Some Videos

For the past few weeks, I have been up to my eyeballs in school projects. I'm "attending" University of Alaska full-time through online classes. I am determined to finally get my bachelor's degree. (Right now, I feel like a high school dropout in a family of overachievers.) I am taking a couple of writing classes, a Communications class, and an Alaska class. They are all a lot of fun—but the Alaska class is especially cool. It's one of the classes that all teachers new to the state are required to take. I am learning all sorts of cool stuff. Some of the assignments I've done have been a little weird—but they have been fun too. And I thought I'd share some of the Alaska stuff.

I have some links to some short videos I did (from a few seconds to 5 minutes long). But they are fun, and give more of a picture of life here. Some are informative, some are cool, and one is funny. (Just copy the address and paste it in the address bar.)

In Alaska we have what we call Spring Breakup. It has nothing to do with school—and everything to do with ice. It is where the ice in the rivers breaks up and starts to flow out to the ocean. That is part of the reason why it floods here every spring. The ice flows down the river and gets jammed up like a dam—plus you have the melting coming from upriver and the rain. For my Alaska class, we were to gather pictures of Spring Breakup in our area. The instructor posted a video that showed ice melting and little buds starting. He obviously lives in the southern part of the state. Living just below the Arctic Circle, mine was a little different. For a piece on our spring weather, go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0LnDzFmcXE

If you would like a glimpse into tribal superstition, go to:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Whats-Your-Era/215920648422737?ref=ts#!/video/video.php?v=10150528828505034

To see a video on our homemade rabbit traps that we actually use:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Whats-Your-Era/215920648422737?ref=ts#!/video/video.php?v=10150524147900034

Every summer, local families who live by subsistence (eating off the land rather than having a job) move to fish camps where they work hard all summer. For information on fish camps go to:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Whats-Your-Era/215920648422737?ref=ts#!/video/video.php?v=10150462794040034

We have a video showing a rabbit Taco caught. It is only a few seconds long because I ran out of memory, but note--this is a real bunny. And it is dead—and frozen. So it’s not for everyone. To see it:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Whats-Your-Era/215920648422737?ref=ts#!/video/video.php?v=10150524253560034

And that's about it for now.

A Genealogy Nightmare

The area we live in is a genealogy nightmare. By area, I mean the Yup’ik tribal lands, which are roughly the size of Texas. There are several reasons for these convoluted pedigree charts, and they are all deeply rooted in culture and tradition.

First of all, it is customary—and expected—that a girl will give her first child to her parents. This tradition began long ago when it made semi-sense. That child’s job in life was to be there to take care of the grandparents in their old age, so that when they were too old to gather wood or hunt and fish, there was someone to do it for them. Basically, the kid was doomed to a life of servitude. But the tradition continues today.

As for the girl who gave up her baby, the attitude seems to be a shrug of the shoulders, and “That’s just the way things are.” And girls are rarely married for their first couple of kids, so that usually isn’t an issue.

But this tradition has created an interesting kind of lifestyle. Now, you have some old lady with five or six teenage grandkids lounging around the house—or more likely exploding through the house—and the kids are in control. Although, the more kids the grandparent has in the house, the more money she gets from the government. So I guess they could claim that the kids still take care of their grandparents.

Keri dealt with one old lady here who has several teenage grandchildren living with her—and these kids don’t believe in attending school. Keri went to their house to talk to the grandmother. He went through the entire list of grandkids, and talked about each of their strengths and potential. Then he said, “They could all go on to college, but they need to graduate high school first. And in order to graduate, they have to attend.”

She looked at him like he was daft. “Why do I want them to go to college?” she said. “Then they will just leave and I will have no one to take care of me.” Interesting.

For the genealogists out there, here is part one of the nightmare. When a girl turns over her first baby, the adoption is rarely made legal. It is called a tribal adoption, meaning it is something that is just understood. The grandparent raises the child—unless the grandparent dies or decides they don’t want to any more—then the child gets passed onto someone else. The poor kid bounces around like a pinball. So if you wanted to know who the kid belongs to, you might get several different answers. There is the natural mother (who may not even know what town the child lives in), the “adoptive” mother (who has no actual legal claim and may or may not be caring for the child), and the person who happens to be taking care of the kid at the moment.

But for a REAL mind boggler, try following their tribal families. A friend who works for the state was telling me about a frustration she has to sort through. When an individual dies, especially a prominent person or a family member, then the next baby to be born is often named after that individual. That way, the person can live on. I know that is not an uncommon thing—but here is the kicker. That child then takes on the identity of the dead person. They step into their place in life. So the dead guy’s family has a claim on the baby, and vice versa. And the dead guy’s relatives become the baby’s relatives, in the same relationship as if the baby were the dead guy. Confused yet? Just wait.

There is a kid here in the village who was named after his dead uncle. So that means that all of his siblings and cousins are actually considered to be his nieces and nephews—including his own twin brother. Seriously. And that is how they introduce each other. It’s enough to give you a headache just trying to keep everyone straight. So this kid belongs to his own family (mother and father), but he also belongs to his extended family. He is considered to be his aunt’s brother. In fact, he would be his dad’s brother too. Talk about an identity crisis!

Yup, genealogy gets very convoluted here.

