Photos: Totem Pole Raising<\/a>]<\/p>\nHerb Sheakley, the Lead Apprentice Carver on the project, noted how different the finished product looked when it was standing upright as opposed to laying horizontally. This was Sheakley\u2019s first totem pole, and it served as both an artistic and historical education for him. Sheakley, a Chookaneidi Tlingit, quickly learned of the destruction of the burial ground and the grief it caused.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew there was a gravesite here, but where, I was unsure of,\u201d Sheakley said. \u201cIt was something that, over time, everybody not talking about it kind of just made everybody forget about it. So now it\u2019s something that people won\u2019t forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Raven pole is the first part of a project that honors both the destruction of the graveyard and the burning of the Douglas Indian Village in 1962. The second pole will be an Eagle Pole located at Savikko Park to commemorate the burning of the village. Many of the same carvers will work on the second pole as well.<\/p>\n
Master Carver Nathan Jackson designed the Raven pole, which began being carved in May 2016. Beasley, as Sheakley put it, made Jackson\u2019s design \u201ccome to life.\u201d Fred Fulmer was the Mentor Carver, and apprentices Elijah Marks, Jeffrey Isturis and Sam Sheakley all worked on it as well.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s event included prayers, ceremonies and numerous speakers. Cadiente-Laiti was the keynote speaker, while Tradition Bearer David Katzeek took center stage for the ceremony itself. As he looked out into the crowd \u2014 with Eagle elders to his left and Raven elders to his right \u2014 Katzeek expressed his excitement for the diverse turnout.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is how community is,\u201d Katzeek said, his voice gaining more intensity and emotion as he went on. \u201cThis is real community. This isn\u2019t just saying, \u2018I\u2019m this and I\u2019m that and I live here and I did this and I went there and I can say this and I know this and I know that.\u2019 This is community. We\u2019re here, we\u2019re healing, and so I\u2019m here to encourage you, to uplift you, to stand with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
That community feel was clear throughout. Young children played both on the lawn of the school and in the school\u2019s gymnasium during the ceremony, and there was a room inside specifically for elders. Snacks and coffee were available, and midway through the ceremony, sandwiches and Goldfish crackers were distributed.<\/p>\n
There was an emphasis on the young people present. Though they didn\u2019t live through the events of the 1950s and 1960s, the effects of efforts to smother Native culture reverberate to the present. As Sheakley said, a great deal of culture has been forgotten. Recently, there\u2019s been a movement to revive Native language and culture, and Saturday\u2019s ceremony was a part of that.<\/p>\n
With a totem standing on the former burial ground and current school, there\u2019s now a physical reminder of the past, which Cadiente-Laiti and others hope is also a sign of change to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt starts with us,\u201d Cadiente-Laiti said, \u201cand our children will feel what we do here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2022 Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com or 523-2271.<\/b><\/p>\n
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\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In one way, Saturday\u2019s totem pole raising ceremony at Gastineau Elementary School felt like the culmination of a decades-long process. At the same time, those on hand were excited for it to mark the beginning of a new era as well. Sixty-one years after the City of Juneau paved over a Native burial ground to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":23393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23392"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}