While the Tlingit have suffered through ethnic cleansing, Diaspora, and culture change, despite touching on all three I chose culture change for the main theme of this assignment.
The origin of the Tlingit is unknown since they are different and have no relation to any of the other tribes. It is believed they came to southeast Alaska approximately 11,000 years ago. The Tlingit of Alaska consider the land now known as Glacier Bay National Park as their homeland. Unfortunately there have been several glacial advances and retreats over the past 10,000 years that forced the Tlingit to leave this area, although they still were able to fish, hunt, and use plants located there until the federal government seized the area and made it a national …show more content…
Between 1836 and 1840 roughly one-half of the Tlingit people were wiped out by smallpox, influenza, and tuberculosis brought into Alaska by foreigners. The destruction and death brought on by disease caused many to lose their faith in the shaman and traditional healing. Traditional potlatches became almost nonexistent in Tlingit country during the tuberculosis epidemics of the 1900s. These epidemics caused hundreds of Tlingit to be institutionalized and many were buried in mass graves. Tlingit people turned to the churches for relief, and in return were given new names to replace their Tlingit names destroying an important basis of identity and status in Tlingit society. Demoralization and hopelessness …show more content…
The Nelson Act, passed by Congress in January 1905, stated that Native and White children in Alaska would be educated in separate school systems. Children of mixed heritage could attend White school as long as they and their parents lived a “civilized life”, meaning no native traditions were followed, no native language was spoken, and no native rituals were attended. The Russian Orthodox Church created the first alphabet for the Tlingit language and developed a Tlingit literacy program. The Orthodox Church supported bilingual education in its schools, but the Americans discouraged it, and sought to suppress the use of their language. The need to maintain indigenous languages is stated in the 1994 Final Report of the Alaska Natives Commission: "At the core of many problems in the Alaska Native community are unhealed psychological and spiritual wounds and unresolved grief brought on by a century-long history of deaths by epidemics and cultural and political deprivation at others' hands; some of the more tragic consequences include the erosion of Native languages in which are couched the full cultural understanding, and the erosion of cultural values." The Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed in 1978, but has had little effect other than providing some legal support potlatches and traditional burial practices. Institutionalized religion or
The origin of the Tlingit is unknown since they are different and have no relation to any of the other tribes. It is believed they came to southeast Alaska approximately 11,000 years ago. The Tlingit of Alaska consider the land now known as Glacier Bay National Park as their homeland. Unfortunately there have been several glacial advances and retreats over the past 10,000 years that forced the Tlingit to leave this area, although they still were able to fish, hunt, and use plants located there until the federal government seized the area and made it a national …show more content…
Between 1836 and 1840 roughly one-half of the Tlingit people were wiped out by smallpox, influenza, and tuberculosis brought into Alaska by foreigners. The destruction and death brought on by disease caused many to lose their faith in the shaman and traditional healing. Traditional potlatches became almost nonexistent in Tlingit country during the tuberculosis epidemics of the 1900s. These epidemics caused hundreds of Tlingit to be institutionalized and many were buried in mass graves. Tlingit people turned to the churches for relief, and in return were given new names to replace their Tlingit names destroying an important basis of identity and status in Tlingit society. Demoralization and hopelessness …show more content…
The Nelson Act, passed by Congress in January 1905, stated that Native and White children in Alaska would be educated in separate school systems. Children of mixed heritage could attend White school as long as they and their parents lived a “civilized life”, meaning no native traditions were followed, no native language was spoken, and no native rituals were attended. The Russian Orthodox Church created the first alphabet for the Tlingit language and developed a Tlingit literacy program. The Orthodox Church supported bilingual education in its schools, but the Americans discouraged it, and sought to suppress the use of their language. The need to maintain indigenous languages is stated in the 1994 Final Report of the Alaska Natives Commission: "At the core of many problems in the Alaska Native community are unhealed psychological and spiritual wounds and unresolved grief brought on by a century-long history of deaths by epidemics and cultural and political deprivation at others' hands; some of the more tragic consequences include the erosion of Native languages in which are couched the full cultural understanding, and the erosion of cultural values." The Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed in 1978, but has had little effect other than providing some legal support potlatches and traditional burial practices. Institutionalized religion or