Sealaska Heritage Institute: A Panel Discussion with the Tlingit Opera Creative Team | Sealaska Heritage

My name is Frank Henry Koshykatas. I am honored to be part of this production, and I'm playing the icht within that. But in this sense right now, I am really, really honored to be See, to be joined by our— by some, some wonderful guests and creatives and people who I've watched pour their heart and soul into this production to bring it to life for us to see opening at some— on September 11th at Thunder Mountain Middle School. We're very, very excited. Maybe we can go through the panel right now and you can just say your name, maybe what you're doing within this particular production.

My name is Khoné. I translated Vera's writing, and I assist folks with their language. I especially watch for the— I'm like, more, give me more, all more. And then that's mostly what I do.

And give me more.

Ed Littlefield from Sitka, and I wrote the music, the composer for this.

I'm Madeline Sayet. I'm a citizen of the Mohegan Tribe in Connecticut, and I am the director.

Small job. Verstarberdi kathewosak, shnidi hatsiti, dakhten taan yeti. I am the librettist, which means I wrote the English words for the script and the story itself, the action that goes along with it. Give them a round of applause or stomp your feet real quick.

They've been doing phenomenal work, and it's been really an honor to sit back and watch them bring this story to life or these stories to life, really. So I've been in— I still think about when we started this process, and I remember the very first day when we got in a circle and we talked about, you know, what our involvement was with this particular project. And I was thinking back about when I was working. I can't even remember if I was working at Perseverance or if I was working here at Sealaska Heritage at the time. But we sat down in a meeting and we talked about the possibility of this particular production.

And Rosita shared some of the stories and some of the ideas that she had— she just shared with you right now, and about bringing this story to life and seeing it on stage and sung, you know, with the power of opera. And I can't remember, it was probably 10 years ago, and we've been watching this And I remember thinking at the time, I was like trying to in my head coming up with people who could help bring this production to life. And this was 10 years ago. And this is some of the people. These are the people.

And it's, it's really sort of amazing to think back to that time and to where we are right now and actually seeing it come to life. And it's, it's bigger and grander and more beautiful than than I could have imagined 10 years ago. And I, you know, it's all because of you. And so it's been really sort of an honor. And I remember at the time I was like, "Ooh, that's going to be tough." I was like, "This is going to be really hard." And, you know, I wasn't pessimistic about the idea, but it was sort of like, let's start thinking of some of the people that could do it.

And this group of people here are the names that were brought up in that meeting. And it's kind of Con through ups and downs over the last 10 years. And I remember meeting during COVID and having workshops and ideas and still working out things and then, and then getting into the rehearsal room, especially after being away from it for a couple of years and seeing the magic come together has been— it's been beautiful. I was out, I injured my leg and I was out for a few rehearsals and I came back yesterday and I was watching some of the Stumble Through and you're like, wow, like the work that's been done, it's like I've seen it and I've heard it and it still gives me goosebumps. And you're like watching like everyone in that particular room.

Some of the people had never been on stage before and they're pouring their heart and souls into it because they understand the importance of this particular project. And I really hope everyone gets a chance to see this. To learn from it, to take it in and enjoy the beauty and, and really appreciate the amount of work. And we've joked about this before, but every single person at this table, I think I've called a genius many times. And it's not a word I use lightly, but when I'm with this group of people, I think it's something I use freely because I think it's the thing that best accurately describes their work, their commitment, and their understanding and the importance of this particular work.

So I'm just honored to literally have a seat at the table. I actually, right when we started this, I was like, am I going to be sitting over there? Because I didn't feel like I deserved to be at the same table as you. But I'm happy to be here and happy to hear your thoughts and your creative process. So as this particular panel discussion goes, I have some questions.

Some of them can be directed. Here's the thing. It's like the oldest joke in the world that there's a time limit for having Indigenous people talk. So we have an hour. So I have— and I overshot the amount of questions that we could use, but I have some specific questions for some of our panelists to give a chance to express their ideas and their process and answer some questions.

And then I'll leave a little bit of time at the end of this to take questions from the audience and from folks streaming online. So great. So I think there's a couple of questions and I'd like to start off with you, Vera. I think you've been involved with this project for a very long time and I think you've heard people over the years even come up and talk to you. And I think there's a lot of questions about people who have never been to the opera, you know, some people, I mean, it's not something that we go to a lot.

And so people don't really know what to prepare for. And this is including Indigenous people. This is including everybody, what they should do if they're not prepared to go to an opera, what they should know coming into this one or operas in general. For sure. The most common question I get is Am I going to understand this?

The second one is, what should I wear? It's real. There are an awful lot of rules around opera and traditions around, I should say, Western opera. There's different kinds of opera. Western opera, you do get the idea of sort of like a bunch of socialites in New York dressing up in ball gowns and going to the opera.

