(More links to come soon; last additions 2021-Oct-07)

Dzéiwsh’s ongoing projects

  • Swanton’s Texts (github): Retranscription, retranslation, and grammatical analysis of 163 pages of Tlingit language stories, speeches, and songs collected by John R. Swanton in Sitka and Wrangell in 1904.
  • Tlingit verb prefixes (github): Verb prefixation paradigms in Northern Tlingit based on currently available data.
  • Tlingit corpus (github): A digital text corpus of published Tlingit narratives for linguistic research.
  • Tlingit story index: An index of published and semi-published Tlingit narratives in Tlingit or English.
  • Tlingit roots list: A list of roots in Tlingit and their associated lexical properties.
  • Tlingit lexical database: A comprehensive lexical database based on the Tlingit roots list, developed in collaboration with Keri Eggleston and other researchers.

Digital books on Tlingit culture and language

A list of books available in digital format (generally PDFs of page scans) on Tlingit culture and the Tlingit language.

Ethnographies

Books which aim to document Tlingit culture, written by anthropologists from observation and oral accounts of Tlingit people.

  • Krause 1885 Die Tlingit Indianer: (in German) An early ethnography by Aurel Krause based on fieldwork in Klukwan in 1881 and 1882. The English translation by Erna Gunther (1956) is copyright-restricted but can be checked out temporarily from Archive.org. There is a recent reprint of Gunther’s translation but it is unchanged except for different typesetting and pagination.
  • Jones 1904 A study of the Thlingets of Alaska: A hostile but still useful ethnography by a Presbyterian missionary. It is unclear exactly when and where he worked and biographic information is scant, but he gives Juneau in his introduction.
  • Swanton 1908 Social condition, beliefs, and linguistic relationship of the Tlingit Indians: John R. Swanton’s ethnography based on fieldwork in Sitka and Wrangell in 1904.
  • De Laguna 1960 The story of a Tlingit community: A report on archaeological and anthropological research conducted in Angoon in 1949 and 1950 by Frederica De Laguna and Catharine McClellan.
  • Salisbury 1962 Quoth the raven: Another hostile but still useful ethnography by the school principal in Klawock in the mid-1920s.
  • De Laguna 1972 Under Mount Saint Elias: The history and culture of the Yakutat Tlingit: The largest and most detailed ethnography, based on Frederica De Laguna’s fieldwork in Yakutat from 1949 through 1954.
  • Emmons & De Laguna 1991 The Tlingit Indians: George T. Emmons’s notes from his fieldwork in southeast Alaska in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with extensive comments and additions by Frederica De Laguna. This is the best general source on 19th century coastal Tlingit culture.
  • McClellan 1975a/b My old people say: A two-volume ethnography of the Southern Tutchone, Tagish, and Inland Tlingit of the southern Yukon Territory and far northern British Columbia. Unlike the other ethnographies above, access requires library subscription or purchase.
  • Kan 2016 Symbolic Immortality: The Tlingit Potlatch of the Nineteenth Century: A detailed account and analysis of Tlingit philosophy (metaphysics, personhood, society, cosmology) as reflected in the structure and function of the potlatch. (2nd edition; 1st edition published 1989)

Narrative collections

Books which collect traditional Tlingit narratives from oral accounts of Tlingit people. Some are actual transcriptions in the Tlingit language, others are English narratives or approximate summaries. Secondary sources and some particularly unreliable primary sources are excluded.

There are a number of modern books that claim to present traditional Tlingit stories. Many if not most of these are actually “retellings” by a non-Tlingit person of previously published material, usually from Swanton 1909 since it is out of copyright. Aesthetic qualities aside, these secondary sources have very limited value as either cultural or linguistic records and are unreliable for the revitalization of Tlingit traditions. Interested readers should refer to primary sources instead.

  • Swanton 1909: John R. Swanton’s collection of traditional Tlingit stories in English along with Tlingit language narratives, oratory, and song lyrics, from fieldwork in Sitka and Wrangell in 1904. See Swanton’s Texts above for retranscription, retranslation, and analysis of the Tlingit language materials.
  • Corser’s Totem lore of the Alaska Indians: A compilation of traditional Tlingit stories, mostly from Wrangell, republished several times with different contents. Some of the stories are imaginatively embellished with typically excessive 19th century American romanticism, and one egregious example is recast as epic poetry, but most are reliable in structure and plot. The collection is still valuable as a contemporary witness of Swanton and others.
  • Velten 1939 & 1944: Two articles with Tlingit language narratives from Yeex̱aas Lester Roberts of Klawock. These are a significant source for the Heinyaa variety of Southen Tlingit, notably distinct from Northern Tlingit materials.
    • 1939 Two southern Tlingit tales: Jstor 1262786
    • 1944 Three Tlingit stories: Jstor 1263225
  • Dauenhauer 1972 Doo G̱òojee Yeenàa-dei: Small collection of assorted Tlingit language materials including narratives and oratory, some poems translated by Ḵeixwnéi Nora Marks Dauenhauer, and translations of Russian Orthodox materials. Begins with an introuction to the Naish-Story (v. 2) orthography that predates the current Revised Popular orthography.
  • Sidney 1982 Tagish Tlaagú: A collection of Tlingit and Tagish narratives in English by Stéew Angela Sidney.
    • Yukon Native Language Centre: PDF
  • McClellan & Cruikshank 2007 My Old People’s Stories: A three-volume collection of narratives in English from Southern Tutchone, Tagish, and Tlingit people. Transcribed from recordings made in the 1950s and 1960s by Catharine McClellan (see McClellan 1975a,b ethnographies above).