Unheard voices
Marjorie Nash speaks about what it is like to live partly in the traditional Native world and partly in the Modern world.
By Geoff Bederson
For years I have wondered about the guests who stay at our Inn in midtown Anchorage. They pass through our doors and sleep on our beds. We exchange money, and sometimes talk with each other about our lives; and then we move on. What if we were living in a world where strangers formed deeper relationships: sharing our true identities, and binding together our fates?
I am Anunnayauq. That is my Eskimo name. I was born and raised in Kotzebue, but I live in Noatak. There are eleven villages around Kotzebue. Noatak is about 70 miles inland above Kotzebue. The Eskimo name for Noatak is Napaaqtugmiut, ‘people who live in the trees.’ There are about 450 of us.
In May my parents, brothers and sisters and I leave everything in Noatak, and migrate to our summer camp in Shesalik. We shut off our electricity, and put everything on our two boats. We have two cabins in Shesalik.
During the summer we continue going up inland, where the caribou are. We go walrus hunting, beluga hunting. We use harpoons for the beluga and bearded seal. After you shoot it with a gun, you try to harpoon it. We take it apart on the ice, and cut it up with an ulu.
We still use a well for our water. We have a freezer in the ground, for our oil and meat. You can go across the bay to Kotzebue to wash clothes, take a shower. It’s just 30 minutes away.
There’s only about six families that still do this. The remaining families stay in Noatak. We make our own seal oil and beef jerky for the whole winter, and we give some to the elders.
There were about 160 tents in Shesalik in the 1880’s. My family has been doing this every year since then. When I was young my Dad took us back to Noatak in September to go to school. Now I go back in order to work.
Humanity News: What is it like to live in the traditional way? Do you feel like you have any connection to your ancestors?
Hunting and gathering brings the whole family together. It also connects us to the rest of the people, who can’t make it and stay back in Noatak. There’s a complete sereneness, peace, calmness. It is wonderful to see the peace and joy in the faces of your family.
During the last fifty years the parents haven’t really talked to their children in Eskimo, so there’s a gap there. We still sing the old songs, the Eskimo singing. You are called by your Eskimo name. You’re named after your grandma. The eating of the food also ties us together: Seal oil, bowhead whale, caribou.
What is it like to have one foot in the modern world and one foot in the traditional world, and how do you combine these?
We prepare during the Winter, and we live off of the land the rest of the year. You sacrifice your time, in order to keep your values and the traditions of your parents and grandparents.
The Winter is a preparation, when you have to leave your family. We work for Red Dog, or at Prudhoe, or for the airlines. We do this in order to get the boat, the motor, the gas, the guns, the building materials.
I work from Kotzebue to Nome to Barrow. Since 1988 I’ve worked for the airlines as a customer service agent, doing all the ticketing. When I’m working in the cities there’s a big gap. But by keeping in touch with your brothers and sisters and parents, and hearing about the fishing and hunting, you can visualize what they’re doing and that feels good.
How do you feel about living in the modern world? Does it appeal to you?
It works both ways. It’s much easier, it’s much warmer in the cities. There is much more going on. There’s just so much more. People to meet, diversity, activity. People from Asia, Mexico. There is too much activity. It opens your mind and expands it. You can do so much more. But you have to work harder to do it.
Yes, there is something good about it. You have to accept who you are and modernize yourself. If you want to become a writer, teacher, professor, you have to work hard at it.
There’s a lot about both worlds that I enjoy. It’s about respecting yourself, where you came from. When we go back to our home, it is so much more free. Own town is so small in comparison. You change your clothes in the same day, put on your hunting stuff. I can see what they’re doing, eat what they’re eating, hunt like them. The only problem is the language barrier. Or you get back on the jet, and everything changes again. It’s a great contrast.
Is there something about the modern world that bothers you? Is there a change that you’d like to see?
There are so many Native groups in Alaska, but we are disconnected. At the airport there should be more signs in our languages. On the telephone there should be greetings in our language.
We’re so independent in our own villages. There are a lot of elders and students that come here, but don’t know what to do when they’re here. They don’t accept themselves. That’s why there is so much drinking. There are many Asian markets, but there is no one big Native store. There are no Native restaurants. It’s too hard to buy and sell our food. The same goes for selling ivory.
There is no education about this. There’s no guidance, and we’re too afraid to ask. There is not enough acceptance. We’re thinking that we don’t need their kind of living, and they don’t know our kind of living. There should be more interaction.
Marjorie Nash has two children. She is in Point Hope for the ‘Nalukatuq’ whaling festival June 12, 13 & 14. (They got 6 whales this year.)
