Héen Aawashaayi Shaawat / Marrying the water : the Tlingit, the Tagish, and the making of place

• Main Author: Hayman, Eleanor Ruth
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 2018
• Subjects: Tlingit, Tagish, First Nations, Carcross/Tagish First Nation, Water, Decolonialism, Water Legislation, Oral Narratives, Toponyms, Deep Chart, Yukon Territory; 300; Yukon; Tagish; Carcross; First Nations; tlingit
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5282/edoc.22368; https://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/id/eprint/22368

One meaning of the word Tlingit is “people of the tides”. Immediately this identification with tides introduces a palpable experience of the aquatic as well as a keen sense of place. It is a universal truth that the human animal has co-evolved over millennia with water or the lack of it, developing nuanced, sophisticated and intimate water knowledges. However there is little in the anthropological or geographical record that showcases contemporary Indigenous societies upholding customary laws concerning their relationship with water, and more precisely how this dictates their philosophy of place. It is in the Indigenous record, and in this case the Tlingit and Tagish traditional oral narratives, toponyms (place names), and cultural practices, that principles of an alternative ontological water consciousness can be found to inform and potentially reimagine contemporary international debates concerning water ethics, water law, water governance, and water management.