UBCWiki Page about Potlatches

UBCWiki: Potlatch

Potlatch
A potlatch is an important ceremonial event originating from the indigenous people of the NWCoast. Significant life events were marked and captured by potlatches including the naming of a newborn child, a marriage, a death, ascension of new chiefs, a graduation, opening of a new big house, and raising of totempoles. Due to the importance of these events, the celebration could last several days and were planned months and up to a year in advance

Ancient Petroglyph

Ancient Petroglyph... photo - John Morris photos at pbase.com


Petroglyph in Fort Rupert Taken by John Morris.

I have not seen this before
and don't know where it is located on the beach. Do any of the Kwakiutl Students know? If not try and find it.

Peter's Seashells

Peter’s Seashells

If you are looking for information on Seashells or on Seashells of BC this site is a good starting point.

Please note that this site will not allow you to copy images or content

The social organization and the secret societies of the Kwakiutl Indians - by Franz Boaz - Online Scanned copy

Thought some might be able to use as a reference, or those in older grades. Early Canadiana Online - Page Image

www.firstnations.de article on the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples

The collector of the majority of Kwakwaka'wakw artifacts in the world's museums (including those illustrated above) was George Hunt (1854 - 1933) Hunt (K'ixitasu') was the son of an English fur trader at Fort Rupert and his Tlingit wife, Mary Ebbetts (Ansnaq), daughter of Chief Tongas from Alaska. Hunt spoke Kwakwala and he learned how to render it in phonetic writing. For most of his life, Hunt worked as an informant, translator and collector for outsiders who came to Tsaxis including Israel Powell, Jacob Adrian Jacobsen, Franz Boas and Edward Curtis.

What do you think about this article? Do you know if the article is based on fact, or if some things are based on assumption? Do you know if this article pertains to your family history and if it does how does it pertain to your family history? Don't just read what it is written, think to...

Great site with more Scratch Lessons

Learn Scratch

Scratch is a program developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology in coordination with the Lifelong Kindergarden Group. It is a visual, block-based, computer programming language editor.

Scratch Tutorial on Velocity

Velocity makes the world go round... literally. Velocity can help things turn, twist, move, and do pretty much any other thing you can imagine! (not really). It basically just makes things move really smoothly.

Download Firefox 3 Day

Come on Canada, help Mozilla and Firefox enter the Guiness book of World Records and download Firefox 3, plus so far this app is looking awesome.

Learn Scratch - More Great Scratch Tutorials

learnscratch.org - DR-04: Lego Kit

DR-04: Lego Kit
This project simulates a lego construction kit, allowing the creation of sophisticated designs with a relatively simple program.

Expo Scratch Tutorials

Scratch Tutorials

Students at Expo were beta testers for a new programming software called Scratch. Designed specifically for youth, it allows them to create their own stories, animations, fames, music and art.

Scratch tutorials from www.expo.spps.org

Etch a sketch on Scratch by Mark0108

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Number bonds to 10 by MrShah on Scratch

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Tower of Hanoi by daeheryn on Scratch

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Potlatch Video

Anybody know what it is?

http://www.anashinteractive.com/

~ Anash Interactive ~

This is an awesome Site, I love the entrance page. The site relies heavily on flash, but it is an awesome place to interact with Tlingit Culture. Also, you get to drag and drop to creat comic books and resize, how awesome is that?

Supera Mario - Turtle thingy trick

Not that this has anything to do with Homework Club, but I was playing this a month ago, and couldn't do the jumping on the turtle thing anymore and it was driving me up the wall. I could do that with no problem when I was a kid though. Anyways here is a video of somebody doing the turtle trick over and over again.

Discovery Channel: I love the world

Sight Words

Sight Words With Samson
An interactive sight for learning sight words.

Build Your Wild Self

Build your Wild Self Go on, go make yourself with some animal features :)

Scratch Tutorial - Fish Eating Game

This is a nifty tutorial that will be useful for teaching students how to create a game.
Fish!

Scratch Programming Handbook home sitemap links
Fish !

Fish! is a simple game that can be built quickly by a novice scratch programmer. The main character is a shark which is controlled by the mouse and wanders around the screen eating fish. Yellow fish taste nice but eating a red fish will give the shark indigestion.

The basic principles behind of this type of game can be used to make many different games simply by changing the background and the graphics on the sprites. A game set in space with a rocket chasing astronauts and aliens would be simple to create using fish! as a base.

Sophie Tutorial

First Voices Kids Site - Kwakwala Words and Phrases

First Voices offers a Kids Site that will give you the English word and Kwakwala pronunciation and Spelling of single words and phrases. This is an awesome resource and I use it with a three year old who pronounces the words better than I do.

