These and several other factors examined in this study contributed to the success of Russian missionization of the Tlingit and the continuing influence of Orthodoxy in southeastern Alaska, despite the shortage of funds and clergy.
The reciprocity between the living and the dead, central to the traditional Tlingit world view, could be maintained more successfully within the Orthodox Church. The symbols of the Orthodox mortuary rites were more susceptible to Tlingit reinterpretation than those of the Protestant denominations. On the basis of archival and ethnographic research, this paper reconstructs and analyzes the historical process of transformation of the Tlingit mortuary complex from its pre-Christian (nineteenth century) base to its Christianized (twentieth century) form, with a special focus on Russian Orthodoxy.
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