We went to some of those, actually. When we were preparing for this, in the long time we've been preparing for this, for our Tlingit opera, we never wanted it to be inaccessible to anyone. We don't want it to feel inaccessible. Certainly everyone here is not the dress up in the ball gowns and go in your top hat kind of thing to the opera. Also, we're doing this in Tlingit haani, Of course we're going to make this the most accessible it can.

If you want to come in jeans, great. If you want to come in a ball gown, I'm dressing. I want an excuse to dress up. You're definitely also going to see some people dressing up. My husband will probably be in jeans, so you're going to get a nice little mix.

The rules of this are genuinely so relaxed, so comfortable. If you feel like responding even, that's a very Slinkett thing to do.

That will probably be there, especially I think in the opening. For how you behave, that's kind of a common question, is how do you behave, whether it's stage plays or opera? You just come and enjoy it and be with us, and I think you'll get the vibes right away. Like, I really hope that people understand you're going to have a good time. And I promise, like, don't worry about any kind of rules.

For understanding it, it will be entirely sung in Tlingit, which is pretty exciting. It will be the first opera entirely sung in Tlingit. There will, however, be some things for most of the audience who won't understand fluent Tlingit. There will be a program which will show the summary of the entire thing, so you can follow scene by scene if you want, or read up on that real quick before the lights go down. We'll probably be putting something out online too.

There will also be— spoiler— a bit of a storyteller who will be explaining pretty much the whole story before you even begin. That was also a tradition for Tlingit performing arts, that you would have oratory or storytelling before you even performed it. So we're trying to take all of these things that Tlingit's already had as best practices for performing arts and putting it into this modern sense that isn't so modern. It's a couple millennia old. So no matter what, you're going to have a good time.

Yeah, I think all of those things are very effective. And I remember when I did a first— I did a play and had some Tlingit in it, and this was 15 years ago or something like that. And I remember people going like, I didn't see it because I don't speak I speak Tlingit. And I'm like, yeah, but you go to the opera and I don't think you speak Italian. And so there's a lot of different ways to, you know, it's like a lot of different ways to communicate the messages and the way it's being told on stage.

And one of the things that we have, we have an expert that can help us tell that particular story. Maddie, what, as a director, are there things that you're doing to help communicate communicate some of the story and maybe talk about how different ways that you're using, different tactics you're using to help communicate the story being told? Sure. Yeah. So I think there's a couple of things at play, which I think are actually really exciting.

I think that one, I think that there are lots of forms of theater generally, right, where if you come in and you're like, I need to get every single word, you're actually not having a great time. Like, and when I'm, you know, when I direct Shakespeare, I like, people are like, am I, do I need to understand every word? I'm like, if you come in and you're like, what does this literally mean? And some of the words are made up. Like, it's a, it's a much less joyous experience than if you hear the sounds, hear the poetry, watch the performers, and let it wash over you and receive whatever it is that you receive and know that that's enough, right?

Like, that's always a better way to sort of like experience a performance. Is that it's not school, right? You don't have to get it right. There's not going to be a pop quiz at the end. No one's going to say, did you understand which part of the battle was in this scene?

Whatever emotionally is resonating with you is actually what's most important. And I say that also because the music that Ed has written is going to have an emotional effect on you at any given moment. And so many times, like, what's actually most important is the combination of the images that have been created. So we've— as we've worked through this particular opera, thinking about the story that's being told, what Vera's put into the libretto, and also this kind of exciting prompt of what is it to also sort of exist as kind of like a Tlingit immersion, not class, fun Tlingit immersion. But you know what I mean?

It's like, it's an opportunity to actually sit inside the Tlingit language and go back to that moment in time while receiving the story through music. So the pictures that we've sort of structured into each scene also tell the story. So in any scene, we've worked really hard to make sure that the narrative of the scene is actually being broken down into a series of images, so that, like, similar to the way if you watched a silent film or you watched a ballet or you even just looked at paintings, you would still get a story from each image on stage. So we did that very carefully because we're trying to figure out how to make all of these elements work together. But even within that, I think it's also just really important to know that whatever story you're receiving is enough, as opposed to just over-intellectualizing it.

Because I think that, yeah, you have the resources Vera talked about. You have a storyteller at the beginning who takes you through all the moments. But then even beyond that, there will be things that each person watching it receives because of the brilliance of our ensemble and how layered each moment is, that might be completely different from each other, that might transport them back in time when we have elements in the show, like Tommy Joseph building the armor, right? Like, there might be things— like, our kai, our choreographer, has been really thinking about warrior protocol practices he received from his grandfather and how to layer those into the production. So I was a little rambly, but I just say that to say that there's, there's going to be something— even if you saw it a couple times, you would take away different things each time.

