Cama'i America: Alaska Natives, Narrative, and the Spaces of Empire

• Main Author: Swensen, Thomas Michael
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: eScholarship, University of California 2011
• Subjects: Ethnic studies; History; Literature; Alaska Natives; Art; Imperialism; Russia; United States; Visual Culture; Bering Strait; Luke; aleut; alutiiq; Athabascan; Bering Strait Yupik; tlingit; Yupik; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/5zk010k2; http://n2t.net/ark:/13030/m5gj2nfp

The word "cama'i" in the title, pronounced cha-my, is the Alutiiq word for "hello." Given that in the nineteenth-century Alutiiqs, working in California, passed the word on to Kashaya speaking Pomo whom still presently use the greeting in their language today, I use the term...