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Canku Ota

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(Many Paths)

An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America

 

August 9, 2003 - Issue 93

 
 

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Point Hope: Celebrating the gift of whales
Part II
I

 
 
by Diana Haecker - Nome Nugget
 
 

credits:

photo 1: DRUMS SOUNDS ACROSS THE TUNDRA — As part of the rituals during a whaling feast, the Tikigaq traditional singers brought out their drums and accompanied the blanket toss with special songs. After three days, the Oagruk came to an end with blanket toss ceremonies and Eskimo dancing.;

photo 2: THANKING, SHARING, GRIEVING—Whaling captains Vera Frankson (left), Rex and Ramona Rock share muktuk with the village and put up a memorial picture of Josie Frankson. ;

photo 3: FRIENDLY FACES—Esther and Raymond Stone were superb tour guides through Pt. Hope.;

photo 4: GIGANTIC COFFEE POTS—Jenna Lane saw to it that the pots were always filled with fresh coffee or tea. The task of the younger girls was to do the rounds and bring hot drinks to the elders. They also served the women cutting the meat, bringing sodas and oranges. The cook-out was like a perfectly synchronized orchestra, directed by Emily Lane and every woman knew exactly what to do. ;

photo 5: CUTTING MUKTUK—Whaling captain Darold Frankson cuts the whale's flippers in thin slices, about two fingers wide, for the give-away.;

photo 6: FLYING RUFFS—A young mother tossing fur into the crowd - only elderly ladies were allowed to catch the goodies.;

photo 7: WOMEN AT WORK—Out on the tundra, the women set up wood stoves, cut meat all morning and cooked all day, while the men hung out at their side of the Qalqi. ;

photo 8: COOKING ALL DAY—Erma Hunnicutt and Rosella Stone cooked the meat on open fire stoves.;

photo 9: ALL SMILES—The elder Daisy from Kotzebue savors the fresh mikigaq and muktuk.;

photo 10: DANCING ON THE TUNDRA— Dorcus Rock rocks on.

All Photos by Diana Haecker

 
DRUMS SOUNDS ACROSS THE TUNDRA — As part of the rituals during a whaling feast, the Tikigaq traditional singers brought out their drums and accompanied the blanket toss with special songs. After three days, the Oagruk came to an end with blanket toss ceremonies and Eskimo dancing.
DRUMS SOUNDS ACROSS THE TUNDRA — As part of the rituals during a whaling feast, the Tikigaq traditional singers brought out their drums and accompanied the blanket toss with special songs. After three days, the Oagruk came to an end with blanket toss ceremonies and Eskimo dancing.
THANKING, SHARING, GRIEVING—Whaling captains Vera Frankson (left), Rex and Ramona Rock share muktuk with the village and put up a memorial picture of Josie Frankson.
THANKING, SHARING, GRIEVING—Whaling captains Vera Frankson (left), Rex and Ramona Rock share muktuk with the village and put up a memorial picture of Josie Frankson.
FRIENDLY FACES—Esther and Raymond Stone were superb tour guides through Pt. Hope.
FRIENDLY FACES—Esther and Raymond Stone were superb tour guides through Pt. Hope.
GIGANTIC COFFEE POTS—Jenna Lane saw to it that the pots were always filled with fresh coffee or tea. The task of the younger girls was to do the rounds and bring hot drinks to the elders. They also served the women cutting the meat, bringing sodas and oranges. The cook-out was like a perfectly synchronized orchestra, directed by Emily Lane and every woman knew exactly what to do.
GIGANTIC COFFEE POTS—Jenna Lane saw to it that the pots were always filled with fresh coffee or tea. The task of the younger girls was to do the rounds and bring hot drinks to the elders. They also served the women cutting the meat, bringing sodas and oranges. The cook-out was like a perfectly synchronized orchestra, directed by Emily Lane and every woman knew exactly what to do.

At midnight, the sun is burning in my face. Insomnia sets in. When the sun rose May 25 it will not set until July 20 here in Point Hope. On this second day/night of the whaling feast or Qagruk, the wind has shifted and blows mildly from the south.

