The Tlingit
by Kalyn

Summer Morning
     It was a nice summer morning.  Everyone was getting food for their family.  My mom was pregnant with me.  My mom's name is Spring Night.  My mom was scared, but not for long.  My mom was picking some berries; when my mom got back to the cedar house she was in pain!  I got my name from when I was born on the summer morning.  The sun was beating hot in the summer.  The people were happy for the weather to be super hot.  It was night time, it was my first time through the night.  The next morning the sun rays came down and gave me strength because I was cold.  My name became Summer Morning.  My mom named me Summer Morning because I was born on a fantastic summer morning.
Life in the Cold Subarctic
     The golden eagles and the hawks were soaring in the summer sky.  The falcons were fiddling with one another in the pine forests.  The pine forest is near Mount McKinley, the tallest point.  The caribou and reindeer were running with the wind down by the Yukon River.  The black tailed deer were eating the grass.  The black bear were eating berries.  The polar bears were jumping into the Arctic Ocean.  In the winter, water is bitterly cold!  In the summer and spring the sun stays daylight for 24 hours and the sun stays up for as long as 84 days.  The Aleutian Islands have volcanic eruptions.  They are very cold.  The Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean connect together by the Aleutian Islands and it is amazing.  The cotton wood is a kind of tree that grows on the Aleutian Islnd.  Spruce and larch grow on the Aleutian Island too.  During the evening, it is very cold.  This is what life would be like if you lived in the Subarctic.
 
If You Lived in a Cedar House
     The cedar house looks like a regular house.  The cedar house is made from spruce and cedar trees.  The structures were held up by wooden poles.  Outside the house is painted with colorful pictures of animals and birds.  Sometimes there were animals on the wooden posts to support the houses.  There were carved posts in the center of the houses to support them.  Several famlies live together in the same house.  The houses were in rows.  Outside the houses were salmon streams.  Totem poles were there to honor their dead, and the totem poles are twenty feet high.  Would you like to live in a cedar house?
Tlingit Clothing
     Did you know that the Tlingit oiled their clothes to make them waterproof?  The women wore skirts made out of cedar bark and wore hats.   The men wore leggings, moccasins, and hats made out of seal and deer skins.  The children wore clothes made out of goat hair, animals' fur, and bird feathers.  The Tlingit got their clothes from mountain goats, bear, and deer.  Everybody wore robes, blankets, masks and headdresses.  Would you want clothing from a store or from the wild?

 
Adventure for Food
     One day a boy and a girl were running in the winter snow from their camp.  They met a man and a woman, and they became a family.  The family went in a canoe for one day to look for many fish, bear, and caribou.  The canoe brought the family to land.  The family got out of the canoe in peace.  The family found an arrow and a spear, deer, caribou, and bear tracks.  They shot the deer and caibou and speared many fish.  The family ate some fish over a fire, and the meat was tasty.  The family went back into the canoe for one more day.  When they got back, they heard music and saw dancing.  They ate the rest of the meat.  The family saw the Great Spirit.  The family said, "Thank you."  The Tlingit did not plant anything.  The Tlingit gathered berries.  The Tlingit ate meat over a smoking fire to give it a special flavor.  The Tlingit also hunt sea mammals, sea lions, sea otters, and salmon.  All of their seafood they either eat fresh or dried.  Would you like to be in the Tlingit tribe and eat what they eat?
Sources

Book: Osinski, Alice.  The Tlingit.  1990.

Online database: "Alaska." Britannica Elementary Encyclopedia. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition.  12/1/2006.

Web sites: "Tlingit."  http://www.scsc.k12.ar.us/2002Outwest/NaturalHistory/Projects/LachowskyR/Tlingit.htm.  12/20/2006.

Native Americans by Mrs. Hardt's Third Grade Class

Native American Index ~ Mrs. Hardt ~ CCS ~ MSAD 50