And that's, I think, part of the, the beauty of, of the way that we're building it as a collective. Yeah, I think it's like a lot of different productions, especially when we're thinking about, like, Indigenous productions and even, like, stage. You see something and you pull out what you can, and people are going to have different levels of understanding and appreciation for it. Like you said, maybe it's Tommy Joseph's armor that he made and you're like, "Oh, wow." And if you understand what the armor is, you're going to take a big appreciation from that. And it's the same thing with, like, the Tlingit language.

Some people are going to understand the Tlingit language and find it and appreciate the beauty within that. And some people are going to know like the historical aspects of it and be like, oh yeah, yeah, I know what this is. It's talking about this particular moment within history because I read the books and I understand that. And some people are going to hear the music and a lot of people are going to understand the music and some of the music theory behind it and how that's helping drive the scene, which makes me think about or leads to a question for you, Ed. I think it's When people are coming to—.

I'm ready. It's so funny you go with Ed because he's like, did a little bit like on the piano when I'm trying to sing. And then he's like, oh, this is— and he starts going into music theory and I'm like, I don't understand this or appreciate this, but there's going to be some like some people in the audience are going to be like, wow, that's wild. For me, I'm like, for music, it's something that I feel more than I quite understand on the level that maybe you've written. But I think there's people that are going to understand music theory and be like, This is phenomenal.

So, Ed, maybe you can talk about a little bit about when you were writing the music, what was like driving that or what you were hoping people would understand or feel when they heard some of your music as you're composing this? Yeah. When I just got asked by Nacho, our rehearsal pianist last night, so what's your process? And I was like, for composing? He goes, yeah.

And I am all about melody first because I've seen a lot of shows. I'm also a jazz musician, so I see a lot of these shows where they're just doing this.

And a friend of mine that we toured together for a long time, Jason Marsalis, he goes, man, they're going to be singing that one later.

As in there was no melody to sing. So, and so I love that, that concept. And that was about, I don't know, 12 years ago that he said that to me. And I think I've been on this journey of creating melody as music and then adding to that. I'm very fortunate to be able to— was able to learn from Kaathlet for a few years of my life growing up, Charlie Joseph.

And I would go to his house on Saturdays and my mom would record him talking, but he would sing these songs and I just, I loved the feeling is what you were talking about. The feeling of the melodies, the feeling of the songs were more important than me not being able to understand exactly what he was singing about. And so I've actually— it's been really nice. I've heard a lot of people say, oh, like Maddie, you said you were in Sitka last week and you said, man, that opening number feels like Qajaheen. Star Cabin right there.

It feels like that place. And I'm—. That was like such a wonderful comment. So again, rambling, but my composition starts with melody and then we start— I start— I'm a percussionist by profession and I start doing rhythmic things to it. And then I add some chords, which is called reharmonization.

So A lot of Tlingit music is in minor or major pentatonic. This is when Frank's eyes gloss over. Major or minor pentatonic with chromatic passing tones. And if that means nothing to you, that's fine. It means it's the scale that's used most commonly around the world.

Da da da dee da da. Right? So how do you create almost an hour and a half of music using that scale? Is we add a little bit to it so we can add different harmonies that make it sound more interesting. We can add different rhythmic things to make the, you know, the kind of basic or simple notes sound more complicated.

And I could go on for hours and hours on this. But if I just also want to shout out Rory Stitt, who could not be here. The—. Yeah, the process for this was Kuné gave— Vera gave Kuné language. Kuné translated it and then double translated it, got it back to Vera.

It got sent to me. I composed a scene all the while they're moving on the second scene. So they're moving on the second scene while I'm composing the first one. Once I got done with the first scene or a scene, I would then send it off to Rory to orchestrate. And for those of you that don't know what orchestrate is, I essentially wrote it on on 1, 2, or 3 grandstaffs.

So treble clef, bass clef, treble clef, bass clef. And I wrote all this stuff like that. And he said, oh, that's going to sound great on the clarinet. Oh, that's a bass line. We're going to put that with the bass.

And so he put it out to the orchestra.

And 100%, this opera wouldn't be what it is without Rory. So I wanted to give him a shout out. So yeah, for Rory. He'll be here soon. I think tomorrow.

So, good luck. That's great. It's really nice to hear. And Ed being from Sitka, he's been in these places, and it's great to see that being in those places help influence the music. And I can feel that, and it's great that other people can feel that too.

And it's really interesting hearing about what your creative process is, and it makes me wonder, and it segues into a question that I had for Juné.

If you wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, you've worked in a bunch of different things. Books and Emmy Award winner and all of these other amazing things. If you wanted to talk about what, what it was like to get, you know, the script from Vera and create about— talk about what your particular creative process is and maybe talk about just, you know, all the things that you've done, how it's similar, how it's different than some of the— some of your other creative projects, and if there's anything within this particular project that you had to take into special consideration.