This is summer, 150 miles above the Arctic Circle. In the middle of the bright night, children ride their bikes in shorts and t-shirts on the roads. Curiously they stop and ask, "What's your name?" tagging along for a short while before running into friends and taking off again.

There are a few suspicious looks, but most of the villagers driving by on 4-wheelers wave a friendly greeting. With an annual precipitation of only 10 inches, dust has many forms here. Long, brownish clouds trail every vehicle like a flowing scarf, visible for miles. Wind gusts kick up what resembles miniature tornadoes, chasing a whirling, spinning vortex of dirt ahead of them like an invisible broom sweeping over the few paved roads.

Fifteen miles long, the sandy finger of Point Hope peninsula is pointing into the Chukchi Sea, creating the perfect launching pad for hunters in umiaq boats hunting for whales, walrus and seals. The surrounding land is flat and vast; the mountains in the distance are like a gigantic garden fence, separating the remote settlement from the rest of the world. Although planes arrive daily with mail and passengers, and satellite phone and TV connect Point Hope to the outside, it feels very, very isolated.

The first thing people of Tikigaq will tell a visitor is that this sandspit has been recognized as the oldest, continuously inhabited community in all of North America.

Some of the earliest residents came to the peninsula for bowhead whaling some 2,000 years ago after crossing the Siberian land bridge. Because of constant surge-floods, the old village of sod houses framed by whalebones moved in the 1970s from their old townsite on the northwestern tip of the peninsula to the current location and into western-style houses with power, central heating and running water.

Seen from above, it looks like a giant had played with Lego building blocks, arranging identical houses neatly in a square and symmetric fashion. Huge oil and water tanks are at the periphery, in the middle a large geodesic dome looking like a gigantic golf ball functions as city hall. The post office is brand new, the school building gets a make-over this summer and in between houses a curious sight: the wreck of a jumbo jet airplane. Somebody had remodeled the airplane and turned it into a bar and pool parlor. But that was a long time ago. Now it just sits there, a dinosaur among houses.

The village boasts a 'hotel' called Whaler's Inn — basically a container with plumbing — and a restaurant serving pizza, hamburgers and chow mein run by a Korean couple. The village store down the road is well stocked with everything from imported Nutella breadspread to hip Gap Jeans; fairly fresh looking vegetables to microwave TV dinners; tanned fox, wolf and wolverine hides to prepaid phone cards.

In the hallway hangs the announcement that the City of Point Hope will be closed for the Qagruk whaling feast and congratulates whaling captains Joe and Vera Frankson, Rex and Ramona Rock, Eunice Lane, Darold and Esther Frankson on their successful hunting this spring.

Last year, the ice was bad, instead of open leads, the peninsula was closed in by soft ice pushing against the beach, making a safe passage impossible. No whale was caught last spring and the spirit of the people was down. "It was like a dark cloud hanging over the whole village," says Mayor Martin Oktollik

Yes, the store has food, but the dependency on whale meat, blubber and oil is more than just ensuring physical well being. In a world of change, people look for signs of constancy, for a few things that won't change and that provide a sense of orientation in our fragile human existence. Some things remain constant. The position of the North Star won't change in our lifetime. The whales will always pass by Point Hope. And whaling will continue. The Qagruk is a collective ritual celebrating the identity of a people, reinforcing their beliefs and reminding everybody from toddler to ancient elder that "We're still here, we know who we are and we will survive no matter what."\

The second day of the whaling feast started with a gathering of both clans at the westside Qalqi, Eunice Lane's and Darold Frankson's whaling crews brought in their whales's flippers to be cut on plywood boards on the ground.

The crew's men, dressed in corduroy parkas with fancy embroidery and magnificent ruffs, cut the flippers into slices two-fingers wide and then give the muktuk out to the assembled community, huddled against the windbreakers.

After the obligatory blessing and prayer, the whaling captains stood in front of the crowd, calling out names of their relatives, first other whaling captains and people of honor, then city officials and representatives of the Native corporation to come and get their share. "Uma, relative, come!" sounded across the camp on the tundra. Visitors from other villages also were called and handed a few slices of the precious muktuk.

