Jennie Thlunaut's Biography by Rosita Worl & charles smythe - Part 2
| I Jennie instructs Clarissa Rizal at the 1985 Chilkat Weaving Workshop at the Raven House in Haines, Alaska 1985 - photo by Larry McNeil (www.larrymcneil.com)
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Circa early 1940s |
IJennie Thlunaut with her "Herring Rock" Chilkat robe
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"Jennie Thlunaut" Master Chilkat Blanket Artist
by Rosita Worl and Charles Smythe
from the Exhibit book “The Artists Behind the
Work” Published by the University
of Alaska Museum, Fairbanks, Alaska 1986
Reprinted here with author's permission
Jennie Thlunaut 1892-1986
Shax’saani Keek’ (Younger Sister
of the Girls) was born during the spring
rrun of the eulachon in 1892. Her birthplace, Laxacht’aak,
was within the Jilkaat Kwaan (Chilkat Territory) of
the northern Tlingit in Southeast Alaska. Her mother,
Kaakwdagaan (Ester) belonged to the Eagle clan Kaagwaantaan
and the Gooch Hit (Wolf House) in Angoon and is a Deisheetaan
Yadi. Her father, Yaandakinyeil (Mathew Johnson) was
a member of the Raven Gaanaxteidi clan and the Xooch’i
Hit Frog House in Klukwan and is a Kaagwaantaan Yadi.
The all too brief years of Shax’saani Keek’s
early childhood were like any other Tlingit child. She
played on the beach, picked berries, gathered wild celery,
and threw rocks into the river. She accompanied her
parents on their cyclical subsistence round. She traveled
with her family in the Tlingit war canoes to visit relatives
in other communities and to attend potlatches. Shax’saani
Keek’ listened to the great stories of Tlingit
history told during he lavish potlatches, stories which
told of clan migrations and feasts which were still
held in her childhood era.
Shax’saani Keek’ also received her first
box of mountain goat yarn from her mother when she was
yet a child. She had no idea that she was destined to
become one of the most renowned weavers in the nation
of naxein, Tlingit ceremonial robes known to the world
as Chilkat blankets. Neither could she have known that
she, Jennie Thlunaut, as she would become known to the
art world, would be one of the last traditional Tlingit
Chilkat blanket weavers.
Jennie’s Childhood
Jennie’s recollections of her early childhood
are happy memories. She has a smile on her face and
a faraway look in her eyes as she says “my mommy”
and “my daddy.” As she talks about the stories
of her early life some eighty years ago, it is as if
they occurred only yesterday. She recounts her early
childhood events with exact detail and with the same
exuberance and happiness she must have felt then.
She grew up in Klukwan in her father’s tribal
house, the Frog House, which is one of the old wooden
houses still standing in Klukwan. The Frog House is
a shell of its former grandeur. Great and lavish potlaches
were once held in this tribal house. The Frog totem
pole was sold long ago and, according to Jennie was
taken to Juneau.
Her parents’ love for her was demonstrated not
only through their affection and care, but also through
their efforts to ensure that Jennie received the best
possible training for a Tlingit girl of her era. Her
mother opposed to Jennie attending the Western school
at Sheldon Jackson in Sitka, but she learn to read up
to the “third reader” from the minister,
Mr. Faulkner. A few years ago, Jennie addressed the
Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage
and told the audience, “ I didn’t go to
school, but I think I’m all right!”
Jennie Learns Her Skills
Jennie recalls that her auntie named Saantaas’
“knew how to make things.” Her father gave
the auntie fifty dollars to teach Jennie’s mother
how to make Chilkat blankets. Later her mother would
teach her. Jennie cites this as one of the reasons her
mother was good. Jennie learned about making baskets,
moccasins, beadwork, and blankets from her, as well
as skin-sewing. In her words: My mama’s good mama.