So I was making some notes here, and I just wanted to start with these phrases. So their words don't— their voices don't echo out and get lost. Every day we're always going to be speaking Tlingit. We're going to sing songs in Tlingit. And even though some of the houses begin to fall down in the clan houses of our ancestors, our language is echoing back.

And it's such a wonderful thing to be a part of that. And if anybody's nervous about not understanding the Tlingit, I've been telling you for 20 years to learn Tlingit, so don't say I didn't warn you. This is the reason. I was thinking of the Bill Ray Center, which the roof— you know, when that roof collapsed from all the snow this last winter, I thought about that place. 'Cause in 2007, I was sitting in a classroom in there with Kehoknee, Nora Marks Dauenhauer, and Kwaii Nok Richard Dauenhauer, and we're translating Sally Hopkins, which was recorded in the 1970s, and it took a whole room full of us to do that.

And as I was thinking, there were quite a few speakers in the room there and also on the phone and in a room in Sitka, and I think they're all gone now. And so sometimes when I walk around in this town, I think, "I don't have anybody left to talk to." And it makes me very, very sad because I can just think of all these people, all these people who shared their knowledge with me. But I'm so thankful that they taught me how to talk because now I can— I talk to them a lot and I could just recall these things that they told me. It was like there was a reason why it's— "Akeetisak'aya, we hastuk'akeedi." It was like a tree. There was going to be a tree, that seed that they planted.

And so doing translation work is really— it's fun. I love it because I think about— I was sitting with Nora one time and we were working on these stories from her mother's mother's father. His name is Kuchane Frank Atalio. And I played it and I wrote down the Tlingit and I was like, "Well, what's that translate to?" And she looks at me and she goes, "It's your turn." And so I was like, "Oh, okay." So then, you know, but she was making me translate stuff in front of her, which was beads of sweat coming down. And what I realized through all of this process is there's this elder named Kayishi and she calls it interpretation.

Because even you could translate one phrase 5 different ways sometimes. And it's really wonderful to see the writing of Vera, who's maybe my— I don't have favorites, but if I had a favorite writer, it'd be Vera Starbuck. And to look at her words and then to think of what kind of metaphors does this conjure in Tlingit as I think about the people I used to talk to and the ways that they were serious when you needed to be serious and they were humorous when you needed to be humorous. And so The process I go through is I just recall all these conversations I had with all these people that used to be there. I get inspired by all this work that's being done to bring the culture and the language back in so many ways.

There is one language that belongs on the land that we live on, and that is Tlingit. Everything else is a guest in this place. And so as we embrace Tlingit and as we live with it, and we bring it back. I just want to acknowledge all the performers that are there, all the learners of Tlingit who have— they have so much courage to just— they're not just making sounds, they're asking, "What does this mean? I want to know what every single word means." This is what some of the performers have asked of us, you know, and so we've been doing that so that they're not just getting up there and just kind of randomly making noises.

They know what these words mean. And then they're putting their whole heart into this performance. And it's just, it's wonderful to see. Sometimes I think I wish all these elders I worked with could see it. But what they did is they made it by talking with us so much.

Yeah, that makes me think, I mean, it's talking about some of the elders and some of the people that have passed. You know, we truly are standing on the shoulders of giants. And I think about, you know, I remember working within the TCLO program and sitting down with Kingisde David Katzieke, and he's talking about an opera. And he's sitting there and he's, you know, pounding his feet and he's standing up and dancing and he's singing at the top of his lungs. Well, the kids are trying to learn, but it was like he's over there singing and he's passionate and he's like, this belongs because our music and our language and our art is world-class.

And this is a showcase of how our art, our language, our music is world-class.

And I think people are gonna be so surprised in the best way possible when they come and see this opera. And see Indigenous excellence really put in the forefront and you're given a space and you're given this opportunity, which we thank Sealaska Heritage Institute, we thank Perseverance Theatre, we thank everyone who has been in a room talking about this. We thank every elder who has, who has, who has gone and stood up and laid down so we can stand there here as well and tell this particular story. For the people that were there hundreds of years ago who stood up and fought for our people against a then considered world power and stood their ground. And it was something that we're still talking about today.

And a lot of people died.

So we can tell this story. And I think all of those people would be very proud of the story that's being told. And I think we're doing them, doing them all service and doing an honor by telling this story and showcasing all of your work.

So that's what that made me think of. So gunalchéesh for sharing that.

We are coming close on time, but one last question. The icht, he's really good. No, I'm kidding. I heard he's really handsome. I just wanted to say, in case any of you wanted to share anything in particular, you could talk about— you could talk about, you know, you've been involved with this project, some of you, for 10, 12 years.

And you could talk about when you first heard about this project. You could talk about how it's changed over the last decade or so and some of the challenges that you didn't particularly foresee. So it's sort of an open question to any of you to answer in particular for any of those. So, so yeah, I'm not going to talk about that for a second. No, it was just I wanted to share something that Kathadkie did in the '70s.

