November 16, 2023 at 5-8pm at wəłəbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House
Doors open at 5:30 PM with light refreshments
Event is FREE but RSVP Required
The Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington hosts an annual literary and storytelling series. Sacred Breath features Indigenous writers and storytellers sharing their craft at the beautiful wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House on the UW Seattle campus. Storytelling offers a spiritual connection, a sharing of sacred breath. Literature, similarly, preserves human experience and ideals. Both forms are durable and transmit power that teaches us how to live. Both storytelling and reading aloud can impact audiences through the power of presence, allowing for the experience of the transfer of sacred breath as audiences are immersed in the experience of being inside stories and works of literature.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
CHRISTOPHER B. TEUTON (CHEROKEE NATION)
Christopher B. Teuton (Cherokee Nation) is Professor and Chair of the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington-Seattle, where he is a scholar of Indigenous oral and written literary studies, community-based cultural heritage and language revitalization work, and fieldwork exploring the perpetuation of Indigenous arts and epistemologies. Teuton is co-editor and co-author of the award-winning Reasoning Together: The Native Critics Collective (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008), author of Deep Waters: The Textual Continuum in American Indian Literature (University of Nebraska Press, 2010), and author of Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island Liars’ Club (University of North Carolina Press, 2012), a collection of forty interwoven stories, conversations, and teachings about Western Cherokee life, beliefs, history, and the art of storytelling. In 2013 Cherokee Stories of the Turtle Island Liars’ Club received an American Book Award by the Before Columbus Foundation. His recently released book, Anitsalagi Elohi Anehi – Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World (University of Washington Press, 2023), co-authored with the late Cherokee Nation leader Hastings Shade, articulates a Cherokee view of nature grounded in Cherokee names for that world as well as the stories and reflections of the elders who know it. Teuton is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
TAMI HOHN (PUYALLUP)
Tami Hohn (Puyallup) is an Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Washington (UW) Department of American Indian Studies. In this role she teaches the Southern Lushootseed language and served as the first Native Knowledge In Residence Coordinator for UW’s Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies (CAIIS). Hohn joined the Department of American Indian Studies informally in Autumn 2017 by teaching drop-in language learning and conversation sessions with her colleague Nancy Jo Bob. By the following Autumn, 2018, Hohn began teaching a year-long for-credit course in Salish Language and continues these courses each year. In 2022 Hohn added 2 advanced courses for students to continue and advance their Lushootseed studies. This year (2023) marks Hohn’s 30th year in Lushootseed education.
Can't wait for our Fall Event? View some of our previous events on YouTube.
Watch the full event recording of Sacred Breath from November 18th, 2021. This event featured authors Emma Elliott-Groves (Cowichan Tribes) an author and UW professor, and her mother Huyamise' Della Rice-Sylvester (Cowichan Tribes) a traditional medicine woman and storyteller.
Watch the full event recording of Sacred Breath from May 17th, 2021. This event featured children's book author Christine Day (Upper Skagit) and Jessica Dominy (Tlingit and Haida).
Watch the full event recording of Sacred Breath from November 23rd, 2020. This event featured authors Traci Sorell (Cherokee), Michelle M. Jacob (Yakama), and storyteller Fern Renville (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate).
Do you love Sacred Breath and want to see more? Donate to our Friends of American Indian Studies fund to help us support indigenous authors and storytellers and bring you more amazing works.
Read about Sacred Breath in the A&S Perspectives newsletter.
These events are free and open to the public, but registration is required, as space is limited. wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House is located at 4249 Whitman Court, Seattle, WA.
Sacred Breath is sponsored by the Department of American Indian Studies, the Intellectual House Academic Programming Committee, the Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies, the UW Department of English, the Banks Center for Educational Justice, the Squaxin Island Tribe, the Suquamish Tribe, and the Muckelshoot Tribe.