When I was a kid they gonna leave me alone, any place
they go: you go with me: you put dress on! He carry
me on his hands all the time. And they learn me how
to do something inside the house. You know, that’s
why I live longer, see. And here we are, we watchin’
this time: they never take care of kids: they don’t
care where they go. Go to show nighttime, everyplace:
get mixed up. But, I’m glad--say that I have a
good mama. He never leave me behind someplace; he just
carry me and tell me get married.
Her mother began teaching her to weave blankets and
baskets and sew moccasins with beadwork when Jennie
was about ten years old. Jennie played at weaving baskets
and blankets, and her mother noticed her toy-like products
and showed her how to make them properly. She tells
of playing with spruce roots with her playmates when
she made something “like a spider net.”
After her mother learned from the children who had made
the net, she began to show Jennie how to work the materials.
She gave Jennie good roots (that is, already split)
to work with. “Then I learn it good.” Jennie
used to finish about seven baskets in a year. Her father
would take them to the store in Skagway and sell them.
In springtime, about April, her father would travel
to Skagway by canoe. He would make totem poles, and
her mother made baskets and moccasins. At that time,
moccasins sold for one dollar a pair, and baskets brought
from five to seven dollars, depending on the size. That
was considered a good price for the baskets. I made
lots of money from the baskets.” Later on, she
learned to make baskets with tops by herself. (She still
makes this type of basket, which sells for three hundred
to four hundred dollars to the store in Haines.)
When a German baker opened a store in Haines, Jennie
used to take her baskets there to trade or sell. She
traded for bread and dry goods. She laughed as she told
about trading a little basket for a big sack with “everything
in it.” She brought cloth to make dresses, silk,
and stockings with her baskets.
Making baskets was easy to her. One does not need to
spend money and “you just pick the roots yourself.
You buy some dye--black, red, different colors. Then
dye the grass. That’s all you do.” She learned
to split roots after trying to do it with the girl next
door. They tried to split the roots themselves, and
when her mother found out she was playing this way she
showed Jennie how it was done properly.Jennie learned
to weave blankets in a similar fashion, her mother provided
her with materials and instruction after Jennie was
observed playing at weaving. As a young girl, she took
some yarn from her mother’s supply and, using
a can she used to store her dolls in, positioned a stick
across the top and hung yarn on it--”all different
colors.” Then they started weaving. She and her
playmate’s were going to make a doll’s rug.
It was halfway finished when her mama saw it and asked,
“Who makes this?” When Jennie responded,
her mother said, “How come you put the stick inside?
How you gonna pull it out? You should use a string [referring
to the methods of attaching the headings cord to the
loom beam with strings].” Her mother took the
children over to her loom and showed them how to do
it.
Afterwards, Jennie helped her make the black and yellow
border on the blanket, which is how a blanket is started.
Later on, in 1902, Jennie was shown how to weave her
first design. She helped her mother make a frog blanket
for her father. After 1905, when she was married, her
auntie Mrs. Benson (Santaas’) taught her how to
count the strands for the designs: “how wide the
black, how long the green and yellow.” She learned
to use the “design board” to measure the
dimension of design elements.
Jennie lived in Jones Point after her marriage. It was
there that another auntie lived, who was married to
her husband’s brother. She taught Jennie how to
sew porcupine quills on skin for moccasins. “We
learned it from the (Interior) Indian people; they dye
it from different colors. It is just like beadwork--it’s
good, the quills never come out for a long time. You
twist it around the thread and sew it on.” Her
sister-in-law taught her to knit. “I know how
to knit, and the crochet, and the embroidery.”
Jennie’s Isolation Period
Jennie, like all Tlingit girls of her status, received
special training. The Tlingits believe that life-long
habits and attributes are shaped during early adolescence.
Young girls are awakened early in the morning so they
will not be late-morning sleepers in later life. They
are required to walk wearing a hat with a wide brim
without shaking the hat. This is to teach girls to walk
in stately manner.
