stories is an introduction to
Tlingit social and political history. Each biography is compelling in
its own merit, but when all are taken together, the collection shows
patterns of interaction among people and communities of today, and
across the generations. By combining historical documents and
photographs with accounts gathered from living memory, the book also
enables the present, living generations to interact with their past. The
book features biographies and life histories of more than 50 men and
women, most born between 1880 and 1910, including a special section on
the founders of the Alaska Native Brotherhood. Additional lives are
described tangentially. Each biography or life history follows a
standard format that includes vital statistics, genealogical
information, names in Tlingit and English, and major achievements. But
each is also unique. Like the lives they describe, all vary in length,
detail, and style, depending on authorship and available human and
archival resources. To the fullest extent possible oral and written
material from the subjects and their families has been incorporated.
Some is more anecdotal, some more historical. The appendixes include
previously unpublished historical documents and Tlingit texts with
facing translations. The lives in this volume show how individual people
both shaped and were shaped by their time and place in history.
