Nora Marks Dauenhauer

Nora Dauenhauer in 2011. Photo by Sam Beebe, EcoTrust. Licensed under Creative Commons,courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Nora Marks Dauenhauer (born May 8, 1927,) is an American poet and short-story writer and a scholar of the language and traditions of the Tlingit aboriginal nation in Alaska, of which she is a member.

Life

Nora Marks was born May 8, 1927, the 1st of 16 children of Emma Marks (1913-2006) of Yakutat, Alaska, and Willie Marks (1902-1981), a Tlingit from Hoonah, Alaska. Nora's Tlingit name at birth was Keix̱wnéi. Following her mother in the Tlingit matrilineal system, she is a member of the Raven moiety of the Tlingit nation, of the Lukaax̱.ádi clan, and of the Shaka Hít or Canoe Prow House, from Alsek River. Emma's maternal grandfather had been Frank Italio (1870–1956), an informant to the anthropologist Frederica de Laguna whose knowledge was incorporated into De Laguna's 1972 ethnography of the northern Tlingit, Under Mount St. Elias.

She earned a degree in anthropology and, with her husband Richard Dauenhauer, a poet and translator, she has co-edited the Sealaska Heritage Foundation's highly regarded Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature series.

Recognition

Dauenhauer won an American Book Award for Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 And 1804.

She was awarded a 2005 Community Spirit Award by the First Peoples Fund, a Native American organization that supports the arts.

Publications

Poetry

• The Droning Shaman: Poems. Hains, AK: Black Current Press, 1988.

Non-fiction

• Beginning Tlingit (with Richard Dauenhauer). Tlingit Readers, 1976.

Edited

with Richard Dauenhauer

• "Because We Cherish You ...": Sealaska elders speak to the future. Juneau, AK: Sealaska Heritage Foundation, 1981.
• Alaska Native Writers, Storytellers, and Orators (edited by Nora Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer, & Gary H. Holthaus). Anchorage, AK: College of Arts and Sciences, University of Alaska, 1986.
• Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit oral narratives.. Seattle, WA: Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press / Juneau, AK: Sealaska Heritage Institute (Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature, vol. 1.), 1987.
• Haa Tuwanáagu Yís, for Healing Our Spirit: Tlingit 0ratory. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press / Juneau, AK: Sealaska Heritage Institute (Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature, vol. 2.), 1990.
• Haa Kusteeyí, Our Culture: Tlingit Life Stories. Seattle: University of Washington Press (Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature, vol. 3.), 1994.
• Anóoshi lingít aaní ká Russians in Tlingit America: The battles of Sitka, 1802 and 1804 (edited by Nora Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer, & Lydia Black).Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press / Juneau, AK: Sealaska Heritage Institute, 2008. ISBN 978-0-295-98601-2

Collected editions

• Life Woven with Song (poems, plays, autobiography). Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2000.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Articles

• "Egg Boat." in Earth Power Coming: Short Fiction in Native American Literature, ed. by Simon J. Ortiz, pp. 155–161. Tsaile: Navajo Community College Press, 1983.
• "Context and Display in Northwest Coast Art" in New Scholar 10 (1986), pp. 419–432.
• "The Battles of Sitka, 1802 and 1804: from the Tlingit, Russian, and other points of view" in Russia in North America, ed. by Richard Pierce, pp. 6–24. Kingston, Ontario: Limestone Press, 1990

Nora Dauenhauer Poem

See also

• Native American poets
• List of U.S. poets

References

• De Laguna, Frederica (1972) Under Mount St. Elias. (3 volumes), Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.

External links

Poems

• Three Poems by Alaska's New Writer Laureate, Nora Marks Dauenhauer at 49 Writers
• Nora Marks Dauenhauer b. 1927 at the Poetry Foundation

Audio / video

• Nora Marks Dauenhauer at YouTube

About

• Nora Marks Dauenhauer at Native American Authors
• "Juneau scholar, poet wins award from First Peoples fund" at Sealaska Heritage Institute