Al & Pauline Duncan Interview on ANCSA and Education
Interview
March 16,
2005 at the Duncan’s house in Sitka, AlaskaAlso present: Anita (Duncan) Wright, Bob and Rose Gamble
(Tlingit words need to be fixed)
Al: I have a bad habit when people are trying to interview me, I just
take over the whole story and forget about them. I have to realize that
an interview means that people are gonna ask the questions they want to
know. And at the conclusion of it, I'm losing my voice.
(Chit chat, getting organized)
Rose: I have some topics that we can talk about, and you’re welcome to
just speak as you wish. Having to do with ANCSA, my first question is
about subsistence areas—are there areas that used to be used and can’t be
used any more because different people have taken it over? What were
subsistence areas in the past, and what kinds of things interfere with
subsistence--here in Sitka, or Huna, or Angoon or anywhere that you know
of?
Al: Subsistence area was all over the country before. It was no area, it
wasn’t just one place. Interferences started happening with rules and
regulations and management control. That’s when it was interfered with.
But there was really a definite need for regulation, because as the world
grew bigger and population got better, our boats came to where they could
go long distances. We got these boats that were able to do in one day
what, for most people, would take all week. It's very different in our
country ? It's much different there, so, boats and guns, started to raise
our subsistence time ? and now everyone does.
So what interfered with it was control, management control. They started
to have rules and regulations, and that's what I see with herring eggs for
subsistence now. One example is while I used to be able to supply a lot
of people, and our elders used to say in our native tongue, "Ka da hee ya
ka de xa." What that means in English is that you’re going to be a
provider for your people. That used to be an honor for our people. It
used to be an honor a long time ago. An honor to be a provider. Now
because of regulations, unless I can be an educated man and go through the
proper procedures, it's illegal for me to go out and get three deer for
her (Anita, his sister), unless I'm gonna share my part. So the
interference is regulations. That's what really interfered with it. We
have that ability now, which is much better than it used to be in the past
because of what I just mentioned, the modern technology, modern equipment
that we use for hunting. And while that is the case, they put a lot of
control on that. But as far as subsistence areas, you can get food from
pretty much all of the area. It’s true that the federal government is
saying that there’s certain places you can’t hunt for whatever reason.
There again, if we're not aware of that, we can get into plenty of trouble
for it, for the roe ? during when, they're fishing now. Us ourselves
wanted to put some kind of regulations on it, when it becomes
commercialized. For instance, I’ll use herring as an example. It could
be over-harvested, overdone, and will deplete. I remember telling the
fish and game one time that, when it starts to deplete, don’t be pointing
your meat hooks at subsistence. Because for generations we were the best,
we controlled what we did better than most people did. And for that
reason, we never, ever were in danger of depleting anything. Anything.
Deer, fishing, herring eggs, seal, and I want to talk about seal again.
Seal is a prime example of our control. There is no law that says that
you can’t hunt seal. Or you can only get four. There's no law that says
anything about seal, but yet we never went out there and got seal unless
we really had to. We really needed it, and we went and got it. That's an
example of the control that I talk about, Natives' wishes respect for
subsistence. We do it only with high respect. I was out there doing
devil club today. And I mentioned to my own self in that little
wilderness, saying that there are many people that are sick, that need
that medication. And that’s why I’m here, taking it. Because we
respected the devil club as a living plant. The trees as a living plant.
All living animals, birds, whatever, are living. Our respect is that we
thank them for allowing us to take them. And so our people always had a
strong respect. And so, when it started to get into other hands that
didn’t have that respect any more, that’s when the regulations came out.
So, to answer those two simple questions that you asked me. The areas,
and I said pretty much all the areas. And the second question was what
affected it, the interference. And the interference, I say, was that it
had to be controlled and we had to live under the same umbrella as
everybody else. Luckily, in this modern generation, subsistence is not
our lifestyle like it used to be. At one time that's what you had to
have, is subsistence. That's what you lived on. You used wood to heat
your house, you ate just like we ate tonight, every day.
Rose: We had deer meat.
Al: And that was part of the subsistence that we were able to get this
year. If we weren’t able to hunt this year, and hunt it during the
regular season, we wouldn’t have had a lot to provide as much as we
provide for as many people as we do. And so, we still thank that spirit
for allowing us to take it. I want to point out one more quick example.
The deer is so smart, and they have that 9th sense, that if they wanted to
we would not be able to harvest them. Because they've got this ears to
hear, they could set in the bush so that we could never get near ‘em, and
there are times of the year that you never see one. You'd say, I went all
up the way to the top of the mountain and I didn’t see one, I got in my
boat and I ran all the way to Chatham Straits and I didn’t see a deer.
So, if they wanted to, we wouldn’t be able to get them. But our people
believe that they allow us to take them for our consumption. They allow
that. And we thank them for that. We thank them for allowing us to
harvest them so we can be provided with something to eat. If they didn't
allow us, that same story is, Bobby and I ran all the way to Kelp?/Clagh
Bay, and we didn’t see a thing. Or we went up on top of the mountain and
we saw tracks but we didn’t see any. That would be the story that we
would be telling. So we believe that whenever we get something, it was a
blessing from them to us.
(pause in tape)
It doesn’t sound real for people to say that I talk to the trees. It
doesn’t sound real to thank saak d’eesh, devil club that is, for
allowing us to take them, for our consumption. That was my brief
message?/reference to the devil club, yesterday, not today, that there’s a
lot of people that need it for their arthritis, they need it for dry skin
and all that kind of stuff that she makes it for, that we can’t just go
over there and start taking it without the respect that I was describing.
So it might sound kind of strange, but we’re actually thanking that plant
for allowing us to take it so that we can use it for arthritis, sore
muscles, whatever. And that’s true with every living plant. The trees.
