"Born Jilkateet, Marion Dennis, in 1951 to Silas R. Dennis Sr. (Gooshdaiheen) and Dorothy Dennis (Tuwaxsee) in Skagway, I was named after my grandmother, "Mary" Marion Daanawaak Dennis. (Our family name of "Deigoosh" was changed by the white man to "Dennis.") My origins are Chilkoot.

At one time, my great-uncle Nahku owned Long Bay or Nahku Bay, that borders the mountains into Dyea. About 1900, my grandparents Sam and Sarah Dennis, originally from Haines, owned 160 acres in Dyea as their Native allotment land.

Tlingit include two tribes, Eagle and Raven, and disallow marriages within the same tribe. My father was Eagle tribe, Killer Whale clan. Because tribe and clan are passed through the matrilineal, we, his children, were Raven tribe, Sockeye clan.

The Tlingits, historically a ferocious people, believed in an eye for an eye, which served as a deterrent to trespass. Stories were used as a way to guide the people. If someone in the community were a child molester, parents warned their children that the person was a witch. The sea otter, the Kooshdaa Ka, was a kind of bogeyman. My people had a class system including slaves, many of whom were Haida."

Get the Story:
Alaskana: History from a Tlingit perspective (The Anchorage Daily News 7/2)
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Related Stories:
Interview with Joe Hotch, Tlingit elder in Alaska (6/19)
Interview with Paul Wilson, Tlingit elder (05/29)