Eklutna village is an Tanaina (or Dena'ina) Indian settlement about 25 miles northeast of Anchorage just off the Glenn Highway near the head of Knik Arm. It's noted especially for the Athabascan "Spirit Houses" in its Russian Orthodox church cemetery, which reflect a blending of Orthodox and Native spiritual practices. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia gives a few details:
The Eklutna area was the site of many Athabascan Indian villages as long as 800 years ago. Today's residents are descendants of the Dena'ina (Tanaina) tribe. A railroad station was built in 1918, and Russian Orthodox missionaries arrived in the 1840s. Brightly-colored "Spirit Houses" in the Russian Slavic style now lend character to Eklutna.But by far the best online resource on Eklutna is a personal webpage put up by an Alaskan identified only as "sunhusky" who has a wealth of pictures and well-informed explanations about Anchorage, the nearby Mat-Su valley and other southcentral Alaska attractions.
To read the rest, go to my Hogfiddle blog on music and the arts. It gets better as it goes along.
Keywords: HUM 221 / Native American religion / Alaska Native
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