Friday Bulletin: Issues

Kingeisti, David G. Katzeek — clan leader of the Shangukeidí, founding president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, traditional scholar, orator, and former member of the Sealaska board of directors — unexpectedly Walked into the Forest in Juneau on October 28, 2020. He was 77.

Kingeisti was a dear friend to many people in the Native and non-Native communities. He was loved for his wisdom, generosity, kindness, and sense of humor. Kingeisti was a fisherman, a wild game hunter, a fan of sports, as well as a football and little league coach to his sons. He went to their games and cheered them on. He was a man of God who worked with Native ministries. He loved downhill skiing in his younger years and bicycling. He loved his electronics and always had the most up-to-date computers, cell phones, cameras. He loved to study and read. Not only did he know Tlingit, he had an admiration for the Hebrew language and Jewish culture.

Kingeisti was born on Nov. 12, 1942, his place of birth was at 18 mile in a cabin on the Chilkat River’s banks because he was ready to join the family of his People living in Klukwan, Alaska.

He is a Tlingit, Eagle-Thunderbird, from the Shangukeidí clan, Kawdliyaayi Hít (House Lowered From the Sun), and the Shis’g̱i Hít (Tree Bark House) in Chilkat Ḵwáan Klukwan, after his mother, the late Anna Klanott Katzeek. He was a child of the G̱aanax̱teidí after his father, George J. Katzeek, who was a Raven of the Raven-Otter-Whale-Frog House in Klukwan, Alaska.

Alaska and the Circumpolar North have been shaped for centuries by Indigenous women’s creativity, labor and love. With colonization and the arrival of Western cultures, the North became seen as a masculine testing ground, a place to be explored, exploited and developed. Artists, mothers, scientists and makers included in this exhibition confront and dismantle this myth, testifying to the vital role that both Indigenous and newcomer women have held, and continue to hold, in Northern communities. From ceremony to social critique, the artworks, historical objects and archival images on display capture and communicate their maker’s experiences of landscape and place, gender roles and social norms, work and childrearing. In a North being shaped at unprecedented rates by the forces of climate change and globalization, women’s voices and visions provide rich ground for imagining a future guided by principles of gender equity, sustainability and strength.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC) has been named one of “America’s Cultural Treasures,” a national initiative from the Ford Foundation that provides grants to support BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) arts and cultural organizations severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic

This collective effort brings together 16 major donors and foundations to award $1 – $6 million grants to 20 different organizations across the country, including ANHC. The designation of grant recipients as “America’s Cultural Treasures” recognizes their unique and vital work, despite historically limited resources and funding streams. In its application to the Ford Foundation, ANHC outlined several interwoven yet distinct healing-based initiatives it plans to create, expand upon and implement in the coming years, creating an intentional space of healing where the Indigenous community can connect with themselves and their culture.

Over the next four years, ANHC will receive $3 million in general operating support to enhance and support its healing, cultural, and educational programming work, and an additional $100,000 in technical services. A grant of this size and type is an unprecedented, historic investment throughout the Alaska Native community.