A listener asked KTOO what the local mountains’ original Lingít names are. For this installment of Curious Juneau, Yvonne Krumrey spoke with Lingít educators to find out.
Anywhere you go in Juneau, there are mountains shooting up all around. Mt. Juneau and Mt. Roberts loom over downtown. Across the channel, Mt. Bradley – better known as Mt. Jumbo – notoriously blocks South Douglas from getting much sun. And in the valley, there’s Thunder Mountain — supposedly named for avalanches rumbling down its slopes.
“We have these names that have been in existence for places for what — 150 years tops,” Rankin said. “And then there are the names for places, that these names have been around for thousands of years.” “Starting a little towards Thane there’s a place called Wooshkeenax̱ Deiyí,” he said. “And Wooshkeenax̱ Deiyí is ‘trails going up together.’”“Coming over this way, you have Yadaa.at Kalé,” Twitchell said. “If you’re standing kind of right outside these studios and looking up towards the mountains that are kind of to the left of downtown, that’s Yadaa.at Kalé.”
“As we sort of use these names more, we shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes,” he said. “And so some people are gonna say Sah-YEEK, as opposed to Sayéik. And that’s not a big deal.”‘You should always be working to learn to be an Indigenous person of the world.’ “Having traditional stories, to read and listen to, and then having the language community was a big part for me of understanding and feeling like I belong there — even though I’m not of Lingit heritage, but I belonged there as a student,” she said.
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