We talk to the trees because they are living
too. That’s a living plant. We thank them for the fact that they're
going to allow us to take them, to put them in the water, and herring will
spawn on them, and then we take them out, and now we can have our herring
eggs. We thanked them for the fact that when there was a war between the
Kiks.adi and the Russians, we were able to hide in the trees as we walked
across the island. I’m giving examples of
the respect that we have for all living animals, plants, people, and we
feel very strongly about that. So, the educational part of it, which is,
you’re going to be talking to an educator here, after I take off, but I
wanted to say, earlier I said that the only education that we needed was
how to survive. We needed nothing else. We didn’t need no education back
in the ‘50s and prior to that. If you knew how to get deer, seal, wood,
gumboots, clams, dryfish, fish, whatever, you were ok. That’s all you
needed to know. And some people don’t really know how to do that, even
today. So, when the federal government mandated—that’s the word they
used—we were mandated to go to school, it was almost offensive, and I said
that already. It was offensive because we said, "What are they going to
teach us? I’m going to teach them how to survive, how to be a provider,
how to be, to make it in life. What are they going to teach them?" And
then latter on we started to find out that this world is moving pretty
fast, and it still is. In fact, it’s going faster than fast right now
because even kids that are two years old are working this modern
technology better than some of us. And that's a good thing, because the
man (Bob) had to go and do some computers. And now he’s pretty good at
that. And I’m still trying to figure out how to log in. That’s how far
we’ve come. So it’s a good thing that we finally decided "Yeah, I think
we're going to have to go and get an education. I asked her to be a part
of me because we do do things pretty well together just like you stated.
She’s a medicine maker now. I play some parts in that. She taught the
Native language. I played some parts there. So now, later on as we do a
commencement
speech for the university, on May 6th, I asked her to be the part that
she's gonna play now, the same way. On that I feel like I’m the
uneducated person looking at it with those eyes, instead of the eyes with
the education looking at the same thing. It’s almost like saying, look at
it from the other side. For instance, if there’s a big decision to be
made, and it’s to be made on something that I don’t quite understand, I
would say, I wonder if I could put your shoes on,
and look at the same thing and see if it’s still gonna look the same.
That’s how a good decision is usually made. Getting back to subsistence,
regulation, I already mentioned that, is the real block that happened to
subsistence. But it had to, because everybody and his uncle can go out
there now and just massacre the quality of fish, deer and whatever, if
there is no regulations. So somebody sensed that real quick and they put
a restraining order, if you will, on it. And so now we have to follow the
regulations. And we do. We follow it, we live with it. The way I
describe that is, we live within the guidelines of the regulations. Give
or take, and mostly take. But if there was no regulations I'd be fearful
of what could happen Sometimes subsistence is still as strong as it used
to be; other times, it's weak. We’re waiting for the herring spawn as we
speak. When you read the paper, it says no herring spotted yet. We’re
still not overly concerned, but there is some concern out there. They're
starting to wonder, I wonder what's going on. I’m hoping that, like
everything else, it’s gonna be a bit later this year. Two reasons: one
is, I'm not ready right now; secondly, I feel like we had such a mild
winter, and such a mild summer, so maybe the spawn is mildly gonna happen
a little bit later. If there’s any more questions there.
Rose: What I have written down is, legally what does the Native community
need for subsistence. But what I’m wondering about is, there’s a
structure of laws and permits that people have, as residents of Alaska.
And I’m just learning about this, ANILCA and everything. What I want to
ask is, do Native people have more laws protecting their right to go hunt
and fish, and everything? I wonder if the regulators, the officials let
Native people do as they’ve always done. I wonder if there’s a silent
license for Native people just because it is their homeland.
Al: I’m going to say to some extent there is. For instance, when we go
to get sockeye, they don't jump right on board and start counting fish.
And when herring eggs is going on, they kind of, like you say, they kind
of not go overboard on making certain that all those herring eggs, they
want to know everything they want to know about it. They kind of shy away
from that. They do enforce a lot of laws. What you said is partially
true. They do know sometimes there's stuff that's not quite in line. But
they don't go overboard to try to enforce that count. Now, I think the
most important thing I want to describe pertaining to that is rural and
urban. That’s interesting because if you read one of the reports that I
wrote pertaining to that, what it says about that, this is important, and
I want it to be heard. Urban means that you’re a large town and might
exceed the number that rural is supposed to have. And rural status allows
subsistence a lot more
than they allow urban to have it. My gauge on that particular thing is
this. If you start calling us urban, if you start saying that you have
8800 people living in this town, and that’s 1800 over what you’re supposed
to have in rural, then I’m going to say, I don’t know whare they came
from, but we’re rural. We got 1800 Natives here; we're rural. And it’s
you that's trying to count these other people. See what I'm saying. So
the protection is basically true when you say do they allow Natives. Well
that’s gonna be a good test. Because if all of a sudden you’re telling us
that we can’t subsist because we have too many people, and we're urban?
I’m gonna take it into the courtroom and say, they are. We're not. I
don’t know if that’s gonna hold any water, but that's been a plan that
I've had for a number of years now, whenever I start hearing Native, this
and that. Because what I can’t
understand, and she can’t understand it either, is how could the villages
say that we’re rural and so we're entitled to hunt and fish and this and
that. We’re Native too, but we can’t be because of where we live? I also
described that a different way before by saying,
You’re a basketball player and you’re only as good as you are. You're not
any better than the ability that you have to play. And it doesn't make
any difference where you live. You’re still gonna have that same ability.
You could live in Angoon, or Sitka, or New York, and that’s not gonna
change. That's what I’m saying about subsistence. I’m saying that we
live here in Sitka. Unlucky for us, so now we can't subsist? I don't
think so. I'm gonna stand behind that as solidly as I can. Then I want
to see that different because unfortunately we live here in Sitka. That's
my thought.
