One of Alaska’s most famous bands, Portugal. The Man, joined Native American Music Awards winner Samantha Crain and Lingít artist Ya Tseen for two sold out shows in Juneau and Sitka last weekend. They were raising money and community awareness for an effort to rebuild a Kiks.ádi clan house in Sitka.
The event was called Hít Wóoshdei Yadukícht, which means “Dancing Our House Together.” Each ticket was a donation toward the goal of rebuilding a Sitka clan house, called the Point House.
After the music faded, the lights dimmed and the hall cleared out, Kiks.ádi clan member and organizer Lduteen Jerrick Hope-Lang said the event was a success.
“By broadening the audience with music as the vessel, you are able to bring a large, mixed group of people into a room and say, ‘This is worth fighting for, and you can be an ally,’” he said.
Lgeik’i Heather Powell Mills is a member of the X̱aay Hít clan house in Hoonah. She helped organize the fundraiser, and for her, it’s personal. She grew up with a clan house — a community home that unites all generations of a clan, and holds their stories — and she wants others in her community to have that resource.
“The benefit of that is the strength of identity, the strength of community, the strength of family,” she said. “And being able to have a place that you can walk into and feel like it’s a safe place to be who you are.”
Powell Mills said clan houses hold clan history, and allow members like her – and ones yet to come – to understand their identity and know that they belong.
“They carry the names of our ancestors within their walls. They hold our most precious objects: our at.oo,” she said. “The stories and the names and the spirit that’s put into these places is such a powerful, immensely knowledgeable way of being.”
Point House originally sat along the water in downtown Sitka. Hope-Lang said Sitka had 43 clan houses at one point, and few remain standing and in tribal hands. Colonialism and the attempted eradication of Lingít communities left generations of children with only bread crumbs, he said — pieces of language, arts traditions and family history.
“Those bread crumbs were the pieces that we had to pick up and put back together for ourselves, nourish ourselves with,” he said.
Now, he said he’s seeing those crumbs turn into full loaves through language and cultural revitalization efforts across Southeast Alaska, but he wants to go further. He wants future generations to have the tools to make their own nourishment, and rebuilding the Point House offers that chance.
“My ultimate goal for this whole project is that we don’t just give them bread, that we give them the whole kitchen. That we give them all the opportunity to be who they are, not bits and pieces,” Hope-Lang said. “You don’t have to go here to get language. You don’t have to go here to get art. You don’t have to go here to get your stories. That they become centralized.”
Hope-Lang said they don’t know the final amount last weekend’s shows raised yet, but he’s still working to raise everything they need to start construction. Point House is just the beginning, he said.
The show also benefited a fundraiser for researching rare disease, made on behalf of the daughter of two Portugal. The Man members, Frances. Hope-Lang says this was an act of reciprocity, as a “thank you” to the band for donating their time.
Learn more about the Point House project at pointhouse.org.
