Elizabeth Peratrovich Day

Yesterday Alaska celebrated the signing of the anti-discrimination bill in 1945 in Alaska law, and one woman who was instrumental in the passage. Since SEARHC is a native corporation, they switch between celebrating Civil Rights day and Elizabeth Peratrovich day, and this year was teh latter. We went to a parade and community gathering at the ANB Hall, (Alaska Native Brotherhood0, a building that was also a center of gathering to pass the bill. There a totem carved by Sitkan and internationally known Tommy Joseph, and commissioned by the Census. the census rep. said it tells the story of seperate peoples as one. The Eagle and teh Raven (two Tlingit clans) make up the whole of society, and symbolizes the unity with man, being the many hands of the census. The totem was blessed then by St. Michael's Cathedral Russian Orthodox priest. We were rather worried about how our kids would do, and that they were almost the only kids, since the program went for three hours through Grace's nap, but we stayed through a reading of the Senate floor meeting where Elizabeth gave the testimony that made the bill pass, various speeches, and dancing from three groups of Mt. Edgecumbe High school students (those who come from across AK for boarding school). It was an interesting experience, and cool to see so many high school kids involved.
These are the Athabascan dancers. And then the Yup'ik Dancers, wearing kuspucks. A woman talked to us a couple months ago about kuspucks, and she is teaching a class on how to make them at UAS (university of alaska southeast) here soon I heard, so I'm excited to go! We saw a lot of people in Galena wearing them too. From what we learned from her, they are of Yup'ik origin, but many native groups wear them, and anyone is welcome to.