Rose: From what I’m learning about ANCSA, I kind of think that it would
stand behind that, because ANCSA designated Sitka, Kodiak and a couple of
other cities as urban. It’s like they’re urban villages, because they
used to be Native villages and then they became urban because lots of
other people came. And so that’s why they allowed them to have
corporations, even though they’re designated as urban, at core it’s a
Native village from the old days, so we’ll give it to them. But then they
left out certain other cities--like I think maybe Ketchikan doesn't have
one. So ANCSA might kind of support that.
Al: Right. Anyway, I think maybe that’s an important part of this,
because when I speak about it, even to people in the villages, and some of
those are not living in the village any more. They could be in fact
living in Juneau, and that would eliminate them, and it shouldn’t. I'm
saying, you should not be exempt from subsistence because you had to work
in Juneau, or you had to work in Sitka, or wherever you had to
work. Because when you start using numbers, when you say eighty eight
hundred, I say wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's get that number
straight. Go down to STA [Sitka Tribe of Alaska] and find out what our
number is. That's what I'm saying.
Illustration courtesy of Alaska Native Knowledge Network
Rose: So that’s the background of subsistence, and now I want to change
the subject a little bit to talk about the history of the politics of land
here in Southeast Alaska and all of Alaska, and the
history as we come toward the present day. I’ll just give a preview of
what I’m looking at. I’m curious about the Alaska Federation of Natives,
the organization that pushed for ANCSA, the ANB that started in Sitka, the
Tlingit and Haida case that set the precedent for ANCSA to be able to
happen, and the Tlingit people never conceded their land, they never gave
it away. They always fought for it legally, from the Russian battle up to
the present. So I want to see if you have any stories or insight of your
experience, things you saw throughout your life from Huna to here,
watching this time unfold, where people were fighting for their land.
What did you see in the different schools you went to, what was the talk
on the campus among Alaska Natives, any insider stories on the ANB and the
political fight, what was it like on the day that ANCSA passed, any of
those kind of stories.
Al: The Native Land Claim was quite an issue. And we still don’t fully
understand that. I may be completely off base by saying the things I say
pertaining to it. There are things that started a long time ago that they
called homesteading. I remember homesteading to mean that you lived on a
certain land for quite a number of years and all of a sudden you had some
title to it, that was called homesteading.
Homesteading was pretty common as far as Native Settlement Act was
concerned. But yet, the modern rules and regulations took it to mean
something else. There were certain ways that they did that. Our Native
people used to live like they homesteaded. That was the very exact way
that they acquired land, by moving some place. I’ll give some examples.
Angoon was not set in Angoon just by accident. It was set there for a
reason. Those people that were there probably realized that, boy, this
was a real nice sheltered area. There's a lot of king salmon, they could
live off the land, and that's how they settled there. Huna, which means
Glacier People, at one time up in Glacier Bay, until the Ice Age started
to cover over it, and they moved away from there and moved to a place
called Huna, which means Glacier People. There was too many bears there
and they had to move back for a while, until Indian medicine, and I got an
Indian medicine lady here, made medicine to move those bears away so they
can settle at the place called Huna. That was pretty much the way people
settled, our Native people did. That's where we started to run into
problems. That's where Native Land Claims came into the act. Because
they couldn't recognize homesteading which we were really commonly known
for. The old man, her dad, said, when they asked him for a permit, he was
fishing, for dogsalmon by the smokehouse. They came and they asked him if
he had a permit. He was a smart old guy, he
knew what they were saying, but he acted like he didn't. He said, "Da
saaw ye sayasak permit?" The question was, "What are they calling a
permit?" And some of us that thought we knew everything, we were telling
him, it’s a piece of paper that you're supposed to have when you're
catching fish. "A oh." That means, "I see." "Eh des ko dwi id ee ok
ch.aak, ga heen yit ge na hoosh goosh, as a gwa, permit asideeo ashtook."
He said, "Those eagles that are flying that comes and grabs that fish, and
the bears that are slapping that fish up on the beach, do they have a
permit?" And that's the way we were. That's the way our people lived.
And that's why it was affirmed through this homesteading. And that's how
we got our land. Not by a piece of paper that was written as a deed,
Duncan's Camp has quite a story on that. Here's a deed. It wasn't our
fault that we didn't have a deed for that land. The U.S. military made a
deal, struck in good faith, but the deed was never given to the old man.
Quite a story. A very touching story. But that's--you asked me a
question about land, and
that's what I could tell you pertaining to that. The same as the eagles,
the same as the bear, is the way we lived.. Now you have to have
something to prove that. If it's not a deed, you have to have at least
some evidence that you did live there. Unfortunately for a lot of people,
all they can say is, "That's where we used to live." And then they're
gonna come and they're gonna say, "Please point something out that gives
me sufficient proof that you lived there." So you look up and you say,
"How about this tree?" That doesn't work. The tree doesn't work. The
trees are old?all the same? Lucky for us, N'emes'k'ow, the medicine lady,
saw the evidence of the camp, the debris of the house where we lived. In
a court I would have told them, "Who can step forward and say that was
their house? Can the forest service do that? How about the national park
service? We can. That was our land. Unfortunately, a lot of people are
not going to, in this, I don't understand a lot, she probably knows more
than I do about what you're describing there, ANCSA. I don't have a lot
of knowledge about that. I do know that they're expecting us to live to
today's rules and regulations, today's standards, and they have no plan(?)
for very many places because of that.
Pauline: On the political side of it, both Al and I have always said that
when they formed ANCSA, the Native Land Claims corporations, they knew
what they were doing. They formed it now to where we have all these
corporations and we have all
of these divisions, and
we used to have only the ANB before. And once the corporations started
forming, it started taking away from the Alaska Native Brotherhood and the
Alaska Native Sisterhod and they’re saying that they're not a strong
organization any more. But the reason they’re not strong is that all of
the corporations have formed, and they have Tlingit and Haida now, and
they have all these different organizations within the village. And we
feel like the government knew what they were doing when they did that
because it, like, pitted all of us against one another, it divided us, and
it also took away from our unity of having that one Native organization,
the ANB and ANS. Everyone belonged to that in the olden days. That was
our only way, that was our only union there. And once the Native land
claim came into effect, there were many many people who were not ready for
it, and as a
result of it, there were many Native organizations that ended up with
people who were not qualified to hold such a position. And because of
that, the disarray, it seems like all of the Natives have split, in so
many different ways. And they tried to revive the ANB, they try to revive
the ANS, I don’t know if it’s gonna come back to the way it used to be.
