 Marshall
Cultural Atlas
This collection of student work is from
Frank Keim's classes. He has wanted to share these works for others
to use as an example of Culturally-based curriculum and documentation. These
documents have been OCR-scanned. These are available
for educational use only.
Kirt Bell
(Kamluq)
Born: Hooper Bay, Sept. 21, 1910
Kayaking
"In the old days they used to use kayaks to travel in the ocean.
Every man had a kayak in those days. If he didn't have a kayak he
would be stuck for hunting or fishing in the bay. The men would
travel anywhere, not only out on the bay but upriver too. They would
also travel over ponds and lakes to hunt. The men used to go out
hunting down on the open ocean during the fall time when the days
were not windy. They would wake up very early, just before daylight,
and they used to stay down there for a long time. They never used a
gun either. They only had a long harpoon ("taprriiluq") with a long
seal skin rope attached to it called
"aiyaaqun". The harpoon head was sharp with a barbed side.
"When it is foggy on the sea
it is worse than on the land and
it is really hard to know which way to go to
get back to land. If the hunter gets confused or lost on the ocean he
will have to look for flying birds, especially Loons, because they
fly by following the coast. If he is still confused he should paddle
toward the ice and circle it and look at the water around the ice. He
also might look toward the sun to find small specks like dandruff.
These appear under the sun and because they move toward the ocean he
would start paddling in the opposite direction. Circling the ice he
would also look for the dandruff-like things in the water. Those
things don't go toward the land, only toward the sea.
"One time our great grandfather, whose name was "Qillerravialeq",
was lost out in the ocean. He got confused and he thought he was
paddling toward the land. There was a lot of ice in the ocean. He was
paddling all afternoon until he came to another kayak, and that kayak
was at the edge of the ice. He was glad to see a person out in the
sea, and he paddled toward him. The person was only a young man, just
growing a mustache. He was sitting inside of his kayak. My great
grandfather had never seen this young man before. And right behind
his kayak he saw some smoke and a cooking pot. When he got out of his
kayak the young man asked him why he was paddling around here and
told him that he wasn't going toward the land but in the wrong
direction. Then my great grandfather asked him if he had a dipper.
Men always carried a dipper with them when they went out in their
kayaks. They wore a seal gut raincoat tied around the rim of the
kayak and if the water got heavy around their waist they would use
this wooden dipper to dip the water out of their raincoat. The young
man gave him his dipper and told him to go to the pot and drink some
soup. When my great grandfather went up to the boiling pot he saw
only one tomcod in it. It was already cooked so he dipped some soup
out and drank it. He looked at the pot again
but there was no firewood -- only
lichens for firewood. The soup was warm though and ittasted really good. Then
the young man told my great grandfather to go in a certain direction so that
he would head for
land. When great grandfather got into his kayak the young man told
him, "Now go straight toward the land until you reach your
destination. A long time ago when I was small you used to really care
for me and now I care for you by letting you drink some of my soup.
You might think I'm lying, so paddle for a short distance and then
look back at me." When grandfather left he was relieved from hunger
and felt stronger paddling. Then he looked back as he had been told,
and all he saw was a seagull standing at the edge of the ice making
noise at him, and this made him think to himself: "That seagull is
the young man who let me drink some of his soup and didn't let me
starve. He cared for me out here in the ocean. But when did I care
for him?" He asked himself this, and he finally remembered that when
he was young he had had a pet seagull and never had let him go
hungry, and when the seagull could fly he freed him. That happened a
long time ago when he was young, and he was surprised that his own
pet had appeared to him like this out here in the ocean. Then he
started on his journey again, and after long hours of paddling he
finally reached the land, relieved and glad to be home."
"When hunters were kayaking down on the ocean, especially
in rough seas, they used to wear a wooden visor tied tightly around their
head
and over the hood of their seal gut raincoat. If a large wave covered
the hunter he would have to stay calm and balanced with his kayak
bow-down. His paddle would hold the kayak steady, and coming up out
of the wave the visor (and the raincoat tied tightly around the
kayak's rim) would save the hunter's life because under the visor
there was an air bubble to breathe from. If the wind and seas were
really rough then the hunter would just pull out on an ice floe and
drift.