So we have these dleguk, these songs that were sung for children, for babies. And I have a tape of him talking about adding a drumbeat to these nursery rhymes, essentially, these children's songs. And he said, "I want my children and my children's children to be singing these songs to learn the language." And so he added a drumbeat to these songs that were supposed to be sung softly.

And now we're all singing these leguk with a drum and singing them very loud. And I look at this clan house. It's beautiful. It's in the style of an old clan house. Might not be as big.

It's got some amazing audiovisual things inside of it. But at its core, it is a clan house. I think of the story told in music. While it doesn't have 100% Tlingit melodies, it is— at its core, it is Tlingit. And I want to share that.

Like, I've been looking at all these visual artists do 3D stuff, do all these mixed media things. And in a way, that's what we're doing here with this Tlingit opera, is we are honoring, at its core, Tlingit music and culture and story, but sharing it in a way that is contemporary. I just wanted to say that. Good night. Sheesh.

Yeah, I think about when a while ago you shared a song, and I don't remember who it was, if it was Charlie Joseph, but it was a choir, and there's someone, there's singing Tlingit songs and there's someone calling over the top of it. And I remember when you shared that with me and like how— like we talking about how it makes you feel. And I didn't— I don't think I knew a word of Tlingit except for a couple of cuss words. And, and I felt it, you know, and I think it's— and I was like, Ed, this is it. Like, this is it.

Like that, that makes you feel. And I think about that. And when we're in the rehearsal process and you're like, there it is. And you're like, and at its core, it's, think it, and it feels very authentic and beautiful. Thank you.

That was Paul Jackson's arrangement. He wanted a song for choir. I said, oh, is it okay? He goes, yeah, we got this. And so that was the first time I ever made a choir arrangement was for him.

And he was standing in Sitka High School in front of a crowd of non, mostly non-Native people, singing his Klan song with a choir. And it made him so proud. My dad, my uncle was there. Like, they were tears. So this, hopefully, I don't want to like put pressure on you to cry, but we're always talking about like how— bring your tissues.

It's going to be incredible. So. You will cry. He makes me cry in rehearsal when he's like, ugh, that was awful. And I'm like—.

He makes me cry when I start singing. He's like, what are you doing?

Different kind of tears. I just wanted to really like highlight the inception of this because this was, for me, my introduction into it was 8 and a half years ago. We had to go back and do the dates. 8 And a half years ago, I was attending a premiere opening night at Perseverance Theater, and Dr. Rosita Worrell comes, sits by me in the lobby, And she's like, "You know, we really should have like the battles of Sitka in an opera form." And I was like, "That's an amazing idea. Like, you should do that." She's like, "Wouldn't it be great if someone would write that opera, the battles of Sitka?" And I was like, "Someone should." And she goes, "Don't you think someone should write that?" And I finally was like, I was like, are you saying I should write this in opera?

And she goes, what a good idea.

And I think before the curtain even went up, I was texting Ed like, help, what did I do?

As Ed knows, Ed has composed and done sound for previous stage plays of mine, and truly, like, if there was someone who understands Western and Tlingit music, and can turn music into the story, or vice versa, take the story and turn it into music form. Like, there's nobody else that could have done it, so that was an immediate, like, "Ed, help!" Madeline came on very early, June has been there since the beginning, like, this truly was a work of so many people for so long, and I want to highlight Rosita for her passion in getting this. This genuinely would not have been here. We would not be doing this if she hadn't suggested in the first place, but pushed from the beginning. Perseverance and SHI met from day one working together.

Rosé was very clear on like, we need a theater partner to do this. Yes, but we're gonna find the resources to make this happen, and she did. At first she said like 2 years, and we were like— and then she said 5 years, and we were like, I don't know.

8 And a half years later is still pretty quick for an opera, but I don't think she would have let us do a second longer.

And on that note, reading like the research for this, the people who carried this forward, the people who had to keep this in secret. We were not allowed to do our performing arts for generations. So many of these things were literally illegal for us to do. Our regalia was torn, was burned. So many of our ancestors, and really even my parents' generation, not quite ancestors yet, had to hold these for us.

They had to keep these and really do them on an individual basis for the most part. We've had songs, we've had stories, we've had beautiful art, we've had painting and carving. We've almost lost the weaponry, but we have that now. Putting them together all like this is not a new thing. This is always what we did.

That was stolen from us, and we are taking it back. And there's so much credit to Dr. Zita Worl, to our ancestors who fought for this to get us here. This is a performance. It's so much more than that. What we're doing here will absolutely carry on for years to come.

