The Dena'ina author Peter Kalifornsky portrayed his forebears, the Old Dena’ina, as innovative, "a people who wished to be the first to learn new things and to hand these on to their neighbors." In that spirit, we at the Kalifornsky Project are handing on something new—and very old: From the First Beginning, When the Animals Were Talking, the work and thought of Peter Kalifornsky. We are restoring Peter Kalifornsky's legacy, in his words and in his voice. We are publishing all of it on the iPad.
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I am Katherine McNamara, of Artist's Proof Editions, where I am producing From the First Beginning, When the Animals Were Talking, the work and thought of Peter Kalifornsky, the first writer of his oral language. Through the Kalifornsky Project I and my co-workers are restoring—in his words, and in his voice—Peter Kalifornsky's literary and intellectual legacy, in the beautiful work of indigenous language and cultural regeneration. We've begun publishing it on the iPad. Volume 1 is now on iBooks. Volumes 2, 3, and 4, and their journey back to Alaska will be funded by this Indiegogo campaign.
Across Turnagain Arm, the Kenai Peninsula
Peter Kalifornsky: the author and his back-story
Peter Kalifornsky (1911-1993) was the first writer and nearly last native speaker of his dialect of Dena’ina, an Alaskan Athabaskan language. For his Dena'ina texts he was praised as a literary stylist. He was also an intellectual, who, with his theory of writing and meaning, preserved his native language, adapting the writing system he was given to the intrinsic patterns of his tongue. He was the author of traditional stories, essays, songs, word lists, commentaries. But he wanted to tell us more: the “back story,” he called it, a way of knowing the world, the visible and the invisible, which is rich, profound, demanding. Yet, he knew he would never write it, in either Dena'ina or English. He asked for a secretary.
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A scanned page (detail) of Peter Kalifornsky's manuscript, typed by himself on an IBM Selectric. (archive Katherine McNamara)
I was a poet and traveling scholar in the Alaskan Interior. I became his secretary. For five years, I listened and wrote and asked questions as he told his "back story"—the cultural, spiritual, and historical knowledge of the old people who told him their stories, saying, This one will be our reserve.
Peter Kalifornsky described the inner workings of his oral language. He explained to me how the act of writing, itself, taught him aspects he had never considered.
"I wrote that story, yes, in my native language. It’s written; and all I was fighting for was to preserve my native language. But what we’re getting into—how to read the background—gets complicated. From the beginning, the stories were put forward for a people to study, the nations and what-not.”
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Peter Kalifornsky at work
From the First Beginning . . . to a new technology
Now, through Artist’s Proof Editions, the imprint of Archipelago Publishers, the non-profit company I direct, I am producing From the First Beginning, When the Animals Were Talking, in four volumes of interactive iBooks of the work Peter Kalifornsky entrusted to me, with audio, video, texts, and images. These multimedia iBooks will return long-hidden knowledge to people engaged in the renewal of their cultures and languages. And they offer that knowledge, too, as Kalifornsky sang, to you who come from far away. We've demonstrated in Alaska that our approach can be of good use. Volume 1 is on iBooks. Volumes 2, 3, and 4, and their journey back to Alaska will be funded by this Indiegogo campaign.
This is the cover of Volume 1, the first of four projected interactive iBooks. It is available on the iBooks Store. All proceeds support the Kalifornsky Project.
Peter Kalifornsky arranged his stories in four parts (or circles, because they go round and "bounce off each other"). These are the four volumes to come to the iPad, along with our conversations, his cassette-taped readings, and scans of his manuscript. He titled them:
- From the First Beginning, When the Animals Were Talking
- From the Believing Time, When They Tested for the Truth
- From the Time of Law and Education
- From the Time When Things Have Been Happening to the People
Why do we use the iPad?
We are putting the whole archive of From the First Beginning on the iPad. Why? Because so many Alaskans have iPhones and iPads. Because young people can learn the technology of making digital books and go to their elders, who teach them what to remember. Because, everywhere, Native languages are under pressure. Because we work for the expansion of Native ways of knowing. Because, with Peter Kalifornsky’s immense knowledge—his voice, his writings, his conversations—on the iPad, his people can hold his teaching in their own hands.
Think of this: the Old Dena'ina had a theory of the Imagination. They had a theory of metaphor. They knew how the animals talked with the People Who Sit Around the Campfire. They had formal law and education. They knew of the great unknown spiritual Power and they tested the invisible powers for the truth. They told their history of the last thousand years. All of this came down to the mind of their first writer, an author of literature .— With your help, I can carry this immense body of thought home to Alaska, and out to the world, where it belongs.
