Description: Thornton examines the concept of place in the language, social structure, and ritual of southeast Alaska's Tlingit Indians. As he explains, place signifies not only a specific geographical location, but also reveals the ways in which individuals and social groups define themsleves. Thomas F. Thornton is associate? professor of anthropology at Portland State University in Oregon. He is editor of Haa Aan, Tlingit and Haida Land Rights and Use and coeditor of Will the Time Ever Come: A Tlingit Source Book.
Brief description: Thomas F. Thornton is dean of arts and sciences and vice provost for research and sponsored programs at the University of Alaska Southeast. He is the author of Being and Place among the Tlingit (University of Washington Press, 2015) and other books on Alaska Native culture and environmental anthropology.
Review Quotes:
"This thoroughly researched, well-organized, and well-written book is a pioneering study of the ethnography of the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast. Its methods and many of its conclusions could fruitfully be used in studying the toponymy of the Aboriginal nations of coastal British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. It would work well as a text in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in anthropology and First Nations studies. It will also be an invaluable resource for the Tlingit people themselves."
-- "BC Studies"