The work we've done, the collaborations we've made, the literal pieces of art that are being made, the work we want to continue to do. This is— both a performance, but also a statement, and a sort of line in the sand, like, nope, we're still here, we're gonna be here, we're gonna continue pushing our art, and pushing what we can do with it, while we listen to our ancestors, and bring those traditions forward. So, I just wanna be clear that this is something that you will enjoy, that if you come, and you just wanna cry, and listen to the music, great. But I think you'll also feel that history, like there's so much care put into that history and we want to honor our elders and our ancestors for that. So goodness, tsheesh.

Tsheesh. Yeah.

I think I also just want to just add in support of that. I think for those of us coming from other Native nations, to see all of this put together this way is like incredibly inspiring. And I mean, like, we— like, the Tlingit already kind of know they're better. But like, it is a little tricky because a lot of us are going to leave knowing more Tlingit than we know of our own languages, which is its own kind of prompt to like have to level up when we leave. But I do think that the precedent being set here with this piece, in addition to like the ways in which— like, it's all of your powerful work and the way in which it's honoring all of your ancestors and everything they fought for.

I think that precedent being set is also going to open up something really amazing for all Native nations in terms of what might be possible. For other folks to also be able to create. So I think that that's also like a huge, a huge artistic gift because I don't think any even like hoity-toity annoying like stuck-up opera person would come to see this show and not be like, oh, this is better, you know. Like it is, it's like really incredible the work that's being done.

I'll share my trauma trigger with you all. This is my 30th year of living with the Tlingit language. So as a 30-year-old person, it's really interesting to think about this journey. Qaxtlayn Paul Jackson is Nora Marks Dauenhauer's— that was her uncle. And he was a bit of a tough guy to learn Tlingit from.

So one time I sat next to him at this auditorium at UAS, it was probably 2001. And he said something to me in Tlingit, and I said, I was just learning then, I said, "Te kwasaku." And he says, "Do you not know? Or do you not understand?" And I was like, "I am in trouble." And I said, "I don't understand." He's like, "Because I could be asking who's your mother and you're saying I don't know, right?" And he says, "You got to say, 'Te xachta yakuxhuxke,' not 'te kwasaku.'" So I take out my little notebook, because I was writing when— and somebody mentioned his name and he says, "Don't write it down, you have to remember it." But there was a— despite this sort of like high expectations sometimes, then he would stand up in front of a room full of people and say, "My nephew's gonna speak to you in Tlingit." So he would also like push me out there and get me going. So I wanna encourage everybody to keep going, to keep trying, to understand the collective responsibility of every single person who is connected to or resides upon what we call Tlingit Aani. You come here with a responsibility for our language and our culture, and it's not something we should continue to ignore.

I think that creates a void collectively within us and individually within us that can be remedied by speaking and learning Tlingit. And as I watch these, you should come and see this. You're going to see people that you know trying something that you maybe have never seen them try before. And they're doing it with such courage. And they're hanging, you know, I remember going to some of the rehearsals and I sang at some of the earlier workshops.

And there was a Samoan who was an opera singer, a professional. And I had to sing right after him. And I was like, oh, you know, so it was so fascinating. But just to see, like, this world that's possible, that's built. I want to recognize one of our performers who's out here, Alan Hayton, who's been in many things going back to the Nakahiti Theatre days.

Nikaeha. And also, Leslie Ishii, who is making all of this possible and really coaching. She's like a crisis coach. When you're— when you hit a wall, She has this like magic ability to see it and to come find you and to settle you down and to make you believe in your heart that you can do this.

Yakuhí. Gát'kushdiyakhkun táaksas Sakuhí. Ya'khéhákwati. Yukhagát'ikla'át. Chushkeinakh.

So I just want to acknowledge the people of the Xitka K'wan. And I just want to say we're doing this not any old way. We're doing this with care. We're doing this with intention. And I think all the time about what is going to happen to us.

You'll be 50 by then. And then— And then, you know, all the people that we inspired, especially the youth that are gonna come see this show, the Indigenous youth, the Tlingit youth, the Haida youth, the Tsimshian youth, the Mohican youth, all of them that came and saw this show and they're inspired and they're gonna carry on this opera tradition at this grand opera house and are gonna be sitting there going, It'll be like, you're still not hitting that note. Still crying.

But, but yeah, I, you know, I think about this is not something that we had when I was little. Like, we didn't have this. And so it's like coming up and, you know, my grandma was a trained opera singer. That's what she did professionally when she was growing up. And so it's like it would have been magical.

So I'm doing it for the indigenous side, but I'm also doing it for my Italian side as well. So it's like, you know, it's doing it for everyone. We are a little over time, but we do have some time for questions if there's any online or anyone from the audience. Yeah. Here, young man, come help carry this microphone.

Young man, you.

Thanks for your presentation today. My name is Jerick Hope Lang, and at my core, I'm Kiksádi. And so, although I will say as a child, I was often misidentified as Ed Littlefield as a child.

And so happy to say that. I don't speak for my clan when I'm here. I want to make that clear that I'm here as just an individual.

