Mary Beth and Leah’s July Visit
Kathy and Leah
Leah communicating with butterfly
Leah and Patrick
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Mary Beth
Celebration
Celebration is a biannual event sponsored by Sealaska Heritage Institute. This year 2,000 dancers performed and 5,000 people attended. Dance groups from throughout Alaska attend to showcase traditional dance, storytelling, and oratory.
I made a new blanket for Leah which includes mother-of-pearl buttons sewn on wool felt with 3 beaded Seagulls (her clan) which were made by an elder in Hoonah. She is wearing a cedar bark hat Owen commissioned his niece from Kake to make for her. Instead of paying for the hat, he “paid” his niece with the seaweed we gathered and dried. As I mentioned, seaweed is highly prized and very “expensive.” You are not supposed to sell it, but native people are allowed to barter with it. The hat has an ermine skin attached to it. At Owen’s mother’s pay-off party, he gifted me a cedar bark hat he commissioned for me. It has a killer whale design painted on it. I wore it at Celebration, but didn’t take a picture of myself in it!!
I also made a new blanket for Owen to wear which includes abalone buttons sewn on wool felt. I commissioned a local artist to design a Raven (his moiety) for the blanket which I cut out and sewed to the blanket. He also wore the hand-tanned deer tunic I made for him for last Celebration (2 years ago). He wore a Raven headdress he made 30 years ago and a shuki.aat (spirit headdress) made of wood, abalone, baby seal hide, and red-shafted flicker feathers. He was asked to wear the Chief Shakes Chilkat Robe made of cedar bark and mountain goat hair which is hundreds of years old. It is typically only worn by males in the Chief Shakes lineage; Owen’s father was the last Chief Shakes. Although Owen is not technically in the “lineage” (he follows his mother’s lineage) the caretakers of the robe asked him to wear it as an honor to his father who died in 2006.
Leah and Aleut friend
Leah in her outfit
Owen at 2010 Celebration
Leah and Owen after a long day
Pre-School Graduate – Leah
