OUR WORK

Since 1989 we have worked with Youth, Adults, Elders and our broader Communities to reintroduce our Native Art, Language and Culture. Our work includes traditional cultural activities, promoting and introducing our language/s to our community/ies, engaging folks of all ages (from 8 to 80) by teaching our songs, stories and visiting the land.

Master Apprentice Language Pod

The success of the Karuk Podsters to acquire our language has resulted in 5 new proficient speakers! We plan to increase that number this year.

Keep Yourself In The Know

Ikxáree is our word for ‘news’. You can find our ikxáree here. We commit to sharing with you our work plans, news, and information pertaining to culture and language revitalization.

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What Is Native Culture?

To our visitors and supporters we will provide explanations of culture from a Native perspective.

Many of you have questions about the Native World. We will answer when possible. We will also help you discover ways to support us in our efforts to restore our cultural worldview.

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We commit to keeping you, our supporters, informed of our work and our plans. We will introduce you to individuals who are contributing to revitalizing our culture. We have a simple view of culture: People Doing Things. For native people this means doing the work that the Earth, the land, and the Spirit People have tasked us with.

Why help us?

The Institute recruits cultural leaders who have both practical AND professional experience to help us in our vision to create lasting positive change in our communities by providing cultural knowledge and mentorship.

Community-based

Our work plans start with input from our community. We strive to meet actual needs which we determine before taking action. We strive to be accountable to our financial supporters. We bring together our ikyâavarihvaan (students) regularly. We pay our students and speakersto to work on their language everyday. We assess our methods to get the best results. And we are seeing new speakers emerging from generations of forced assimilation. Our language is being heard more and more.

Cultural Experts

We have assembled a dream team of cultural experts to help us complete our mission.

Despite generations of language loss, many of us have become expert at Karuk cultural practices. The Institute employs and collaborates with our cultural experts to create real-world situations in which our language can be conveyed and practiced.

History of Success

We have been creating cultural experiences since 1989. Our principal beneficiary is the Native community. From the start we have invited the non-Native community to attend our many public events.