English	Tlingit	Audio
tléikhw khuk’éet’	picking berries	Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Grade Levels: 3-5

With the coming of spring and the growth of plants, the Tlingit craved fresh food after a steady diet of dried fish and oil, and whole families of women and girls went out in parties to gather the tender shoots of the salmon berry and the stalks of the wild celery, which they brought back in great packs.

Alaska is the land of berries [tléikw]. These form a most necessary and acceptable article of diet, eaten fresh, or cured and pressed into cakes, or preserved now days by canning process.

Berry fields like salmon streams were hereditary property in families [lineages, or clans]. The gathering and preparing of berries was woman’s work. In berrying, she carried a small spruce root basket, [seigatáanaa]

Berries were eaten fresh as gathered, with oil or cooked and most varieties were prepared for winter use. Today some uses are making jams and jellies of the different varieties. A favorite in the salmon fishing communities is salmon egg berry pudding [kaneegwál’].

Also today, a lot of berry preserves are distributed at potlatches. [ku.éex’]

Berry Picking [MS Word]

Berry Picking: Tlingit Language audio files for this unit [MP3]. Nouns and Verbs

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