Title: Being and place among the Tlingit /
Authors: Thornton, Thomas F.; Sealaska Heritage Institute
Publisher: University of Washington Press ; In association with Sealaska Heritage Institute,
Year: 2008
Subjects: Tlingit Indians Social life and customs.; Names, Geographical Social aspects Alaska.; Cultural property Alaska.; Geographical perception Alaska.; Alaska Social life and customs.
Abstract: "In Being and Place among the Tlingit, place signifies a specific geographical location and also reveals the ways in which individuals and social groups define themselves. The notion of place consists of three dimensions - space, time, and experience - which are culturally and environmentally structured. Thomas Thornton examines each in detail to show how individual and collective Tlingit notions of place, being, and identity are formed. As he observes, despite cultural and environmental changes over time, particularly in the post-contact era since the late eighteenth century, Tlingits continue to bind themselves and their culture to places and landscapes in distinctive ways."--Jacket.
Contents: Introduction: Place and Tlingit senses of being -- Know your place : the social organization of geographic knowledge -- What's in a name? : place and cognition -- Production and place : "it was easy for me to put up fish there" -- Ritual as emplacement : the potlatch / ku.éex' -- Conclusion: Toward an anthropology of place.