Dauenhauer Tlingit Oral Literature Collection: UAS Finding Aid

Egan Library owns three sets of the Tlingit Oral Literature sound recordings, collected by Nora and Richard Dauenhauer.  One set consists of CDs in the Library Archives; one set is on an external hard drive in the Library Archives; one set is available in the Cyril George Center for Alaska Native Knowledge. In addition, a complete set of the recordings is available to UAS students in the UAS Language Lab (contact Assistant Professor of Alaska Native Languages Lance Twitchell). This finding aid contains an inventory of the recordings held by UAS; it is based on the finding aid created by Sealaska Heritage Institute Archives for their related collection. UAS gratefully acknowledges the work of the Sealaska Heritage Institute Archives staff for preparing most of this document.

This collection contains approximately 500 audio recordings on CD, which were collected or created by scholars Nora Marks Dauenhauer and Richard Dauenhauer. These recordings date from 1899 to 1999, contain speaking in English and Tlingit (the bulk in Tlingit), and document a vast array of subjects and topics concerning Tlingit history, culture, subsistence, land issues, language  and other aspects of importance relative to the Tlingit. The recordings capture the words of Tlingit elders, orators, activists, cultural specialists, and others, as well as the audio from various conferences, Tlingit gatherings and events, and other cultural programs. These recordings are very rich with content and contain important information about the Tlingit people.

The CDs that comprise this collection were obtained from the Dauenhauers, after University of Alaska Southeast staff migrated these recordings to CD format per grant funding. The Dauenhauers retained the original format recordings (reels, cassettes, etc.). The CDs contained a numbering system kept by the Dauenhauers, found on these CDs upon donation to SHI and UAS, and SHI archival and UAS library staff retained this numbering system in this finding aid and inventory. Descriptive information about the content of the recordings, which are labeled on individual CDs, has also been retained. When requesting a recording from this collection, please include the Item number and the Tape number to assist staff in locating the recording.

For more information about the Egan Library collection, see our catalog record.