"These are stories by old men who would tell them in the men's
house ("qaygiq") long ago.
interview by Francis Bell
Don't Be Lazy
"These two parents had been taking care of a certain child
since
it was born. They fed him every day and hunted
for food for him. These two parents took care of him, hoping he'd
help them both the same way they helped him. Then his dad asked him
to watch the older men do things like hunting for seal and walrus,
and fishing. His parents told him not to oversleep in the mornings
because it would make him lazy and a poor
hunter. They taught him to please his parents because they had hunted
and cooked for him. In the same way he then had to start going
hunting and getting greens for them."
"These days young people and even some older people are
lazy and
don't go hunting anymore. They don't cook or help their parents
either. They only do things their own way.
"Getting water and wood is very important for their mother
to be
able to cook and feed the children and their father. Our parents used
to tell us that if we wanted to be like them, then we had to help our
family and not be lazy. In the old days in the steam house the old
people used to tell us if the front porch was filled with snow, even
if it was windy out, we had to clean it out.
If the porch or the trails were dirty the men had to clean them up so
that in the future they could catch more food for their families.
Also, if you had not packed water from the tundra for a long time,
the water hole would say to you, "Boy, it's sure been a long time
since you packed water." And if you drank from the bucket, the water
would not like you and would point a middle finger at you. Also, if a
person had some food left over he would store itin a hole in the ground, and
so if he were hungry in the future, even though the food was not fresh, it would
not make him
ugly or skinny."
interview by Marita Smith
INTRODUCTION
From The
Upward Bound Students
In Memory Of
TOM TOMAGANUK
A
Brief Historical Sketch of
Hooper Bay
Christmastime Tales
Stories real and imaginary about Christmas, Slavik, and the New Year
Winter, 1996 |
Christmastime Tales II
Stories about Christmas, Slavik, and the New Year
Winter, 1998 |
Christmastime Tales III
Stories about Christmas, Slavik, and the New Year
Winter, 2000 |
| Summer Time Tails 1992 |
Summertime Tails II 1993 |
Summertime Tails III |
| Summertime Tails IV Fall, 1995 |
Summertime Tails V Fall, 1996 |
Summertime Tails VI Fall, 1997 |
| Summertime Tails VII Fall, 1999 |
Signs of the Times November 1996 |
Creative Stories From Creative Imaginations |
| Mustang Mind Manglers - Stories of the Far Out,
the Frightening and the Fantastic 1993 |
Yupik Gourmet - A Book of
Recipes |
|
| M&M Monthly |
|
|
| Happy Moose Hunting! September Edition 1997 |
Happy Easter! March/April 1998 |
Merry Christmas December Edition 1997 |
| Happy Valentine’s
Day! February Edition
1998 |
Happy Easter! March/April Edition 2000 |
Happy Thanksgiving Nov. Edition, 1997 |
| Happy Halloween October 1997 Edition |
Edible and Useful Plants of Scammon
Bay |
Edible Plants of Hooper Bay 1981 |
| The Flowers of Scammon Bay Alaska |
Poems of Hooper Bay |
Scammon Bay (Upward Bound Students) |
| Family Trees and the Buzzy Lord |
It takes a Village - A guide for parents May 1997 |
People in Our Community |
| Buildings and Personalities of
Marshall |
Marshall Village PROFILE |
Qigeckalleq Pellullermeng ‘A
Glimpse of the Past’ |
| Raven’s
Stories Spring 1995 |
Bird Stories from Scammon Bay |
The Sea Around Us |
| Ellamyua - The Great Weather - Stories about the
Weather Spring 1996 |
Moose Fire - Stories and Poems about Moose November,
1998 |
Bears Bees and Bald Eagles Winter 1992-1993 |
| Fish Fire and Water - Stories about fish, global warming
and the future November, 1997 |
Wolf Fire - Stories and Poems about Wolves |
Bear Fire - Stories and Poems about Bears Spring,
1992 |
|
