It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything traditional in our Tlingit people. Seems we’ve lost our identity. The 1960s and 1970s is where it seems to have ended. We no longer have 40-day payoff parties, or just potlatches. We don’t help each other, let alone care. Our aunts and uncles raised us and taught us all we need to know. We got our Tlingit names at age 10 or 11 at a potlatch. It was our people who taught the newcomers how to fish. Now we no longer live those ways. They took it all. Take away everything from us, especially our culture. Our regalia even in other hands or in museums. Our ANB and ANS in now non-Native. So what more do we have that they can take away from us? It’s time we get back our way of life. Never forget who you are.
Phillip Jackson