Periodic Table - Scratch

The song is catchy :)
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Stop the Invasion - Scratch

Not to drive people nuts with all this Scratch, but I love it and am posting things that I think my students would like. Or rather, that I want them to play!
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Scratch Orages

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Scratch Pong Game

This is the pong game that I made using scratch. I'm going to write a tutorial and get the students to make their own game.
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Drawdio

I think this is neat, but it really would drive me up a wall. But it is so cool!

Computer Clubhouse

Computer Clubhouse

The Computer Clubhouse provides a creative and safe after-school learning environment where young people from under-served communities work with adult mentors to explore their own ideas, develop skills, and build confidence in themselves through the use of technology.

From the folks at the Lifelong Kindergarten Project.

I'm not sure why but there are numerous countries listed, and none of them are in Canada. Sad as I would really enjoy seeing a project like this somewhere close by

Scratch

I took a computer training course (week long) offered by UVIC and IBM last week, the instructors were very nice, very smart, and really just awesome. One of the instuctors, Sarah, showed me a program called Scratch.

There are two reasons I really enjoyed this program. Firstly, I found that it a good introduction to programming, and makes the processes that one goes through while programming easier to understand. I find the visuals aid in learning, and the program itself is very interactive. Secondly, I work with students and I am rather excited to show them this program. I think they will love it, and am hoping that it will get a few of them hooked and that they may find something they might want to consider going into after highschool (ie a computer science program).

Currently, I am going to write a short tutorial on how to develop a pong game and then I plan on sharing it with the kids at work first, and then the students at FRES.

I am hoping that after they develop their own pong games that they will go on to develop different games and projects with scratch.

Evolution Explained with Scratch

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Youtube - Kwakiutl Clip

I thought this was interesting, can you find someone to tell you more about it??

Wagalus School

The Wagalus School Blog is new now and you can view it by visiting the Wagalus School Home Page.

raven myth, can you find anymore online

Wakiash and the First Totem Pole (Kwakiutl Legend) -Native American Indian Tribes - Over 2,000 articles on native american indians, their culture & traditions.

he totem poles of Northwest Coast tribes were actually family crests rather than religious icons, denoting the owner's legendary descent from an animal such as the bear, raven, wolf, salmon, or killer whale.

Coming into a village, a stranger would first look for a house with a totem pole of his own clan animal. Its owner was sure to receive him as a friend and offer him food and shelter.

"Totem poles also preserved ancient customs by making sure that in every region within visiting distance of others the old stories were repeated, and the old beliefs about the spirits, the origin of fire and other myths, were basically the same despite linguistic differences between main tribal groups."1

*Wakiash was a chief named after the river Wakiash because he was openhanded and flowing with gifts, even as the river flowed with fish.

It happened once that the whole tribe was having a dance. Wakiash had never created a dance of his own, and he was unhappy because all the other chiefs had fine dances.

So he thought: "I will go up into the mountains to fast, and perhaps a dance will come to me."

Wakiash made himself ready and went to the mountains, where he stayed, fasting and bathing, for four days. Early in the morning of the fourth day, he grew so weary that he lay upon his back and fell asleep. Then he felt something on his breast and woke up to see a little green frog.

"Lie still," the frog said, "because you are on the back of a raven who is going to fly you and me around the world. Then you can see what you want and take it."

The raven began to beat its wings, and they flew for four days, during which Wakiash saw many things. When they were on their way back, he spotted a house with a beautiful totem pole in the front and heard the sound of singing inside the house.

Thinking that these were fine things, he wished he could take them home.

The frog, who knew his thoughts, told the raven to stop. As the bird coasted to the ground, the frog advised the chief to hide behind the door of the house.

"Stay there until they begin to dance," the frog said. "Then leap out into the room.

"The people tried to begin a dance but could do nothing--neither dance nor sing.

One of them said, "Something's the matter; there must be something near us that makes us feel like this."

And the chief said, "Let one of us who can run faster than the flames of the fire rush around the house and find what it is.

"So the little mouse said that she would go, for she could creep anywhere, even into a box, and if anyone were hiding she would find him.

The mouse had taken off her mouse-skin clothes and was presently appearing in the form of a woman. Indeed, all the people in the house were animals who looked like humans because they had taken off their animal-skin clothes to dance.

When the mouse ran out, Wakiash caught her and said, "Ha, my friend, I have a gift for you." And he gave her a piece of mountain-goat's fat.

The mouse was so pleased with Wakiash that she began talking to him. "What do you want?" she asked eventually.