The crew's women dug elbow-deep into wooden barrels with mikigaq or fermented whale meat, to pass out more meat. Being the only meat that ferments itself, mikigaq takes 8 to 10 days to ferment and needs to be turned over every 12 hours. It is dark red, has a soft consistency and a sweet taste that makes the palates tingle and fills the stomach with a warm feeling. Hours passed until muktuk, mikigaq and Eskimo ice-cream (caribou fat mixed with berries) were given out. Sitting there on the tundra in their most festive outfits, people of all ages munched on the delicacies, sipped on cans of soda pop and what they couldn't eat disappeared in Ziploc bags, Tupperware containers and coolers.

The same procedure was repeated at the other campsite of whaling Captain Joe Frankson and Rex Rock Sr.

After feasting, a blanket toss started. In this ritual the whalers are tossed high up into the air to cleanse themselves of the oil and blood from killing and butchering the whales, shaking off the impurities of bloodshed.

CUTTING MUKTUK—Whaling captain Darold Frankson cuts the whale's flippers in thin slices, about two fingers wide, for the give-away.
CUTTING MUKTUK—Whaling captain Darold Frankson cuts the whale's flippers in thin slices, about two fingers wide, for the give-away.
FLYING RUFFS—A young mother tossing fur into the crowd - only elderly ladies were allowed to catch the goodies.
FLYING RUFFS—A young mother tossing fur into the crowd - only elderly ladies were allowed to catch the goodies.
WOMEN AT WORK—Out on the tundra, the women set up wood stoves, cut meat all morning and cooked all day, while the men hung out at their side of the Qalqi.
WOMEN AT WORK—Out on the tundra, the women set up wood stoves, cut meat all morning and cooked all day, while the men hung out at their side of the Qalqi.
COOKING ALL DAY—Erma Hunnicutt and Rosella Stone cooked the meat on open fire stoves.
COOKING ALL DAY—Erma Hunnicutt and Rosella Stone cooked the meat on open fire stoves.
ALL SMILES—The elder Daisy from Kotzebue savors the fresh mikigaq and muktuk.
ALL SMILES—The elder Daisy from Kotzebue savors the fresh mikigaq and muktuk.
DANCING ON THE TUNDRA— Dorcus Rock rocks on.
DANCING ON THE TUNDRA— Dorcus Rock rocks on.

Also, mothers that gave birth to sons in the past year, do the blanket toss. They get on the ugruk skins that used to cover the umiaqs and as they are flung into the air, they throw candies, material, blankets and even furs. Only elderly ladies are allowed to catch the goodies. A group of them, some barely able to walk, scrambled for the gifts, laughing and giggling like young teenagers. The young women do this peculiar sort of give-aways so that their boys will become successful hunters to provide for the families and the community.

How it started? Even the elders don't know. "It' the tradition," says Erma Hunnicutt that "has been around forever. When I was young, I jumped, too."

At the same time as Point Hope celebrated the whaling feast, the International Whaling Commission assembled for their annual meeting half a world away in Berlin, Germany. The IWC is an international body of about 50 member nations, and imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986.

The IWC allows an exception for subsistence catches of whales for indigenous peoples in places including Greenland, Siberia and Alaska.

In June 2002, the IWC voted against the renewal of quotas that allow native subsistence hunting of bowhead whales. That fall, the body reversed its decision and approved a five-year extension of subsistence whaling. This summer, pro-whaling countries like Japan and Norway clashed again with the anti-whaling majority of countries over setting up a conservation committee within the IWC.

The so-called 'Berlin Initiative' went through despite Japan's threat to walk out, fearing that the initiative would shift the focus of the IWC on merely safeguarding whales from it's original purpose of regulating catches.

"Save the whales" became a favorite slogan among environmentalists, and emotions run high when it comes to whaling - on both sides.

Mayor Martin Oktollik remembered the time when Greenpeace came to Point Hope in the '70s trying to stop their whaling. "They saw how we do things here, how we share and in the end they helped us butcher the whale and all. We've been hunting whales for thousands of years and we haven't depleted the neither the whale population, nor the bearded seal population, nor the ducks or seals or walrus. We never took more than we needed. And we don't sell it. There's not enough money in the world to buy just one piece of mikigaq or muktuk. If you want to buy our meat, nobody will sell it. But if you ask, we're more than happy to give it away. It's not for sale."

