{"id":30540,"date":"2015-11-30T09:01:03","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T17:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/digital-atlas-boosts-alaska-native-place-names\/"},"modified":"2015-11-30T09:01:03","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T17:01:03","slug":"digital-atlas-boosts-alaska-native-place-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/digital-atlas-boosts-alaska-native-place-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital atlas boosts Alaska Native place names"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE \u2014<\/strong> During a recent walk along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, Dena\u2019ina historian Aaron Leggett pointed to an area that was devastated during the massive Good Friday earthquake in 1964. Trees and houses on a mile-wide stretch of earth had come tumbling down.<\/p>\n

Had Anchorage consulted Dena\u2019ina geography, he said, the bluffs facing Cook Inlet may not have seemed like such a good location for a neighborhood. The Dena\u2019ina name for that area is Nen Ghilgedi, which he translates literally as \u201crotten land.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past decade, Leggett has emerged as one of the leading voices for the recognition and restoration of indigenous names. Place names \u201cremind people that not long ago, Anchorage was a Dena\u2019ina fish camp and that the Dena\u2019ina people are still here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When he was growing up in Anchorage, his family members did not speak explicitly about their Dena\u2019ina identity. The community was busy adjusting to \u201cso much change in just a few generations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you came here 10-12 years ago, you\u2019d be pressed to find any mention of us,\u201d he said. The most prominent example of the recent shift is the name of the city\u2019s premier convention space, the Dena\u2019ina Center, which opened in 2008.<\/p>\n

As an adult, Leggett began asking questions about his cultural heritage, finding geographic knowledge particularly empowering. \u201cPlace names give me a more nuanced understanding of where I come from,\u201d he said, crediting the book \u201cShem Pete\u2019s Alaska,\u201d which documents the geography of the Tikahtnu area, or Cook Inlet, as the best source on the topic.<\/p>\n

This year has brought some major accomplishments for advocates of restoring indigenous names. The Koyukon Athabascan name Denali officially replaced Mount McKinley as the name for Alaska\u2019s (and North America\u2019s) highest peak. The name of Wade Hampton, a slave owner and Confederate general, was dropped from a Western Alaska census area in favor of Kusilvak, a Yup\u2019ik name for a local mountain range. And most recently, Teedriinjik and Ch\u2019idriinjik became the official names for parts of an Arctic river system formerly designated Chandalar.<\/p>\n

The trend seems likely to be bolstered by the October introduction of what is set to become the state\u2019s first comprehensive atlas of Native place names.<\/p>\n

Researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the National Snow and Ice Data Center have teamed up to consolidate a dozen geographic databases into a single interactive map.<\/p>\n

Since environmental knowledge is embedded in Native place names, the atlas could become a tool for researching Alaska\u2019s \u201cbiocultural diversity,\u201d according to the National Science Foundation\u2019s grant.<\/p>\n

Gary Holton, a UAF linguist leading the Alaska Native Place Names Project, said he is seeing \u201cincreased appreciation\u201d from scientists for Native sources of knowledge in the study of climate change.<\/p>\n

The atlas will help researchers cross-reference current snow and ice data with past landscape knowledge that can be gleaned from Native place names.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intersection between physical and social sciences is increasingly where some of the interesting work is being done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Holton presented a prototype of the atlas to elders at the annual Tlingit conference in Juneau.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis atlas will make a huge amount of place name data available to people but also, crucially, it will allow people to log in, add, correct, and suggest information in a social media way,\u201d he said in an interview before the presentation. \u201cThey can interact with it. It\u2019s not just a static website or resource. It allows people to add their knowledge too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holton said stories from elders about a name\u2019s meaning or origin would add particular depth to place names.<\/p>\n

Currently, the atlas consists of about 10,000 entries, each place name accompanied by information such as feature type (mountain, river, village, etc.), alternate names and general comments. In the future, media files such as audio clips with proper pronunciation could be added, too. By incorporating other databases, the atlas could swell to include more than 70,000 names eventually.<\/p>\n

The project builds on existing technology developed by geographic data systems expert Peter Pulsifer and the Exchange for Local Observations of and Knowledge of the Arctic. A Yup\u2019ik-specific atlas built with the ELOKA technology serves as a model of what the statewide map could turn out to be.<\/p>\n

There are two years\u2019 worth of funding remaining on the grant, but Pulsifer said the pace and direction of the project \u2014 and when it becomes available to the public \u2014 will mostly be determined by the communities that choose to participate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have moved away from this model where someone from outside the communities would dictate what happens with their knowledge and heritage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The theme of this year\u2019s Tlingit Clan Conference was \u201cOur Names, Our Strength,\u201d another indication of coalescing interest in geographic knowledge.<\/p>\n

Southeast Alaska is dotted with names of \u201clong-dead German princesses or Important White Guys,\u201d wrote Gerry Hope, an organizer of the Tlingit conference, in a letter welcoming attendees. He called for a revival of Tlingit names, which are \u201cusually descriptive and rich with meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith each person who receives the name of an ancestor and with each indigenous place name that becomes a geographical reference, we breathe life into our indigenous languages,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Holton said he has encountered particular interest in name preservation among Tlingit people, citing the culture\u2019s unique land ownership system organized around clans. \u201cIt\u2019s an area where people place particularly close attention to place names,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cartographers have long collected indigenous place names in lists and databases and constructed accompanying maps. But those efforts have been regional and piecemeal \u2014 perhaps a National Park Service study conducted in one corner of the state, and a decade later, a regional corporation\u2019s project.<\/p>\n

The impetus for a statewide repository of names can be traced to a 1974 map called \u201cNative Peoples and Languages of Alaska.\u201d In one sense, that map was a triumph. It demarcated the historical regions of more than 20 different language groups in the state. But it also revealed a serious lack of knowledge. For many of the landmarks and other places, the mapmakers were forced to use non-Native names.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople wanted to see indigenous place names on the map.\u201d Holton said. \u201cSomewhat naively, I responded, \u2018Sure, we can do this. It should be easy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After two years of work, Holton and his fellow researcher were able to publish a new map with about 270 place names, a far cry from the tens of thousands estimated to exist in various archives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turned out to be a massive challenge,\u201d he said. \u201cWe discovered that, really, there is no master list . only regional and limited lists.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, the National Science Foundation has funded efforts by linguists and geographers to build a central database for Native place names in Alaska. The work has included collecting and combining written records that date back to Russian times, unearthing new sources and interviewing elders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe collect everything that anyone has ever recorded,\u201d Holton said. \u201cWe do a lot of sleuthing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nature of the work is such that the finish line can only be approached, never reached. It would be impossible for anyone to determine that all possible place names have been recovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot any one person can recite all the names in a region,\u201d Holton said. \u201cWe all know a little bit of it, so you really need a group of speakers to collaborate to build that knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANCHORAGE \u2014 During a recent walk along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, Dena\u2019ina historian Aaron Leggett pointed to an area that was devastated during the massive Good Friday earthquake in 1964. Trees and houses on a mile-wide stretch of earth had come tumbling down. Had Anchorage consulted Dena\u2019ina geography, he said, the bluffs facing Cook […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-30540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30540","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\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30540"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}