Lots of miscommunication, lots of , not enough information about what’s
going on with the Native corporations. We’re not versed on all the
politics and the money, and the stocks and all of the different things
that they talk about. So it makes it really difficult for an average
person to understand what’s happening, and how to vote. And the way they
have the different corporations set up, it's like, you get in there and
once you get in there you're in there for life if you want. They don’t
have it simplified. The voting and all of that is not so simple that we
cannot change members, board members, and have new blood and all of that
come in. The proxy voting is very confusing, just the whole setup. The
ANB and the ANS was very organized, and very open to everyone. Everything
was just, Robert’s Rules of Order, and everything was just so open. And
all of the main activities were always within the ANB, the ANS hall. So
that's my view on the political side of it.
Rose: Bob and I were just talking the other day, or maybe I was talking,
about how in Sitka, the Native community has so many areas of leadership.
There's the tribe, the hospital, Sealaska, Shee Atika, the tours, SNEP,
where you can celebrate culture. It's like, where does it exist? Where
is the center? And ANB was it.
Pauline: It used to be, it once was.
Bob: And if I could add something, too. In my mind, when you talk about
the corporations, even the village corporations, and I said this the other
night too, so correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of people look at the
corporations as the dividend. A lot of people focus on how much money are
we gonna get this year, and they're not really thinking so much about all
the things that the corporation's supposed to be doing, why they were
created in the first place. It's all about, well, the dividend is going to
be $700.00 bi-annually from Shee Atika and we're probably going to get
about two or $300.00 bi-annually from Sealaska, and that's all we're
getting, and what's wrong with it, you know? And that's just people that
were born before ’71 or who have been donated shares. So the people born
after '71, unless they have been donated shares or have inherited shares,
they don’t really get any benefit from it. I mean, if they have one
share, then they can get benefits from the education system. No, it’s
just sad to see what we actually got for compensation for what we once
had. Everything surrounding that, in my mind, it’s sad to see what we got
to show for it all.
Al: So what you’re saying is, if I run for Shee Dika, you would vote for
me. (chuckles) Shee ‘tika is, the lady that was on Mt. Edgecumbe island,
that was her name.
Shee means the limb that sticks out of a tree, dika
means facing the island side. So her name was limb facing the island
side. That's where Shee Atika comes from. The talk that she did on
Native ways, native corporations, when we discussed it, it was determined
that it was designed to fail. They knew what they were doing, she said,
when they did that, because it was designed to fail. One of the most
common ways that it does fail is some of our people got land. They knew
that they were gonna get that land back, because they're dealing in it for
something called money. If we didn't lose it already, we were going to.
That was the failure that we were discussing. It was designed to fail.
They knew we were gonna fight, she already said that. We were gonna fight
with each other until it finally slipped out of our hands, then they would
have it back. For a while, while we were paid, while we were given
land--there's a word for it, I just can't think of it right now--they know
that, give them a few minutes and we'll have it. It'll be back in our
hands. But we were happy, 'cause we said, "Oh man this Native Land
Claims, we got his and we got that. We gave a up a lot of stuff, with no
kickback (?). I could go on, if we got until midnight.
Rose: I have a lot of tape.
Pauline: He has ten minutes.
Al: The Native Land Claims, even though we were compensated, it's just a
matter of time that it's gonna be a thing of the past. And that's what I
was talking about when I talked about homesteading, people here in Sitka
are trying to get Biorka Island, Nacrosina Bay, places like that. But
what evidence is there, and that's what they use a lot of times, do you
have a deed? Back then there was no deed. Then what other evidence do
you have that we can look at? There is none. That's very unfortunate,
because there's a lot of people saying that my great grandfather stayed at
camp there. You can go there today and you can't see it, nothing, trees,
bushes, no living thing, just like ?? without a trace. That's pretty
unfortunate. They can't allow people just to say that's here we used to
live, cause everybody would be standing in line. It's just like saying if
I could get a degree, just by in line--can't do that. Same thing with
land issues.
Rose: Do you need to go? (indicates short questions) The next thing that
I wanted to talk about were your opinions about Shee Atika, Sealaska and
any other corporations, what you think of how they’re doing. Some of the
goals are providing jobs for Natives, providing dividends, providing land
for people to subsist on, traditionally. So I want to ask what your
priority would be for the corporations, what they could do, and should do
for people, how you think they’re doing in general. Are they spending
money the way you’d want them to do, are they doing the proper kinds of
investments, etcetera.
Al: I’ll cover real briefly, and she’s gonna follow up on that. The
intentions of the corporations in the beginning didn’t turn out that way.
Who started to benefit from it were those people that were directly
involved with it, through stocks, they weren’t able to handle the
authority. It started to become misused. To a point where we felt like
only those that sat in office were actually benefiting pretty good from
it. The rest of us were not only ? We’re biased when we say Shee Atika
in our opinion is doing o.k. We probably won't say that about a lot of
corporations. We can use a little village directly on the other side of
the island; I'm not talking about Angoon. They were getting dividends,
like what Bobby said, sixty thousand at a time. Right now they are
seriously in trouble. There’s no jobs, there's noting to fall back on.