But I can think of one benefit to this mixed up existence. With so many people involved and families being so complicated, there would always be somebody else to point a finger at. As a mom, I was more than happy to lay claim on our kids when they were cute and adorable. But the day they did something stupid like egg a car out of the school bus window, or get hauled home by the cops for water ballooning, they suddenly became my husband’s responsibility. It was somehow his fault that our kids had done something dumb. Wouldn’t it be great to have an entire village to blame!

Zombie Fish

I’m sure you will all be happy to know that zombie fish are alive and well here in the village of Alakanuk. Actually, throughout the Yukon River and beyond.

Yes, it is true. They are known as blackfish. But the truly strange thing is that people catch and eat these mystical monsters. In fact, I hear they are quite tasty. The problem, as with any supernatural fiend, is how to get it to the state of being dead. You see, these fish can live quite well out of water. True. Apparently, they have the benefit of both lungs and gills. And after being frozen, they come back to life when thawed. Also true. If cats have nine lives, how many do blackfish have?

The boys made blackfish traps in Yup’ik class. The picture is of Taco with his trap. It works like this: You set the trap in the river, fixing it in place (I’m not sure how), and just leave it there. The fish come swimming along, and they follow the wooden “funnel” right into the trap, where they swim around, unable to figure a way out. (They are mystical—not smart.) Sometime later, you return and pick up your trap, which is full of fish. They are rather small, only about 6 – 8 inches long, so the trap can hold a lot of fish. Then you eat them—assuming you can get them dead first.

The Yup’ik class is going to take a field trip where they set out their traps, and see how many fish they can catch.

Their Yup’ik teacher said that one time, he was in a hurry, so he took the blackfish he’d caught and just threw them in the freezer all together. A couple of months later, he took the solid block of frozen fish out and plopped them in a pot of water to thaw them and then cook them. When he came back a little bit later, there were a bunch of fish flopping around on the floor. They had come back to life and flopped their way right out of the pot. Kind of creepy, if you ask me.

While I realize that this makes them perfect for the frozen north (they can survive the winters because when the rivers freeze, they are still alive come spring), it makes me a little wary of making a meal of them. This breath-out-of-water and come-alive-again fish is just a little too weird for my liking. Maybe a wooden stake through the heart might do the trick. Works for vampires. A box of toothpicks should do nicely.

Potlatch

In February, we went to a Potlatch in the village. It’s a night of native dancing. Kind of like a Hawaiian luau, but indoors and without the food. The thing ran two nights, and each night was about 8 hours long. It went from 6:00 in the evening until about 2:00 the following morning. We left about 11:00 both nights. (I know—pathetic; we just couldn’t stick it out.) It was actually pretty fun—especially since we know so many of the people who were performing.

People come from neighboring villages, and it's a big party. Each village holds two Potlatches every winter. They don’t have any after the thaw, because it is a busy time until the next freeze. During the summer and autumn, they are fishing (they actually go to fish camps where they stay and catch fish and prepare the meat, etc.), they are hunting and preparing meat and skins, and they are gather berries. So they don’t have time for celebrations. Besides—during the winter, it is much easier to travel to other villages for the Potlatches because the rivers are frozen over, and they can use snow machines to get around. And the Potlatches help break up the monotony of the long winter. They practice for several weeks beforehand. Just a couple of weeks after the one in February, they began practicing for the next one.

It's a big deal when a child performs at their first Potlatch. It's like a debutante dance, or a Spanish quinceaῆera, except it's for boys and girls. The child and his/her parents make special matching costumes, and they have special dances that they do together. The family brings a LOT of gifts for people who come. It is a very expensive event. At the one that we went to, I was given some warm knit gloves and a cool crocheted potholder. Keri was given a hat with ear pieces and some socks. Taco was given candy. And we were given sodas and cups of water. You multiply that by 200 to 300 people, and that is a lot of gifts being handed out. There were also some very expensive gifts that were given to the elders—like tools, torches, spears, stuff for ice fishing, etc.

After the child’s first Potlatch, when they have been presented to the village, then they are able to dance in any Potlatch. It was fun to watch our friends and their children.

The dancers move their body and use a handheld feather thing. Drummers chant and beat a type of drum made of a covering over a giant wooden ring. Each dance is quite short, usually only lasting a couple of minutes but the dancers repeat the dance as long as someone in the audience yells “more” or “again” in Yup’ik. (I can’t remember the words.) Most of the time, they are up there doing the same dance for about 20 minutes or so, but on some of the dances, the dancers repeated it for over 45 minutes. They looked exhausted.

The pictures show: part of the parking lot at the Potlatch (nothing but ATVs and snow machines). In the group shot, it shows my friend Stephanie and her daughter (in dark purple, and Stephanie wears glasses and has her hair piled on top of her head); her husband is kneeling on the ground with their son (also in purple, and her husband has glasses). It is their son and daughter’s first Potlatch. The other group picture shows Stephanie and her daughter (both in pink) dancing the second night.

I took some videos of it, because Stephanie’s camera broke and they didn’t have any pictures of their kids’ first Potlatch. That would be like not getting pictures of a high school graduation. But it was too big to e-mail, so I put it on YouTube. If you want to see some, just pull up YouTube.com. Then put AlaskaGirl8 in the search bar at the top, and it will bring up my Potlatch videos. There are seven of them, and they are all short.