Kahaakw

=Profile:= ===I am Tlingit. My name is Kahaakw. I am 18 years old, a fisherman whose favorite food is Salmon because it's tasted good good when I grill. The skill, or strength, I have that makes me proudest is using spear to catch animals. I think the other in my clan admire me most for my braveness because I can kill the big animals. A fear I have is that I will die from flood and this goes along with the weakness I have which is unable to swim. Something else I want you to know about me is when I get a lots of fish, I will share to others.===

=Typical Day:= fisherman

I woke up and I went to brush my teeth with a stick. Then I went to the river to use a bowl and pour water on my body. I see the sky is bright. I feel fresh in the morning because there it is not hot today. I smell some dead salmon. There are tall trees with many leaves. I went home to say to Dzanti and Toos to take their things like spear, net and hook because we are going to fish in the river. I use spear because I am good at throwing things. Dzanti is good at using the net and Toos is good at hooking the fish. We three of us, go to the river and stand on the land. We were fishing. All of us got six. One person got two fish. This was my favorite part because I was the one who got the salmon first. Then we put them in a basket and went back to the house. The wife cooked the salmon by the fire in the middle of the house. We ate the fish off the stick. It tasted like it was so good. Then we take the salmon off the stick we put in on the leaf and go to the river and put it fish bones into the river before we put the leaf so it will grow again. We walked back to the house. I told Ais and Koox the weather is cold and they told me that they would go to the woods to kill some bear for clothes. Yesterday, Dzanti Toos and I were sitting on the canoe and we were fishing at the river and suddenly the canoe rolled a little bit because I threw the spear and it hit the boat. We had to come back fast because if we didn’t we might have sunk. Now I have to fix the canoe so I told Axaa to fix the canoe for me. Axaa said ok because he doesn’t have things to do. Axaa said to fix canoe was one day. At nighttime I do the fire because the weather is cold and the women ho was doing my dear sin so that why I have to do the fire.

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=The Potlatch=

When we had a potlatch, Daanaa invited people from other tribes to come.The guests came by war canoes. They wore their best outfits to the potlatch. We ate food like salmon, fish stew and seal meat. Guests who came could bring their food to the potlatch party. We played a lot of games. When the potlatch party is done, the Chief gave coppers, canoes, blanket, box, furs and even slaves. The greatest gifts went to the highest ranking. Potlatch was held to celebrate birthday, marriage and when they up totem pole. The people who wanted to do potlatch party, they had to prepare everything. They spent a long time to collect food and gifts to give away. The chief might be poor after the potlatch is over. I was happy because there were so many people and they had a lot of fun games to play. I was very tired from playing games. Everyone had a lot of fun. We were kind to each other. The worst part of the day is when we were playing games because we had to wait for our turn to play. The best part of the day was to food. There were plenty of food so I didn't have wait in line to get food. I just picked what I want to eat. I ate grilled salmon and meat. We danced after we finished playing games and eating food. We danced in groups and with a partner. I was so tired at the end of the day. I got a box to put in things and I also got a piece of cloth made from bear skin. I will wear it in winter when the weather is very cold.