Touching Spirit Bear week 2

In the book Touching Spirit Bear, Cole who beat a kid almost to death is going through the circle of justice. The circle of justice is where you heal yourself and are not punished. Edwin is a big part of helping Cole with this process bringing him supplies showing him ways to help him heal. Edwin is also apart of a Tlingit tribe. Tlingit tribes lived in Southeast Alaska, the tribes are split up into two different colonies the ravens and the eagles, Tlingit Indians believed that ravens and eagles could only marry each other. Tlingit's dived themselves into a system where there were the hierarchy all the way down to peasants. Tlingit Indians also had slaves until the U.S made a law against it. The Tlingit tribes have so many different things about them then the normal Indian we talk about. Usually we hear about how Indians hunted, fished and grew crops on the land that they were on but we never hear what their "laws" are.Tlingit's laws are property laws for example a song, in our society today we inherit thing based on family and if they leave something to us or not. The Tlingit's we given possessions based on their place in the clan. Tlingit tribes are big into family crest and passing something important down to someone you trust Garvey did this by giving Cole his at.oow that was passed down in his family from generation to generation, when Garvey gave the at.oow to Cole he was surprised that someone had faith and trusted him and i think this was one step in helping Cole heal. Edwin and Garvey had both hurt someone in their time, they both told Cole that he would never completely heal until he fixed the wrong that he did to Peter. Cole asked both Edwin and Garvey why they were helping him and going through all the trouble, both men simply stated that they had hurt someone, Cole had dig deeper and start to heal before he understood that they were helping him because they knew what it was like to hurt someone and not be able to fix it, another reason they helped him i thinks is because it helped them to help not only Cole to heal but themselves.


















Works Cited:

LaPointe, Thomas. "Rostia Worl." Harriman Expedition Retraced. 7 July 2008 .