Transcript: Reverend Dr. Michael James Oleksa, Ph.D.
[Oleksa:]
The whole sense is as I grow up and can develop my skills, my hunting and fishing skills they are placed at the service of others, and I hunt and fish not to feed myself, but to provide for others, so that becomes the one who gives away the most is the most respected person in the community. And that’s true even across all these cultural boundaries. That’s true of the Tlingits in their own way, as well as it is for the Yup’iks or the Athabascan or the Aleuts— the one who provides for others is the most respected person. And the boys are encouraged to do that. They’ll have a feast. He’ll get his first muskrat or his first beaver or whatever. He’ll give all that way, and then the mother will invite the rest of the community to the house for a party. People will bring that little boy gifts, and celebrate his accomplishment, but the food he caught, he eats none of it. It’s given away.