Will David Norton

This project seeks to understand the structure, circulation, and social meanings of sukdu, the traditional stories of the Dena’ina, an Indigenous people of Southcentral Alaska. Historically passed down as an oral tradition, sukdu began be preserved as written texts and audio recordings in the 1960s and ‘70s. This coincided with a wholesale shift from the Dena’ina language to English in Dena’ina communities under pressure from the American education system. Today, Dena’ina is a language on the verge of dormancy, yet the corpus of recorded Dena’ina texts is among the largest in Native Alaska. Concurrently, language revitalization has become a major priority in most Dena’ina communities. In this environment, sukdu have continued to circulate, through written or audio-recorded transmission, as well as oral performance. The agents of their transmission now include elders, activists, researchers, artists, language students, and others. This project will trace the transmission of sukdu across these networks, documenting the changes and continuities in their linguistic structure, content, and social roles in recent times. This will be accomplished through linguistic and narrative analysis of multiple versions of sukdu, and through dialogic engagement with Dena’ina elders, activists, writers, and researchers who have been involved in their transmission.