Wakiash said that he wanted the totem pole, the house, and the dances and songs that belonged to them.

The mouse said, "Stay here; wait till I come again. "

Wakiash stayed, and the mouse went in and told the dancers, "I've been everywhere to see if there's a man around, but I couldn't find anybody."

And the chief who looked like a man, but was really a beaver, said, "Let's try again to dance."

They tried three times but couldn't do anything, and each time they sent the mouse to search. But each time the mouse only chatted with Wakiash and returned to report that no one was there.

The third time she was sent out, she said to him, "Get ready, and when they begin to dance,leap into the room. "Then the mouse told the animals again that no one was there, and they began to dance.

Wakiash sprang in, and at once they all dropped their heads in shame, because a man had seen them looking like men, whereas they were really animals.

The dancers stood silent until at last the mouse said: "Let's not waste time; let's ask our friend what he wants. "

So they all lifted up their heads, and the chief asked the man what he wanted.

Wakiash thought he would like to have the dance, because he had never had one of his own. Also, he thought, he would like to have the house and the totem pole that he had seen outside.

Though the man did not speak, the mouse divined his thoughts and told the dancers.

And the chief said, "Let our friend sit down. We'll show him how we dance, and he can pick out whatever dance he wants. "

So they began to dance, and when they had ended, the chief asked Wakiash what kind of dance he would like. The dancers had been using all sorts of masks.

Most of all Wakiash wanted the Echo mask and the mask of the Little Man who goes about the house talking, and talking, and trying to quarrel with others.

Waskiash only formed his wishes in his mind; the mouse told them to the chief.

So the animals taught Wakiash all their dances, and the chief told him that he might take as many dances and masks as he wished, as well as the house and the totem pole.

The beaver-chief promised Waskiash that things would all go with him when he returned home, and that he could use them all in one dance.

The chief also gave him for his own the name of the totem pole, Kalakuyuwish, meaning sky pole, because the pole was so tall.

The chief took the house and folded it up like a little bundle. He put it into the headdress of one of the dancers and gave it to Wakiash, saying, "When you reach home, throw down this bundle. The house will become as it was when you first saw it, and they you can begin to give a dance."

Wakiash went back to the raven, and the raven flew away with him toward the mountain from which they had set out.

Before they arrived, Wakiash fell asleep, and when he awoke, the raven and the frog were gone and he was alone. It was night by the time Wakiash arrived home.

He threw down the bundle that was in the headdress, and there was the house with its totem pole! The whale painted on the house was blowing, the animals carved on the totem pole were making their noises, and all the masks inside the house were crying aloud.

At once Wakiash's people woke up and came out to see what was happening, and Wakiash found that instead of four days, he had been away for four years.

They all went into the new house, and Wakiash began to make a dance.

Then the Echo came, and whoever made a noise, the Echo made the same by changing the mouthpieces of its mask.

When they had finished dancing, the house was gone; it went back to the animals. And all the chiefs were ashamed because Wakiash now had the best dance.

Wakiash made a house and masks and a totem pole out of wood, and when the totem pole was finished, the people composed a song for it. This pole was the first the tribe had ever had.

The animals had named it Kalakuyuwish, "the pole that holds up the sky," and they said it made a creaking noise because the sky was so heavy. And Wakiash took for his own the name of the totem pole, Kalakuyuwish.

SOURCE: 1-Based on a version reported by Natalie Curtis in The Indian's Book, 1997. *Cottie Burland, North American Indian Mythology, Paul Hamlyn, London, 1965, p. 31.

Fort Rupert Elementary School Bookfair and Cocoa House

Fort Rupert Elementary School is hosting their annual bookfair (today and tomorrow), as well as their annual Cocoa House which has lots of fun activities for the entire family. If you live in the area, support your community by stopping by tomorrow evening. For more information phone (250)949-6518.

Atheism

Top 15 quotes by famous Atheists

13. The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church. — Ferdinand Magell

Okay now having posted this I'm posting it solely because students do learn about Atheism in school and I thought the quotes of interest. I am not pushing Atheism on anybody, just as I would not push religion on anybody.

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This has a good video slideshow also.

14 educational games to teach your kids about business

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Math fun

Algebraic Surfaces

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Ning

ning.com

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mostlymommies.com

mostlymommies.com provides additional links to toddler games.

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Little Kids' Games Online

Visit Little Kids' Games Online and browse the links for games for your toddler.

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Fisherprice Games

Fisherprice games for infants, toddlers and preschool children.

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Children's Books

International Children's Digital Library has books for children aged three to nine. As the books have different licensing they also have different readers and system requirements, apart from these specifications the site is quite nifty and cute. Good for home reading.

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