During their first menstruation they are isolated in
the back room of the tribal house. Jennie recalls that
she was isolated for a period of seven to ten days.
She explains that she does not have gray hair because
during the isolation period her mother and her mother’s
oldest sister, Kinjee, washed her hair with a special
shampoo. Other Tlingits have suggested that the special
shampoo was blueberry juice. Jennie recalls the events:
They bring water in my room, basin and he’s [they]
got something in it. Crazy, I don’t find out what
it is. And she says,” You grandma used to use
this shampoo, you going to use it. You not going to
get gray hair right away.” My grandma, my mama’s
mother, still black just like mine. They didn’t
get no gray hair. But I’m sorry I don’t
ask what it is, that Indian shampoo.”
Jennie Reaches Adulthood
According to Tlingit tradition, marriages are arranged.
So it was for Jennie that her parents told her of her
impending marriage: "We are poor people, but that
guy is high class. Be a good girl!"
Her first husband was a member of Tlingit nobility whose
mother came from the Shakes family of Wrangell. At the
age of thirteen, in October 1905, she left her parents
and married a Gaanaxteidi man, John James. Jennie recalls
that her husband's mother and sister came. Her mother
brought money. It was an "Indian marriage."
Jennie tells that her mother and father also gave her
husband the Chilkat blanket with a Frog crest that she
and her mother had made in 1902. Later her husband would
go to Juneau and sell the blanket to buy a war canoe.
Her husband was an industrious man. He worked hard in
both wage labor and subsistence fishing. He used the
war canoe to haul freight from Haines to the gold mine
up the Chilkat River to the Porcupine gold fields. He
"transported" all kinds of tools and groceries
to use at the gold mine." Since there was no road
at the time, he was busy all through the summer of 1906
hauling freight. In 1908 or 1909, he worked in the gold
mine at Porcupine during the summer months. They lived
together at the mining camp.
Jennie recalls with particular delight and in vivid
detail her trip to Klawock in 1910. Her husband was
out trolling when she saw the Klawock women returning
with sacks filled with black seaweed. She asked them
where they picked the seaweed. They told her out on
the island. Young Jennie ran to her husband and said,
"You better pick some for me, I want to dry some!"
"No, he don't listen, he like trolling." Jennie
then pleaded with her sister-in-law (Henry Phillip's
wife) "Maggie, let's go out to the beach, see how
it looks." Maggie responded, "You don't know
how to do." Jennie pleaded again, "No, let's
go. The older women pick lots of seaweed."
Her sister-in-law relented and off they went with two
sacks and a rope. They tied the rope around Jennie who
climbed down the rocks to gather seaweed. Maggie was
to watch the waves and pull Jennie up before they reached
her. They came back to camp ever so happy with their
two bags full of seaweed. They cleaned the rocks where
they could spread their seaweed out to dry. Jennie laughs,
"I see the women folks go down. Oh, I feel good.
I got it!"
Jennie recalls the women began examining her black seaweed
and they started laughing, "Look at that Chilkat
People, they pick something different kind of black
seaweed." Jennie remembers, "I hear it good.
And then I run to Maggie--'Maggie we pick some wrong
one, not black seaweed. The women folk was laughing
down there. And I watch and they go home, two of them.
I go down there. I throw away in water." They had
gathered what the Tlingit call "rock fat."
Jennie then returned to Maggie and said, "I not
going to cook for your brother!" Jennie recalls
that she returned to her tent and climbed into bed.
She even refused to build a fire. Around four or five
o'clock, her husband returned home. He asked Jennie,
"What's wrong, you sick?" She refused to answer.
He asked again, "What's wrong?" It all comes
tumbling out: "You don't want to pick the black
seaweed for me, that's why I don't cook for you. I pick
the different one; the women folk were laughing!"
Jennie recalls her husband's words, "Oh, no, come
on get up." Maggie had cooked for both her husband
and brother. Maggie's husband, Harry also came over
to persuade Jennie to join them for dinner, "Come
on and eat with us." Jennie relented and joined
them.
