Foreword -- Introduction -- The game of life -- Different sets of rules -- Different world, different views -- Family legends -- Timeless time -- The Yup'ik world : the real people -- Eye of the needle -- The fate of Father Juvenaly -- The Tlingit world : balance and reciprocity -- Keet : a traditional Tlingit story -- Some Tlingit history -- The Athabaskan world : the distant time of the first people -- The salmon girl : an Athabascan story from Nikolai -- The sleeping lady : an Athabascan story from Tyonek -- The Aleut world : moving freely between cultures -- Open to the new -- The mink boy : an Alutiiq story -- The origin of sea otters : an Unangan story -- The Inupiaq world : cycles of life, of light and darkness -- How people got fire : a legend from the North Slope -- Brothers in the storm : a legend from St. Lawrence Island -- The way of the human being : holding on to all that is good -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Traditional values of Alaska.