Hoonah Indian Association
Interviewees: Darlene See & Amelia Wilson Tlagoonks 1. How did this work come about? And why was it necessary? Darlene: I had been previously working on using art programs with adult survivors of violence. I attended a workshop with the 7th Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples and asked them if we could apply for the Native Women’s Initiative grant. I received information about the grant and decided to apply. Our group had limited funding, so I talked with another colleague about the grant and we decided that we wanted to do something with “Raven’s-Fal Weave,” which is one of the oldest forms of weaving in our community. Weaving in this way requires one to be mindful of the importance of being in the moment, and not to bring trauma into in the weaving; it’s something that is very healing. A non-Native brought this artform back from Russia to the Native women. An important factor for applying for the grant was that we began to notice the terrible statistics of violence against women and saw a lot of abuse, many survivors, and knew about the depth and seriousness of the scars that were being carried. We could relate to it all and remembered that some of the best healing moments in our work were with women. So, we held discussions with people that were going to be involved in this work and about what needed to be talked about and decided that this project would be necessary in order to help begin addressing and healing the effects of violence against women in our community. One of the motivating factors was that a fire in Hoonah burned up all lot of treasured items, including the weaving that had been done, which was a terrible loss for our community. For a long time, past colonization and trauma made it so that no one was weaving and more and
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