In this process, and I see a mixed crowd in this room as well, the choice to narrate a story that is clan-owned doesn't necessarily sit well with all people. And I'm— I want to be clear that I'm here in support of what you're all doing. In the future, if this opera does continue, how do you see Klan-owned stories and the consultation and care that will need to go with those? And what was the choice to move with the Klan-owned story regardless if it's in the second character or not? And for the Kiksádi who aren't here, children of the Kiksádi and grandchild of the Kiksádi who may be online and listening, what words can we share with them to let them know that this is— we recognize that we're still here and these things are personal to us?

Okay.

Adé aya yur shkadetnikya, ya klingit k'inakh, wan kanin sayah hwo'akh, itli ha'ayr seti, et shagut hwo'oo hato'asaguyur ewotani, akah hwo'akh, sha daa, kas gi, kashkawu, kingiisti, ya qas tin, atl'in shkadetnikya, wai hasaka'uklnigen.

So I just want to tell everyone to be brave, to have courage. Sometimes, like, when things start to change, even when you take the language back, it's not always a simple process. You're going to take a Band-Aid off that wound and take a look at it. You're going to have someone who doesn't understand the language and feels foreign to it when it's their own thing and was made for them. I respect all of the clans and all of our histories.

I have heard in recent times— I'll tell a story. There's an inside story here. There's a series of illustrated books that are coming out that are these stories. We're taking these stories that are told in Tlingit. We're making them into 30-sentence stories.

And it's still Initially, we were calling them children's books. And we started reading them. My kids were like, "I don't know what you're saying." And we take it to advanced Tlingit classes, and they would have a hard time. So we just said, "These are illustrated full Tlingit books, and they're just little bite-sized pieces of these stories." But we had one story ready to go. We had this elder.

I was there when she told this story to us. She's the only one I ever heard in my entire life. Tell the whole story in Tlingit. We took her words, we worked with her clan, and other people stepped up and said don't do it, so people pulled the plug on the whole project. And I sat there at night and I thought, who's going to tell me this story when I'm an old man in Tlingit?

How are they going to know if we keep it locked in a box?

They told us we were going to open that box of wisdom. But time and time again, I encounter people who tell us to stop, to say we're doing it wrong. But I can walk— I challenge you, tell me the person who can tell me these stories in Tlingit. How are we going to learn if we're always hiding them, keeping them from being shown and talked about? And I know it's sensitive.

I know it's not easy. But I listened to recordings of Robert Zuboff, Suzie James, Cyril George, Dave Katzik, George Davis, Austin Hammond. They didn't tell only their clan stories. And now I know those stories. The biggest compliment I've ever received probably in my life was this elder I loved so much.

And she sat down with me and she said, "K'anshka naax niik, Tlingit k'aynaax." She said, "Tell me stories in Tlingit." So a Tlingit speaker asking me to tell her stories in Tlingit. And we stayed up for hours just talking. And there's no one like that anymore. I know, I know. There's maybe 6 left who can really speak this language.

And it's not the same if you always tell them in English. There's one way to get it back, and that's to do it, to live it. And I know it's complicated too.

We're not trying to make a million dollars and get famous off of this. We're inspired by the strength of the people of Xitkaa. We're inspired that we're still here. Their efforts, which combined a lot of other people from other places, is why we're still here today, why we're still strong. And for me, I get emotional when people talk about this.

And I know we should have conversations about it. But I will just continue to say there's nobody left who could say it in Tlingit anymore. Maybe 6, 7, 8 people. That's not enough. If we're too guarded with everything, I wrote this other phrase.

I know I wasn't supposed to take notes, but there was something like, "Kushdiyakh wasaye tushgey at hastujideeg gah tuti hadaj han ksatiya." So this was a phrase where sometimes we say, "We cherish you." So there was a big gathering in Sheitka in 1980, I think. This is why we have celebration. You know, every 2 years we have this. Because they had this foresight to get together and talk about what we need to do. That's where that phrase, "We'll open the box of wisdom again." And when you analyze that phrase, he says— he talks for a long time.

You really got to learn this language and learn what they're saying. They're saying we gave up on ourselves already. We just gave up on it. We're tired. We're weary.

Which is why we'll open again this box of wisdom that they all died off from and left in our possession. And then Charlie Joseph responds. So that was Kitchenaak, George Davis. These are words that I live by. And Kaax'atx, Charlie Joseph said, it doesn't matter how much we don't want to share these things.

We will offer them to those who will become our grandchildren. So that's my plea to all of us as Tlingit people. Kaxa ushkayak. Kaxa ushkayak. Wuchin hatugaxlaan.

Aqa kehagaxlitzeen. We're not stingy people. We share. We're kind. And that's the way to strength.

Ye'oy achtindetani chadee yaxteyu. You can write hate mail to me, but it has to be in Tlingit. I'll only read— I'll accept all complaints.