It sounds like paradise with neighbors caring for each other and a whole village sharing the bounty of the sea, but Point Hope has its problems, too. Drugs and alcohol somehow make it to the supposedly dry city. The youth have no place to go and hang out. In the week before the whaling feast, two separate four-wheeler accidents claimed the life of a young girl and injured two others. There is a high unemployment rate and it is common that those with jobs give money to their unemployed grown-up children. Life for the younger generation is a balancing act between Inupiaq tradition and western progress.

Says Ramona Rock of her four children between age 9 and 23, "We want them to succeed in both worlds." Oktollik echoes the sentiment, seeing the solution in the combination of school education, outside experience and a deeply rooted cultural identity.

Feasts such as the Qagruk helps to instill the sense of who they are and where they belong. Especially on the third day the spirit of working together, of functioning as one unit becomes clear as the feast culminates with a big cookout. Starting at 5 a.m., the men set up the windbreakers, separating the women's side from the men's side. Women fire up woodstoves, cut beluga tails, white fish, ducks, geese and whale intestines. The women's camp looks like one big slaughter fest as the men hang out at their campsite, talking, smoking and waiting for food.

Eunice Lane, the widow of a whaling captain explains that when her husband died, her seven sons went hunting for her and she inherited the title of whaling captain. Asked about the strict separation of men and women, she says, "Today, we feed them. That's the law. Men hunt all year to get the meat and today is the day for them to relax and eat."

Another lady jokes: "We don't want them in the kitchen anyway." Emily Lane, Eunices' daughter, is like a commander-in-chief of cooking. Yelling directions, cutting with mighty musclepower through tough bones and frozen fish and keeping an eye on at least ten cooking pots at the same time. Her tied-up, long hair falls in her face, hands and clothes are all bloody. She runs from one cooking pot to the next, directing the young girls to go around and pass out more coffee or tea to the older ladies sitting on ground.

Suddenly a flock of cranes fly in formation above the camp — women look up from their cutting chores, their cooking pots and all go, "Wuuuyuup, wuuuyuup," imitating the sound of the cranes. Laughingly they back to work. Sometimes men come and visit, a few women go over to the men's camp and bring food. After a few hours, the mountains of birds, fish, beluga flukes, whale insides, walrus meat are all cut up and stew in huge pots. All of the food is cooked today. Again, everybody shows up with Ziploc bags, Tupperware containers, coffee cup, coolers, and ulus. Young men and women hold foot races, the blanket toss is repeated. The whaling crews do a few Eskimo dances to the sound of the drums.

At night the feast concludes with Eskimo dancing in the geodesic dome, City Hall. Joe Frankson thanked the hunters for providing food to the village, " All you young men, all you young hunters, thank you. You did it for your people and the other villages. That's your ministry, you did a very good thing."

The whole village piled into the dome, Eskimo dancing went on until midnight. And again, before going home, everybody busts out Ziploc bags and the last of the muktuk is brought into the dome and distributed. The feast is over. Revving engines of 4-wheelers, tires kicking up the dust as the villagers scatter in all four directions and go home.

About 1/5th of the whale meat has been cooked and was distributed to the villagers and visitors alike. The remainder of the whales rests in meat caches in the permafrost at the old townsite. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, more whale meat will be shared. When the first slush ice comes in, spotters will run to the whaling captains' houses, announcing the new ice. That's the time when the whale's tail gets pulled out of the water, cut up and shared. It's the tradition, don't ask why.

Point Hope is the oldest constantly inhabited community in North America - what does that mean? "Do you know why?" asks Mayor Oktollik rhetorically back. "Whaling is the reason for that. As long as the whales come by, we will be here." He pauses for a while, looks out his window. Emily and Lilliann, his two 9- and 12-year-old grand-daughters are still playing outside. It's 1:30 a.m. and it is as light as mid-day. "They say, the land we live in is harsh. But, by God, it provides for us and we survive," he finally says.
The End


A special Thank you to Martin and Carrie Oktollik for their generous hospitality and for sharing a wealth of information that made the writing of the series possible.

Point Hope, AK Map

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