Oral Traditions

This video, adapted from material provided by the ECHO partners, features Cecilia Kunz, a Native elder from the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska, who describes how stories are passed on among her people. Although the Tlingit language is now written, and virtually all Tlingits are literate, they continue to pass on their stories orally. Cecilia Kunz illuminates how dance, clothing, traditional objects like totem poles, and events like potlatches all become means of transmitting and preserving stories.

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[uphamtimothy]

"Wae akwe" -- "Greetings" in Tlingit. We must pay tribute to Richard and Nora Dauenhauer, who had written and published volumes upon volumes of Tlingit oral traditions. These volumes are in both English and Tlingit, and if they were not written down they could have been lost. She is Tlingit, and he is Euro-American, but what they have done needs to be replicated with other indigenous languages. For keeping alive these oral traditions, is keeping alive a culture.

[Kaadaanaka]

kewl! That was my grandmother speaking, and my cousin was dancing also.

[tlingitgurlz]

i was in that dance group!!!