Anchorage Daily News

HAINES -- It seems the whole world is changing the way it views race and culture. That is true in the Chilkat Valley communities of Haines and Klukwan too. Haines is about a quarter Alaska Native, mostly Tlingit Indian. The rest of us, except for about a dozen people, are white.

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When Tlingit elder Paul Wilson died they had a viewing in the old Raven House, to which he belonged, down on Front Street, a block off Main. It is a weathered gray frame place close to the road with a yard on the other side that overlooks a tin roofed smokehouse, rocky beach, Lynn Canal and the mountains beyond. The only way you might guess its tribal significance is by the totemic black raven carving on the front.

There is one long room downstairs that is adjacent to a kitchen and used by the family that lives there as a living room and for ceremonial tribal occasions. The furniture was pushed back to make room for Paul's casket and the Chilkat blankets and other regalia on display.

We mourners made our way in a line from the damp road, up the snowy path by the woodshed, into the narrow, utilitarian entryway and finally into the main room slowly, pausing for the speeches or prayers. Once inside we hugged the family, then paused by the open casket to say a few words to Paul or God or whomever and then squeezed back out the door, making room for the next person.

The walls of the Raven House are lined with old pictures of people and places, of homes and villages that were here recently enough to be captured on film but are so completely gone now that there aren't even any ruins. Paul Wilson was only 74 but the village where he spent his childhood, down the road about two miles, is gone. Paul was, locals agreed, the last survivor of the Land Otter House there.

At his funeral in the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall the next day, we were told not to forget the things Paul had said, because they were important to know, not just for his people's history, or our community's, but all of ours, Native and non-Native alike.

Paul was in his 60s when he told me he was learning to speak Tlingit and practice the old ways. He was eating dried smoked hooligan that day and dipping it in the even stronger fish oil as he recalled signs in Juneau storefronts keeping dogs and Indians out, and said that he was taught not to speak Tlingit or dance or sing or even eat things like hooligan oil by missionaries and teachers.

Now his grandchildren and my daughter walk into the new Haines School every morning and are greeted with an etched raven and eagle, the symbols of Tlingit culture and the balance it requires, and the phrases "Be Strong" and "Have Courage" in both Tlingit and English.

Elizabeth Peratroavich, the civil rights leader and an Alaska Native Sisterhood Grand Camp President told the Legislature 60 years ago, "There are three kinds of persons who practice discrimination. First, the politician who wants to maintain an inferior minority group so that he can always promise them something. Second, the Mr. and Mrs. Jones who aren't quite sure of their social position and who are nice to you on one occasion and can't see you on others, depending on who they are with. Third, the great superman who believes in the superiority of the white race."

Her people and Paul's knew all three. Like all ANB and ANS memorials, Paul's included an invitation to join the sisterhood and brotherhood that invoked the memory of Elizabeth Peratoravich. Heads nodded when the leader said that her work continues.

Ketchikan carver Nathan Jackson, wearing his ANB hat, played "Amazing Grace" on the harmonica, and the North Tide traditional dancers sang alternating verses in Tlingit and English.

There are Tlingit language classes taught in Klukwan and at the Haines library and museum. There's a weekly Tlingit lesson on the radio, and the Tlingit word of the week is published in the newspaper. But most people here are still beginners, so while the hall filled with song during the English sections, the group sang alone on the first Tlingit one, but then slowly, almost imperceptibly, one young Native joined in and then another very old one and then a non-Native student, and the rest of us hummed along until the final Tlingit verse was almost as loud, and somehow more meaningful, than the English one before it.

I said a silent thank you for Paul Wilson's amazing grace, the way he insisted on sharing the eye-watering hooligan oil that was so precious to him with someone who nearly gagged on it, and I remembered what else he shared with me. He said that when he heard songs sung in his language he could feel his chest opening right up, exposing his heart for all the world to see. "Keep your heart showing" I could almost hear him saying, "be strong, and have courage."

Heather Lende lives in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at heatherlende@adn.com.

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