And the same cannot be said about Shee Atika that we think, and they
should, because they didn’t give us anything. They should be still
stable. And we're thinking that they are. The leaders, elected
officials, who I just described as being there because of proxy, and they
could stay there forever because of proxy, are traveling. They're
spending a lot of money. Fancy cars, hotels. That authority wasn't
handled right, according to a lot of our people. They can’t be fooled,
they’re pretty smart. They thought, man I just can't believe what our
corporation is doing. They had a, they went down to Florida for a couple
of weeks, for a retreat, where they went to--wherever. Somehow it looks
like they were the ones that were benefiting, while we're sitting over
here wondering what's going on. If we even knew, that'd be good, but we
don't. We're thinking that they're taking care of business, and that's
what we're thinking was happening, and
it's not just Kake, who went through the same thing--a few other
organizations went through the same thing--we often wonder what all that
logging on Admiralty Island, ? . There's a lot of unanswered questions.
If I was running for Shee Atika, I'd say, this is information that I
really believe should not be top military secret. I'm not campaigning
right now, I'm just saying that I really believe that we should know.
There's no reason why we shouldn't know. And that's one of the problems
that I see. One of them is that we have to be Shee Atika, no Sealaska ??
We often wonder because its seeming that we're entitled to know. So we
suspect that the elected officials are benefiting quite well. They have
been. They didn't know how to handle that authority, and they started
misusing our money. Might be wrong and I hope we are. But that's the
feeling of a lot of the people that belong to the corporation. And that's
all I got on that.
Rose: I've got miscellaneous questions. I'll just run them past you and
if you care to say anything, good, or if not, then we'll just move on.
Another issue is the issue of shareholder descendants in the corporations.
The original ANCSA set it out such that people born before a certain date
would get the shares, and then later on, ANILCA in 1971 [1991] changed it
to where shareholders could vote as to whether new children could get
shares automatically. And it would, I guess, dilute the value of the
shares because they would be spread out among more people. And as far as
I know, Shee Atika and Sealaska do not give shares to people born after
1971, and it's just an issue, so if you have any opinion on that or ideas,
you could talk about that.
Al: Just a couple real quick comments on that, because her and I both
believe that all of our children are our responsibility. I never would
have voted for ?? if I didn't mean that. I probably wouldn't support
education as much as I do if I didn't believe that. I have a problem with
trying to cut if off after such and such a year, 'cause you got a bunch of
children that's gonna be born in the future, that's my feeing. That's
gonna happen anyway, 'cause grandma and grandpa will hopefully give
everything that belongs to them to the grandchildren and the children. So
my feeling about that is that to say that after you were born after 1971,
too bad, it's hard for me to do that. I really believe that ?? I'm very
brief on that, 'cause that's my sincere feeling, I have to feel that. I'm
going to be talking about education. Funny how I could talk about
education when I don't have one, but I can have an opinion I guess. So,
I've never felt like my grandchildren should not be included. I don't
hardly know anyone that would say that. You'd probably hear someone say,
just keep it out of hand. And they probably will, but life goes on. ?? It
will get smaller and smaller, but people will die, too. It balances it.
As many come into the world, as many leave too. I don't think it's gonna
get overly, heavily populated on one side. Cause life has to go on.
That's my own
feeling about that.
Rose: Before we move on to education let me ask a couple of specific
questions. I read something about the history of Shee Atika, and in these
negotiations over which pieces of land the village corporations would get,
Shee Atika could select from the same area as Goldbelt and the Angoon
Corporation. And I guess there was a big struggle over who would get Cube
Cove and other areas. My understanding is that Angoon wanted all of the
area around their village to just stay wild. To just stay subsistence,
that the elders were really fighting to say, just leave our land exactly
like it is so we can continue to do our lifestlyle....Is that how Angoon
is? 'Cause it seems to me that that was the purpose of ANCSA to begin
with, was so that they would have land to subsist on. As far as you know,
is that how Angoon has done their thing?
Al: There was a pretty big discrepancy over the land grant. For whatever
reason, certain corporations because they couldn't take their own land, it
was not valuable to them, it would not have been the same as if they went
somewhere else to get it, two examples really sticks out. Recently,
Hydaburg came to Sitka and selected Saganaka Island instead of others, so
that happened quite a bit, and it wasn't with comfort. Angoon, if they
could, would not allow anyone or anything to happen on their island. For
instance, even if it meant a lot of jobs for them to build a big airport
there, they would have probably voted against it. That's a real common
belief or instinct for anyone/Angoon ? . Did we feel comfortable about
Hydaburg selecting their islands out here, I don't think we did. But as
an assemblyman, if I had to make a a decision on that, I had my wording to
say if that's the only place that you can select, take it. As an assembly
person, that's what I would have said. Even though, deep down inside I
say, well the herring are gonna spawn out there. We started putting other
laws into effect as the city, through the assembly, that even though you
own this island, you should not at any time tell me that I can't set
branches among them. We made that into law. Because there's a lot of
islands being bought right now, and will be in the near future. So we're
saying that from time to time, subsistence and sports people can utilize
the waterfront. So they know that when they're going to buy. So if the
man [gesture to Bob] wanted to go to set some trees, by
some property, he shouldn't have a man there staring at him with a gun.
Prior to the time you buy it--and that went into law. "From time to
time," it said. But we're not gonna tell you what to do with your land.
We're not gonna say, well you shouldn't buy that place because we're doing
subsistence. Which was the only other alternative. So getting back, I
wandered away from the, what you were talking about. There was a bad
discrepancy; they didn't feel like those trees should be cut. It went for
a couple years, and Shee Atika did get their way, they did log Cube Cove.
We're still wondering where the money went. They logged it. That
happened over in Prince of Wales. Angoon was out in Prince of Wales doing
their thing. And they're saying, Angoon left there and went to Prince of
Wales and was doing their operation there, logging. Hydaburg comes to
Sitka, and they pretty much without question, claimed Saganaka Island.
And we thought--Sitkans lived here
for generations, always been subsistence area throughout. Still that
happened. whatever reason, I don't know. But selections were made.
Hydaburg couldn't
find any place around their area that would mean as much as that island,
Saganacka. And I guess that we felt the same way, we went to Angoon.
