New book brings Tlingit Raven stories to new generations

(Book) 

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) has copublished a new book that presents Tlingit Raven stories for the first time in the original language with facing English translations.

“Yéil Kundayaayí, Adventures of Raven: Tlingit Raven Stories” brings together 50 stories by seven Tlingit storytellers born between 1870 and 1915. The stories were transcribed directly from recordings of oral performances and include some of the oldest known audio recordings of these stories told in Tlingit.

The publication of this text has been 40 years in the making.

Raven is a legendary cultural hero, world-maker and trickster figure among the Tlingit of Southeast Alaska. The stories occupy a unique position in Tlingit oral literature—if ancestral narrative is the genre of history and tragedy and oratory is in the genre of ceremony, then Raven stories are in the genre of comedy.

“Raven hops here and there, from serious origin myth to absurd comic relief,” the book’s description states. “The stories often illustrate human weaknesses but expressed humorously, typically in a bewildering combination of the sacred and the scatological.”

The 864-page volume includes detailed annotations and is rich with linguistic, literary and cultural commentary for students and teachers of the Tlingit language, as well as anthropologists, linguists and folklorists. Developed and passed down over millennia, these stories and the lessons they offer will amuse, engage and resonate across the Northwest Coast and beyond.

The book was edited by Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer, Will Geiger and Jeff Leer. Nora Marks Dauenhauer and Richard Dauenhauer published histories and oral literature of the Tlingit people, worked to preserve and teach the Tlingit language, and helped standardize the written form of the language. Geiger is a Tlingit-language researcher and editor at SHI. Leer is professor emeritus of Alaska Native languages at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and linguist affiliated with SHI. Tom Thornton, senior ethnologist with SHI, wrote the introduction.

“Raven continues to hold deep significance for the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people as both a trickster and cultural hero,” said SHI President Rosita Worl, Ph.D. “Introducing our youth to these stories through programs like Baby Raven Reads helps ensure these traditions endure for future generations.”

The book is part of the Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature series and is now available for purchase through University of Washington Press for $50.

For more information, visit bit.ly/4sjuIEZ

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a non-profit tribal organization founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. SHI also conducts scientific and public policy research that promotes Alaska Native arts, cultures, history and education statewide. The institute is governed by a Board of Trustees and guided by a Council of Traditional Scholars, a Native Artist Committee, a Southeast Regional Language Committee and a newly formed Education Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, Deputy Director of Communications and Publications, kathy.dye@sealaska.com.