The following day, Jennie's husband did not go trolling
but rather went out to pick her seaweed and returned
with three sacks full. Jennie continues with her story,
telling that Klawock women, even though they had laughed
at her, taught her how to make seaweed (kat'at'xi) with
halibut-head juice, which acts like glue, and pack it
in boxes.
Jennie's memories are filled with these happy times
in her carefree youth. She remembers that she bought
a "handmade" short canoe from her brother,
Tom. Her husband asked why she bought it when she did
not know how to use it. She responded that "we
young girls, if we can fish, people will come and buy
it from me. Pretty soon, I learn how to do it. I have
a lot of fun. I had no kids at that time."
Jennie's first two sons did not survive. Her husband's
family believed that her sons did not live because she
was married to a noble and she was equal to his status.
When Jennie was pregnant with her third child, she went
to Juneau to see a man whom Jennie called a "fortune
teller" (shaman) to fix her up. She was given a
flask and was instructed to put a drop of the medicine
it contained wherever she stepped. The medicine promised
that her children would live but she would have to give
her first-born to the person who gave her the medicine.
The child lived, and the medicine person kept asking
for the child, but Jennie refused to give her up.
Jennie and her husband, John James, had three daughters--Kathryn,
Edith, and Edna.
In 1920, her husband became ill, which Jennie describes
as "funny sick." His gums were swollen, he
had a sore throat, he could not eat, and he stayed in
the hospital in Haines for two months. One day Jennie
heard him laughing in his sleep. When he awoke he called
Jennie to his side and told her, "I got a good
dream. Don't worry if I go away to see my son."
He told Jennie that he was going away. He told her that
in his dream their son had brought a sack and told him
not to worry. The sack contained "green backs"
(dollars). The dream was a prediction that Jennie would
be able to take care of herself and her daughters with
the money she would earn. Her husband died that year,
confident that Jennie would be able to take care of
herself. After his death, she went to work in a laundry
and a cannery.
In 1922, Jennie married John Mark Thlunaut. John Mark's
mother and sister came to her and told her she should
marry John. John had adopted the English surname of
Mark. Jennie and John used Mark as their last name.
After his death, Jennie dropped the name Mark and used
the Tlingit name Thlunaut. They lived in Haines and
moved into the Yeil Hit (Raven House) of the Lukwaax.adi
Clan. They had a daughter who died in her crib. Jennie
says the baby was frightened by a barking dog. Another
daughter, Agnes, survived.
Her second husband died in 1952. According to Tlingit
law, her husband's property, including the tribal house,
would not be inherited by herself but rather would revert
to someone in the clan who ascended to John's position.
If Jennie did not marry anyone else in her husband's
clan. she would have to move out of the Raven House.
Jennie never remarried and she returned to Klukwan.
She bought a small red house near the river where she
could clean and smoke her fish.
In about 1973, she moved to a new house which was constructed
by the Tlingit and Haida Housing Authority under the
HUD program. Although the house was larger, it was inconvenient
because it was on a hill away from the river. She would
live in the new house throughout the winter but return
each summer to her house by the river. She recently
gave her small house to her grandson.
Throughout her life, Jennie had been active in many
church and civic affairs. She had been a faithful member
of the Alaska Native Sisterhood and made some of the
first ANS and ANB banners. She has been recognized for
her life-long dedication to her home, family, people,
and culture.
Her participation in the traditional Tlingit ceremonies
and potlaches has been as faithful and extensive. She
has been given many names, and the following two stories
tell of the love and regard her people have for her.
Tlingit names are like titles and they are owned by
particular clans. They also tell the stories of clan
histories.
Click here
to continue “Jennie Thlunaut” Biography
Part 3
Click here to see map of where Jennie lived and worked
Click here read about the Chilkat Valley environment.
Contact Clarissa for permission to use text or images for educational purposes only.