Angoon left Admiralty Island and went to Prince of Wales. But that
happened quite a bit. I'm not gonna act like I know the reasons for all
that, cause I really don't. But that did happen quite a bit, and it
caused a lot of feeling there. That feeling is not as strong now,
naturally it wouldn't be because we logged half of that island. You're
going to Juneau now, on the fast or slow ferry, take a look on that turn
and you'll see what I mean, it's been all logged there. Do we know what
happened? We're hoping we're in good shape, we're hoping Shee Atika's in
good shape. Part of the reason would be, there was a lot of timber logged
there. But that discrepancy was very real, see. It was a long battle.
Rose: Pushing and pulling over--
Al: There was. There was.
Rose: It seems like almost another example of driving the community apart.
Al: And that's what she was describing. She said it was designed to do
that. Pretty soon we couldn't hardly talk to each other. We're still
saying money transferred. That's what all this land happened. Because
now, if we have land, we want money. So who's gonna get that land? Not
us. It's going to someone else. That's what was happening. It was
designed that way. They knew that eventually we would have all that.
Rose: We've been talking about Natives in Alaska. For me as a Caucasian
woman coming in from the lower 48, being a teacher for all the kids,
either in Sitka, or a lot of the, more, Native kids at Mt. Edgecumbe High
School, what I want to ask is for advice. In a way, I want to ask what
our community needs to do to respect the Native subsistence lifestyle, to
include and support those kids who might be struggling with this point in
history, you know, where they're adjusting going from a subsistence
lifestyle to today's cosmopolitan world. So I want to ask for advice, or
tips, or what kind of things do you want to see in our teachers and in our
community for our kids? What do you think the kids need these days?
Al: I'll start out because I'm leaving here in a minute, and she's gonna
follow up on that. First I want to say we've come a long way from back
then. The line that divided Caucasians from Natives is not as apparent as
they used to be. In fact, a while back, there was strong division. Right
now, we accept each other a lot more than we did. Education was a
blessing for our Native people, because we could have been still in the
Stone Age. And now, a few of us that know a little bit of something think
we're really, really highly intelligent now. I think that we had to
leave--and she's gonna tell you the same thing--we had to leave home at an
early life, we had to leave our mom and dad, and go to a boarding school.
And that was the mandate that I mentioned earlier. Mandated. We were
required by the federal government to go to boarding school. It wasn't
easy at that age because leaving home is not an easy thing to do.
Nowadays, most young people don't have to leave to get a good education.
A lot of them get a good education right in their house because of the
computer here. We had to leave and go to a boarding school. I think that
the encouragement part of that is, I think it's doing really well, I think
people are, kids nowadays are able to cope with the education system a lot
better than we did. We came to school sometimes two months late, and
she's gonna verify that it was a very insecure feeling to come into a
classroom. It was like, what I call missing pages. If you're gonna read
a book and some pages are not in there, you can imagine it's hard to read
that book. That's the system we had to go by because of that subsistence
lifestyle that we had to provide for us to make it through the winter, and
at the same time try to get an education. Insecure. Very insecure. I
don't think that ever left our minds, our age group still feels that
insecurity today. We've never really gotten over it, it's almost like an
injury that happened. No one's to blame for that, because we lived in
camp. We're not blaming our parents. They were doing what they had to
do. Today's--I mentioned those young kids that are, their grandmother's
starting them off right--they don't have to worry about herring eggs
that's gonna spawn next week, they don't have to worry about sockeyes that
we need to have, or the deer, or anything like that. They could do that,
too. But they're not programmed to do that. They can do that as an
addition to their lives and their day (?) It's a lot different today than
it was back then. And all I can say is the damages that we received back
then, in our day, they're still apparent these days, and they're
still--we're living in today's world.
Like I say, we didn't blame anybody. I think that education today is on
the right track. I'm saying that, as a Caucasian teacher, there's not a
lot of dealt, fix it (?) She's gonna tell you probably about the Native
kids that are not really up to standards, and she's gonna talk about the
homes and the environment that they live in. She knows a lot about those
things, more than I do. What the reason for our Native people is that
they feel like they just don't belong there, they're not the same class, I
guess they weren't Native (?) Some cases have no desire, no drive to be
as good as they could be. But anyways, that's my take on the education
portion of (?) Missing pages is a good word for that. It's really set.
If anybody misses the first two months of school, you know what the rest
is, it's very difficult for them to go, and we tried. We got anywhere we
got to be and that's basically it. So what we say is that we want them to
be so much better than we were. We don't want them to (?) So we bend over
backwards to make sure that they don't. Talking about our children,
talking about our grandchildren. We don't want them to have to walk the
same road that we walked. Because we still know how that was, we hope
they never have to do that. And I don't see where they're going to have
to because everything's provided now, modern education. So I'll turn it
over to the teacher here.
Rose: Thank you.
Bob: Thanks a lot.
Pauline: Ok, the only thing I have to add to this is, I think in this day
and age, being a teacher is going to be quite a challenge, because you're
not only dealing with children who have no educational experience, you're
also dealing with children who come to school with FAS, which is Fetal
Alcohol Syndrome. We're talking about the drugs and the alcohol and all
of that which has impacted the children's ability to learn as they used to
be able to learn. So when you have a challenge like that, there's not a
whole lot that's going to happen as far as the academic world is
concerned, because there's a lot of behavior and a lot of different
problems that are going to stem up because of the syndromes that are
coming out, the cocaine babies, and all of that, you know. And you're
also dealing with--when we were growing up we had two parents, and now
you're finding a lot more single parents. Not that a single parent can't
be as effective. When you have two parents to deal with a child it's a
totally different home. Because one parent has time to go to parent
-teacher conferences, the other parent has time to take their child to
basketball, to do all these extra things that children like to do. And
even if you have two parents, two parents are needed to work in order to
survive. And that never used to be the case before, too. So you have two
parents, and the children, and it's just quite a challenge all the way
around for new educators coming into the field. I don't know about the
other states, but alcohol and drugs are two of our main problems in
Alaska, all of Alaska. I just am scared and concerned, and I have no idea
where we're going at this point. And to me, educating the children and
the young parents is probably the key, because the sooner you can get
ahold of the young parent and educate them on fetal alcohol syndrome, and
all of that, it just might make a difference. But right now, we're in
such a cycle, I would almost be afraid to know where we're at in that
cycle. Whether or not it can even start to be worked on.