Okay, good night. Yeah, I mean, I think you have just really demonstrated to us, you know, the basis of our survival, the fact that we continue to hold on to those things that are dear to us. And I do want to say that Sealaska Heritage Institute really believes in traditional ownership of clan-owned property. We have been willing to go to the courts. We have filed suits against the largest corporations in the United States, England, and Europe, and Italy to protect our intellectual property.

That we hold dear is clan ownership of our land. We say we don't care who owns Western title, to our lands. We still own these lands. We own our stories. We own our songs.

And that's something that, you know, we have a Council of Traditional Scholars, and they provide us the advice of how do we protect our cultural norms in a new institutional way. And sometimes we do have to make changes. And sometimes it's really difficult. And the chair, I remember the chair said, "Rosita, how much change do we accept before we're not Tlingit?" And I said, "That's your job, you know, to be telling us." I do want to tell you that when we first started to sing songs in Celebration and when we formed dance groups, We had, and we were gonna celebrate in 1968, we were celebrating the judicial land claims of the Tlingit and Haida Indians. We were celebrating that we won that case.

And I said, "Let's celebrate and bring out our songs into the open." And so we said, "Let's form a dance group." And I kept saying that, saying it over and over again, and finally Jenny Marx came to me and says, "I'll help you." So we formed the Marks Trail Dancers, and we performed, we were practicing over at the Marks Trail, and a group of elders led by Cecilia Coons came over and said, "We heard that you guys are going to be singing clan songs." And she said, they said, "Songs are owned by the clans." So we promised them, we promised them that we would continue to acknowledge clan ownership of songs. So whenever you hear our dance groups, you know, we have these things written in our program guide. We say it over and over again. Our moderators say it over and over again. You must acknowledge the ownership of clan songs.

So you do hear our dance groups saying that. In the same way, you know, when we decided first to publish the Tlingit-Russian Wars, edited by and published, written by Dick and Nora Downhauer and that Russian lady, Lydia Black, we had the same issue arise. Do these stories belong to the Kiksutí? And we had a discussion and we said, that it was the first time that all of our clans united and all of our clans, you know, went to war. They didn't do it frivolously.

They actually had a council, you know, to discuss this war. They did the same thing when Russia sold Alaska to the United States. Our people met in council and they said, "Should we wage war against the United States?" That's how strongly our clans felt about the ownership of our land. And they held council and one clan leader would say, "We need to fight now, this is our land." Another clan leader said, "Yes, but we've been buying our ammunition, our weaponry from the Americans." "Will the Americans sell us their weaponry so that we could fight them?" Another Klan leader said, "Our villages are on the coast. They could be easily bombarded by the military." And we learned that.

We learned that. 3 Of our villages were bombed indeed in the late 1800s. So we have gone through all of this. And when we were publishing the— when we were deciding if we were going to publish that monumental work by the Dauenhauers and Lydia, we had these same discussions. And while we acknowledged that indeed Sitka was the homeland of the Kiksádi and also the Kogwantán, we said that we know that the Kiksádi have had a difficult time because the Russians are living there right in their homeland.

We heard that from the Kiksádi. They went through that struggle. They lived with it. They had the Russians right there. But in the discussions that we had, we came to the conclusion that since all of our clans and the Haidas united to battle the the Russians in 1802, we believed that this story was owned by all of the clans and the Haidas.

So we moved forward in that way. We mean no disrespect to the Kiksádi because we know their very valiant kaxian. Kaxian was very significant in winning that war with the Russians. So I want to say this to our people. I want to say to the Kiksádi that we admire you.

We mean no disrespect to the Kiksádi, but we also want to acknowledge and celebrate that our 50 independent autonomous clans were able to unite And yesterday I want to tell you that again the Native leaders met in one of our conference rooms and again talked about the importance of our unification today in this contemporary period. So that's something that's not gonna go away. Like, like June said, we'll hear it in different ways. But the basis of it is our culture. And as Sealaska Heritage Institute, that is our job, to protect our culture and to also move forward and adapt to changes while still protecting our core cultural values.

Thank you.

I was going to say some of that, much less is good.

We are over time. Do we have time for one more question online? Is there any online question? No?

Well, you know, we'll be around. You can send an email and click it.

But I wanted to ask our panelists if they could stand up and we give them one more round of applause.

And make sure starting September 11th at Thunder Mountain Middle School you come see Kututh Lagaaw, the Tlingit-Russian battles. Is that— was that the subtitle? Yeah. Good. And you can get the tickets online, ptalaska.org, and follow Sealaska Heritage Institute and Perseverance Theater on social media.

And you can keep up with some of the things leading up to it to build up excitement. So, gunalchéesh for everyone that came, gunalchéesh for the questions, gunalchéesh for talking. I appreciate you all. See you then.