By: Red Pill | 07-15-2017 | News
Photo credit: Alaska USA | Pinterest

A Look At The Beautiful Indigenous Culture Of Metlakatla, Alaska

Metlakatla is a historically beautiful home of the Annette Islands Reserve, the only such indigenous reserve in Alaska and United States.

Metlakatla, the abbreviated definition meaning "salt water passage" in Shim-all-giack (the language of the Tsimshian), is located on Annette Island, 15 miles southwest of Ketchikan, Alaska. It is near the southern end of the Alexander Archipelago, a chain of hundreds of rugged, glacially carved islands interwoven with deep fjords and protected passages. It is located approximately midway in the Inside Passage between Seattle, Washington, about 600 miles to the south, and Skagway, Alaska, 600 miles to the north.

The Metlakatla peoples voted to opt out of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of the 1970s, which was able to allow them to retained rights to their land and waters.

Membership in the community is primarily based upon their lineage; it consists primarily of Tsimshian people and also includes those from various other Alaskan Native tribes who wish to join the Metlakatla Indian Community and assimilate. The bona fide membership is granted upon approval of the Metlakatla Tribal Council and Executives.

A beautiful people with an extraordinary culture, they seemingly love their land and values. Something so precious as true liberty exists on these lands without government rules and regulations to halt them from experiencing life to the fullest.

They do however coexist with Alaskans and embrace Americans, and run a hard working industry of trade through the United States.

An era of trading high quality products are proudly offered by the community members of Metlakatla, with companies varying throughout their community.

One of those such companies is Annette Island Packing, which offers a wide variety of specialty delicious Alaskan seafoods available for purchase and in extreme demand.

There's also Purple Mountain Pure, which is self described as “water from a cold, crisp Southeast Alaskan mountain lake. The Metlakatla Tsimshian Tribe invites you to enjoy some of the purest water in the world.”

They also export stone products, via Bald Ridge Aggregate, which consists of only the highest quality Alaskan aggregate products from Rip-Rap to crushed construction grade stones.

Their industry is booming in the smaller community, which has a demographic of less than 2,000 total people. They and pride in their work and their culture, and they're embraced by the entire state.

It's their right to remain in control of this land, and they're entitled to live free and properly without the effects of the current decaying American society’s degeneracy taking a toll on their children.

In fact, Annette Island in general has some of the highest scoring test grades in the entire nation. Only serving to prove that if you remove the cultural marxist indoctrination from education such as you see in large cities, children can thrive and excel on their own.

The tribes in the region are all interested in expansion of territory, and there's seemingly some disputes as to how to approach next. Most of the traditional values representatives want to remain inside their loving culture, and that seems to be the consensus amongst them.

It is an ancient community, one that is strong in its heritage and beliefs. Aside from the Tlingits, Haidas, Eskimos, Aleauts, and other Alaska Natives that call Metlakatla home is the diminishing Tsimshian population.

The Tsimshian are uncompensated, forgotten descendants of the hard working pioneers that carved Metlakatla out of the wilderness. Contrary to the belief that those early Tsimshian pioneers were all of one tribe, the facts show that they were representatives from all tribes within the Tsimshian Nation.

Within the mighty nation we find the intricate structure of the tribes, each with its own chief and governing council, and within the tribes we find a closer society, that of the Clans. The Tsimshian have four major Clans with which they identify themselves:

1. The EAGLE or Laxsgyiik

2. The RAVEN or Ganhada

3. The WOLF or Laxgyibuu

4. The KILLER WHALE or Gisbutwada

Long before the Great Flood the Bible speaks of, the Tsimshian Nation was mighty; their legions tell of battles won not by the firing of arrows, but by merely a show of strength in numbers.

However, the coming of the flood scattered the Tsimshian Nation up and down the coast seeking refuge in small islands that were once mountain tops. After the waters subsided, the people moved down to the new shoreline to begin life over again.

Many returned to the main camp seeking family and friends, but history tells of many that stayed because they thought it was the wish of the Great Spirit that carried them to this new area. Those that returned to the Tsimshian stronghold saw that their strength would no longer be in numbers, but would have to be in a closer unity.

Eight tribes, Gitsiis, Giluts¢aaw, Gitwilgyoots, Gitando, Ginax¢angiik, Gispaxlo¢ots, Ginadoiks, and Gitlaan, returned to the Tsimshian stronghold Port Simpson.

The formation of a ninth tribe composed of young warriors from each of the eight tribes was united under the leadership of both Chief Hi-Maash of the Gitsiis Tribe, and Chief Tah-Gaash of the Ginax¢angiik Tribe

It was the duty of this special tribe to protect those tribes weakened by the flood. So efficient and well organized was this special warrior tribe that they soon became the aggressors rather than the defenders of the Tsimshian Nation.

It stands as an example of the various culture and traditions that are relatively unknown in America's beautifully still unexplored terrain of Alaska.

Source:

https://www.bia.gov/WhoWeAre/RegionalOffices/Northwest/WeAre/Metlakatla/index.htm

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