Rose: In a class of twenty or so, how many students would you say are
affected by drugs, alcohol, fetal alcohol syndrome?
Pauline: In my class (first grade), if I had twenty students, maybe about
five or six. And then the second hand smoke. There's just so many things
that you have to deal with as a new teacher. So, advice? I just think we
need to put a little bit more money into early prevention, because by the
time we get students into Raven's Way (treatment) program, they're beyond,
they already have a taste for the alcohol. They're born into it, and
they're living it, they go back to the village and they have children, and
it just goes on and on.
Rose: Right, because once you're an adolescent, you've already got your
own ideas.
Pauline: See when we were going to high school, there was very very few
drinking incidents. I mean we didn't even wonder if anyone was going to
be drinking or using drugs, anything like that. We just knew it wasn't
going to happen. And a lot of the students of that day and age didn't
come from parents who were alcohol syndrome and drugs and all that.
Rose: So you went to Mt. Edgecumbe High School and just got a regular
diploma? And what year did you graduate?
Pauline: 1975
Rose: Oh, you you were there just after statehood, then?
Pauline: Yeah. As far as--I just don't have any advice. It's just such
a big picture. That's all I have to contribute.
Illustration courtesy of Alaska Native Knowledge Network
Historical Reflection
Assignment: “Preface or conclude with reflection on relationship of thisperson’s story with statewide events during this time period. (Consider
discussing life before and after ANCSA.)”
Al and Pauline’s stories begin in the Territorial Period in Alaska
history and continue through Statehood. They reflect two strong themes
in the lives of Southeast Alaskan Natives: the effects of military growth
and Americanization, and the resulting adjustment to a bureaucratic
government and economy.
Military presence had far-reaching affects on Alaska Natives’ lives
because it led to Americanization and statehood. Haycox and Magnusso
describe it this way in An Alaska Anthology:
Defense spending had become increasingly important to Alaska’s economy,
and it continued to grow during the Cold War of the early 1950s. Alaska’s
population grew as well. Many who had come to Alaska during the war
remained. Others who had been in the territory in military service
returned. More professionals came—teachers, doctors, lawyers—all
necessary to provide the infrastructure required by a developing
community. (xxvi)
This developing community became organized enough to interfere deeply with
Native ways of life. Early in the Territorial Period, mining and salmon
industries had already expanded and moved in on Native resources. When
the population boom started in 1942, the government became more organized
and effective.
Al Duncan’s family then started to feel the Americanization of Alaska at
their camp in Excursion Inlet. He said they didn’t need an education
prior to the 1950s, when it was “mandated” by the federal government.
Their father, Peter Duncan, at first railed against it, asking, “What can
they teach my children? I am teaching them everything they need to
know.” He later moved the family to Huna during the school year, and
then sent the children to voluntary boarding schools, encouraging them to
work hard and get ahead using an education. Al Duncan described the
“insecure,” “missing pages” feeling that came from starting school late
because they were doing subsistence. The education mandate of American
society took the children away from their parents, which was difficult,
but he said “We don’t blame anybody.” For him, education represents
empowerment in today’s world and is an essential good.
On the issue of subsistence, the Alaska government was missing a few
pages that Natives could have filled. Take-all salmon canneries and sea
mammal hunters had made regulations necessary. Duncan said that
government “management control” interfered with subsistence by requiring
permits. “Everybody and his uncle” would go hunt for seal and other fish
and game, depleting the stock. "World War II altered the [hunting]
situation dramatically with its overnight influx of military
personnel--transients adept with firearms and eager for trophies,"
(Alaska History, 115). Native hunters never needed such regulations to
conserve the environment. They had a spiritual relationship with the
creatures around them, receiving permission from the animals to hunt
them, and then thanking the animals and plants that they took. They knew
from years of history how to live with this land and its creatures.
One trophy hunter and Alaska leader who caused the disruptions in the
Duncans’ subsistence lifestyle is World War II Alaska Defense Commander,
General Simone Bolivar Buckner, Jr. In his court case for military
hunting rights, Buckner moved Alaska’s hunting culture away from
sustainability. In the interest of himself and all military people,
Buckner "sued the game commission for the right to hunt as a resident,"
which meant a cheaper license, and his patriotic appeal intimidated the
courts and Congress into ruling in his favor. When the war ended,
"Troops desperate to bag their trophy before heading home engaged in a
last-minute slaughter," (Alaska History, 115). Such a trophy hunting
practice, along with the military based population growth that continues
to this day, interfered with the abundance of Natives’ subsistence
territory.
Bolivar's military procedures also denigrated Natives in general, and his
racist relocation plan directly threatened the Duncans' subsistence. In
his role as commander, Bolivar stated that “Indians” were created by God
as “differing in many respects from a white man,” said that Natives
should not intermarry with whites, allowed the exclusion of Native women
from USOs, and allowed restriction of military personnel frequenting
businesses that served Natives (An Alaska Anthology, 322). A story that
Al Duncan alluded to in this interview is the Duncan's Camp story. In
the 1940s, the army tried to steal Peter Duncan’s subsistence land
outright. It had plans to divert a salmon stream and build a German
P.O.W. camp. The Duncans would have been left homeless. Only with
fierce bravery and an astute, patriotic argument did Peter Duncan force
the army to build him a new house on a liveable piece of subsistence
property. The army never gave Peter Duncan the title, however, so his
children spent the 1990s in court fighting for it. As Duncan explains,
"It wasn't our fault that we didn't have a deed for that land. The U.S.
military made a deal, struck in good faith, but the deed was never given
to the old man. Quite a story."
