By Sentinel Staff
Local members of the Kik.sadi Point House clan plan a mourning ceremony at the base of Noow Tlein, also known as Castle Hill, on Alaska Day.
“We hope to accomplish a move towards healing,” Louise Brady, a Point House member, said. “A move towards dialogue.”
Brady said all interested parties are invited to the ceremony “to mourn the cultural trauma caused by Russian and American invasion, colonization, and forced assimilation.” It is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Thursday, at the same time as the re-enactment of the 1867 Alaska transfer ceremony is under way atop the hill.
Brady said the ceremony is an alternative perspective to the Sitka Alaska Day observance as it has been celebrated annually on Oct. 18 since 1949. She said the mourning ceremony proposes a re-envisioning of the event as Reconciliation Day.
Brady said she was given permission by her brother Ralph Brady, one of two Point House leaders, to speak on behalf of the Point House in organizing the ceremony.
Louise Brady said she has heard stories of the Tlingit people in dugout canoes at the bottom of Noow Tlein at the time of the 1867 transfer ceremony. The observance ended with a rifle salute celebrating the purchase of Alaska from the Russians on the hill above, long a site of a clan house.
“I think overall there is just an untold history,” Brady said. “And untold consequences of the history here. Especially with so much information out there about cultural trauma, and trauma informed care... I think it is really important to know how the loss of the land, the taking of the land and resources has affected us to this very day.”
The Mourning Ceremony will take place at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday at the base of Noow Tlein (Castle Hill).
