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Yup'ik Raven This collection of student work is from Frank Keim's classes. He wants to share these works for others to use as an example of culturally-based curriculum and documentation. These documents have been OCR-scanned and are available for educational use only.


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Elder's Page


Howling Wolves

In the late 1930's Vernon Evan's uncle told him to go out and get meat every other day. The first two times he went out he didn't see anything, but the third time he went out he saw two big black wolves. He went up close to them and they were just watching him. At that time he had never seen a wolf before in his whole life and he thought they were dogs. Even though he tried calling the wolves they would just turn and walk away from him.

When he got to Don Hunter's camp he asked if his dogs were tied up. Don said his dogs were tied up, and Vernon told him he had seen some wolves. So that night Vernon told Don he was not going to go home till morning and he stayed at Don's camp for one night.

Around midnight Vernon heard the wolves howling from all directions. The wolves would take turns howling from one direction at a time. That was when the reindeer was killed. If the wolves stopped howling that meant the wolves caught a reindeer or something they found to eat.

When Vernon got back home he told his uncle that he could not make it earlier because he had seen a couple of wolves. And he was afraid that the wolves would get him.

The old people said they used to hear wolves howl from the north side of the camp or from other directions too, and they said the wolves would get closer and closer till they finally got something to eat.


By Vernon Evan

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