Bolivar’s anti-Native military establishment threatened the Duncans' very
subsistence as it fueled Alaska’s growth. Bolivar’s influence on hunting
practices also served to threaten level-headed subsistence practices such
as Peter and Al Duncan’s. As a result, strict enforcement of hunting
permits would follow in the next decades.
The bitter irony of the regulations is that Peter Duncan, a traditional
Native provider, was also harassed by the permit system. Describing this
scene, Al Duncan said, “My dad didn’t take any ‘what you call’ from
anybody.” "The old man, her [Anita's] dad, when they asked him for a
permit, he was fishing, for dogsalmon by the smokehouse." Peter Duncan
feigned ignorance to show the officials the absurdity of such a request.
Resonant of Chief Seattle, in Tlingit, he asked, (Tlingit words need to
be fixed) "'Da saaw ye sayasak permit?' The question was, 'What are they
calling a permit?' And some of us that thought we knew everything, we
were telling him, it’s a piece of paper that you're supposed to have when
you're catching fish. 'A oh.' That means, 'I see.' 'Eh des ko dwi id
ee ok ch.aak, ga heen yit ge na hoosh goosh, as a gwa, permit asideeo
ashtook.' He said, 'Those eagles that are flying that comes and grabs
that fish, and the bears that are slapping that fish up on the beach, do
they have a permit?' And that's the way we were. That's the way our
people lived." The story doesn’t end with him paying a fine or doing
jail time, so he must have convinced, shamed or frustrated that official
into leaving him alone.
Peter Duncan’s descendants are also harassed by the permit system, and a
response like his is still appropriate. Al Duncan pointed out that the
rural/urban label is the key to legal subsistence today. American laws
don’t allow privileges such as hunting and fishing to be based on race.
Instead, Alaska gives rural residents more privileges than urban ones.
Those laws are based on democratic, common ownership of the land’s
resources. They don’t include the debt owed to the Native village land
owners from the imperial stage of our country’s development. Before the
urban, military, European and other ethnic populations came here, before
Anchorage was built on federal/ military money, before Juneau was built
on mining money and Sitka expanded as the Russian and American capitol,
Natives lived a “rural” subsistence lifestyle. As Al Duncan says, “I
don’t know where they came from, but we’re rural.” Alaska’s history
resonates through such an argument for Native rights.
As generations of Natives have become and are becoming Americanized, it
is a process of adjusting to a complex, bureaucratic government and
economy. The primary government entanglement relates to land claims and
subsistence rights. According to the courts, all aboriginal hunting and
fishing rights were extinguished with the passage of ANCSA, the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act, in 1971. The Alaska Federation of Natives,
or AFN, was the broad coalition of local organizations that fought for
the passage of ANCSA. They negotiated it through the committees of the
Alaska legislature and the federal systems, which made additions and
subtractions. The AFN fought tirelessly to get the best deal they could
for Natives, but also made compromises with legislators to keep them at
the negotiating table. Pauline Duncan points out that the government
intended to divide the Native community with ANCSA. The Alaska Native
Brotherhood/Sisterhood, or ANB/ANS, had previously unified Southeast and
other Natives in a (slower) fight for claims, rights and compensation.
As she recalls, the ANB used Robert’s Rules of Order and was organized
and open. The community felt ownership and felt represented. ANCSA, Al
Duncan says, divided people and caused hard feelings because village
corporations fought over land. Hydaburg claimed Saganaka (sp?) Islands,
near Sitka; Angoon claimed land on Prince of Wales Island; and Sitka
claimed Cube Cove, near Angoon. Instead of land being viewed in a
traditional sense, as subsistence territory, the corporations tended to
view it as a marketable resource with a dollar value. Other problems
also came with the economic complexity of running a big business. It
called for elected boards of directors, many of whom Pauline Duncan says,
“were not qualified to hold such a position.” As Al Duncan describes,
dissent and distrust have flowed from the shareholders to their corporate
leadership. Despite large sales, dividends are limited to the low
hundreds of dollars. The leaders once took an all expense paid trip to
Florida, and the directors don’t tell shareholders enough about what’s
happening with their corporation’s money.
In contemporary Sitka, Natives have various channels to power and
community, but there are many groups and some aspects are bureaucratic.
The ANB hall and clan houses in the old Native village house invite
parties, gatherings, bingo and a traditional lunch for $5.00. Shee Atika
Corporation is the major “real estate” holder in the area and gives
dividends, scholarships, etc. The Tlingit and Haida government provides
housing assistance. The regional Native hospital, a hub of the
community, has a Native hire preference, and provides high paying jobs
for people with degrees. The Sitka Tribe is diverse; it runs the
community house, tours and teaching/entertainment for tourists, Native
education programs after school, scholarships, etc.
Elders also provide leadership in the community at large. Pauline Duncan
was a first grade teacher who published materials to teach Tlingit
language and culture, and who calls for more education for young parents
about the effects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. (FAS, as a sidenote in this
historical reflection, is a continuation of the early introduction of
“hootch”/homebrew by the military in the 1700s). Al Duncan is a skilled
hospital employee and city assemblyman who worked for subsistence use of
the boat harbor and a city law requiring island owners to allow coastal
access to herring egg harvesters. Roby Littlefield, an adopted clan
member, teacher and knowledge-bearer, even started a Tlingit language
email group.
Where does Sitka’s Native culture live after Alaska’s military population
boom, Americanization and ANCSA? It’s not as unified as the traditional
clan house or even the ANB of the mid 1900s. It is in all the public
places of Sitka, and between and among Natives where they gather. Al and
Pauline Duncan’s stories show that the Native cultures represented in
Sitka are increasingly cosmopolitan, practicing many traditions while
also negotiating the government bureaucracy and economy of the American
melting pot.