Some Alaskans have said:
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Katherine McNamara and her old friend and surrogate brother, Claude Demientieff, Jr., explain why the iPad is good for passing on old stories and sharing new stories that might be true.
Where will our physical archive go?
Several institutions have expressed interest in collecting the physical materials of the Kalifornsky Project—manuscripts, cassette tapes, annotated books, field notes, digital records—for their archives, including
- The Smithsonian Institution
- The American Philosophical Society
- The Anchorage Museum
But we have a long way to go before the Project is completed. Till then, we are handling these materials carefully and respectfully.
We have work to do.
To produce this large, intricate digital edition of the materials that Peter Kalifornsky entrusted to me, Artist's Proof Editions requires a larger budget than for the typical printed book. Our long list of tasks to be completed includes
- Indexing and editing hours of audio files, most of which are in Dena'ina
- Scanning original typescripts
- Searching for and preparing visual materials; securing rights, if necessary
- Maintaining software & hardware
- Editing and correcting hundreds of pages of texts for digital formatting
- Designing and producing the digital volumes
- Returning to Alaska, traveling in-state to towns and villages
You will give us the great gift of time for the serious, intense labor required of us. You will give us the various tools we need to produce beautiful digital books. You will give us the way North, for when we carry Peter Kalifornsky's legacy home.
We want to say chin'an, thank you.
Artist's Proof Editions is gathering special digital editions and works on paper to give as thank-yous to our supporters. If you'll browse the list to the right, you'll see the catalog of premiums we are making available to friends of the Kalifornsky Project.
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Artist's Proof Editions, as an imprint of Archipelago Publishers, Inc., is a verified nonprofit organization. Your contribution, minus the value of the thank-you premium you select, is tax deductible. If you wish to contribute in lieu of a premium, the full amount of your donation will be tax deductible. In all cases, your donation will be acknowledged.
The impact of our Project
Through the Kalifornsky Project, I hope also to demonstrate one way in which groups or tribal organizations can use this technology to present themselves as they wish to be seen, their texts and songs recorded and controlled by their own scholars, with the added benefit of bringing together young people with digital skills and elders with much to teach.
While there are many benefits to globalization, there are also drawbacks—and a significant one is the loss of indigenous languages and cultures, and the suppression of the Native or indigenous mind. This phenomenon is not limited to the Native peoples of Alaska, but occurs rapidly around the world.
Contemporary multimedia publishing, with its capacity for audio, video, images, and simultaneous translation, is more effective than print alone—because Native people can take the technology into their own hands as they work to recover their endangered cultures. I am talking with Alaskan friends about showing their youth how to make iBooks of their own.
Therefore, for every directed donation of $2,500, Artist's Proof Editions and I will respectfully present an iPad, with the First Beginning iBooks installed, to a recommended Dena'ina school or organization, in honor of the donor. Thank you for letting us carry Peter Kalifornsky's legacy back to his heirs, into their future.
Potential difficulties? We are prepared.
Difficulties and delays can always occur in the publication of a book; these are magnified by a multi-media work such as The Kalifornsky Project. Such things as damage to hardware, weird software updates, glitches while editing audio files, the intricacies of reformatting texts, and the sheerly unexpected event can cause delays. However, we have learned a great deal from the publication of the first volume—which we continue to update—and are confident of our ability to produce the full work.
Should our fundraising on Indiegogo fall short of our goal, there are other avenues we might pursue. We will consider:
- Producing the second volume, while putting the later volumes on hold; or,
- Directing our resources toward working with local communities; and,
- Continuing pursuit other sources of support relevant to this field of work
While we cannot predict every obstacle that might present itself, we will continue putting our skills and resources to their best use for restoring Peter Kalifornsky's legacy.
Other ways you can join us
Everyone is invited to join us. Please:
- Email this campaign to your friends who are avid readers, or interested in indigenous languages and cultures, or curious about contemporary multi-media publishing—or who like to learn something new.
- Host a book party (we'll tell you how we're doing it here),
- Share this campaign on Facebook, Twitter, and other forums.
- Like us on Facebook.
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Subscribe to our newsletter.
- Wish us well. Wish us Luck.
Thank you.
PS - New to Indiegogo? We'll show you how to pledge.
We have used here another Indiegogo campaign, The Quipu Project, to illustrate the simple steps of pledging towards the Kalifornsky Project. (A reminder: APE/Archipelago Publishers, Inc., is a verified non-profit. Your donation is tax-deductable, minus the value of the premium you choose. Or, you may choose to receive no premium; your donation then is fully tax-deductable.)
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