Language and Cultural Preservation Project

In 2004 the Chenega Corporation Board launched the Language and Cultural Preservation Project to address the concerns that the culture and heritage of Chenega were at great risk. Elders participating in the project identified a list of priorities including: language preservation and documentation; a collection of memories from the 1964 Good Friday earthquake and tsunamis; and documentation of subsistence use patterns in Prince William Sound.

Click on each of the posters above to see a larger view.

In January 2006, The Day That Cries Forever, a book of stories from survivors of the earthquake and tsunamis, was published. It has been a great success and it has been nominated for the Kiriyama Prize, an honor given to books about Pacific Rim nations. With the achievement of The Day That Cries Forever, the Language and Cultural Preservation Project focuses its attention on the Sugcestun language poster series and the subsistence book. An advisory committee of elders has been working with Dr. John Smelcer, the project director and a distinguished linguist, documenting vocabulary words for the endangered Native language. The series has been growing rapidly, with the following posters created: Animals, Numbers, Birds, Sea Creatures, Insects, and Plants. In December of 2006, work began on the seventh poster in the series, Anatomy. The posters have been printed and distributed to Chenega shareholders and descendants. Copies have also been given to the Chugach School District, the region in which the village of Chenega Bay belongs. Dr. Smelcer has also been compiling a dictionary of Sugcestun words. Work has begun on the subsistence book project, a collection of narratives and other materials from shareholders and descendants. One of the most important cultural identifiers, aside from language, is subsistence or how people live in their environment and how in turn the environment influences the people.  Currently stories, myths, memories, recipes, photographs and illustrations are being collected, as the book is slated for a 2007 publication.