SUICIDE: CONTINUED

There have been a string of deaths in the region lately, which takes it’s toll on community members. Living in small communities means that everyone is affected when a loved one dies. There was one tragic death - a suicide - that broke the hearts of many. A young Kotzebue man, a friend and relative, killed himself in October. Everyone, including myself, was shocked that this gentle, kind, funny man would do that. When things like this happens, you ask yourself, “What were the warning signs? What did we miss? How could we have helped?”

It’s heartbreaking when our people decide to take their lives, especially when help is available. When individuals take their own lives, some community members start pointing fingers, they start looking for someone to blame, a scapegoat. I think that blaming others is destructive to the community. It creates discord and resentment and doesn’t get to the heart of the matter.

Rather than looking for someone to blame, we should take a more constructive approach. We can begin to ask ourselves:

• Why do our people, especially our young people, lack the healthy coping skills needed in order to survive?
• What are the specific stressors that plague our communities and how can we teach our people to deal with these stressors in healthy ways?
• When did suicide become an acceptable “solution” to dealing with life’s problems? Why do our people even consider this as a solution to our problems?
• What are we going to do to prevent this from occurring with future generations? How are we going to address it?

It’s so hard when a loved one succumbs to this but it must be said: when a family member commits suicide, he or she made that choice. Their partners, family members, and friends did not force them to do it. Blaming someone will not bring that person back and it certainly doesn’t help ease the pain. I think it just creates more anger and hatred.

What’s really hard is when you see a loved one struggle and you can see them heading down that path. You recognize the warning signs and so you offer help, support and encouragement. But sometimes they don’t want help from others. What do you do in this situation? How can you help someone who won’t help themselves? Times like this I get discouraged and start to feel helpless.

I don’t think that there is one immediate, final solution to the problem. We must begin when our children are babies and let them know that they are secure and safe in our love and comfort. We must teach them healthy coping skills as children because life is hard and we need all the help we can get. We must encourage our people to make healthy, positive choices rather than turning to substances and alcohol. We must have effective crisis intervention programs that deal with the immediate situation as well as provide support long after the crisis has passed.

I recently came across a Facebook page called "I sing. You dance." (https://www.facebook.com/I.Sing.You.Dance). A young man from Toksook Bay, Byron Nicholai, created the page, which has nearly 9,600 likes. He is a Yup'ik singer and dancer whose first language is Yup'ik. On singing he wrote, "When I make my videos I just press record then sing what's on my mind. That's how I make the songs. I just start singing." Visit his page and you will just how talented he is.

Seeing young Indigenous people, like Byron Nicholai, who know and live their traditions, fills my heart with pride and hope. There is hope and we must keep on truckin'! 

We can look to our traditions - our language, our dances and songs, our hunting and fishing - everything -  to build strong, unshakeable identities that can withstand the troubles of life. Our ancestors survived for thousands of years in the harsh Arctic climate and we can draw on our traditions to deal with modern issues. We just have to be creative and proactive.

2013 QATNUT DANCERS

I’ve been re-watching my videos of the 2013 Qatnut (trade fair) dance performances recently. For those who may not know, the trade fair was historically held at camp Sisaulik, when people from different communities gathered to trade, dance, and participate in traditional events and competitions such as the blanket toss, kayak races, food eating contests. The tradition continues today as there is dancing, fashion shows and crafts.

2013 Qatnut at Kotzebue: all-dancers circle.

Anyways,  I love to watch Inupiaq dancers perform. The beat of the drum gives me goosebumps and I love how the dances tell stories. If I weren’t too self-conscious I would learn. As a child I remember that Inupiaq dancing was discouraged, at least in my family it was. According to the missionaries, Inupiaq dancing was considered “evil,” thus forbidding us to dance. I remember when we had “Inupiaq days” at school we would learn various aspects of Inupiaq culture - the language, dancing, crafts, etc. A teacher would come and show us dance moves, during which time I would sit out and watch. I really wanted to join but not wanting to displease my aana, I watched from the back of the classroom.

Traditional dancing is making a comeback as it is now viewed as a reflection of the culture, rather than as “evil” practices. It is an expression of Inupiaq culture, a chance for community members to gather and celebrate. At Qatnut performers from different communities traveled to Kotzebue to dance. There were our Russian neighbors (Siberian Yupik), dancers from Point Hope, Kivalina, Kotzebue, Noatak, Wainwright and Barrow. Our Russian neighbors caused quite a commotion with their arrival, with people often asking “Did you see the Russians?” There were fantastic dancers and their array of dances included a "Brother and Sister" dance that made the audience chuckle, as the dancers reversed roles, the woman dancing as the brother and the man as the sister. The movements were comical and exaggerated.

I enjoyed watching the Kivalina dancers as well and thought that they were good performers. Their male dancers were tall and athletic, a reflection of how active they are and the traditional food they eat. I think that the more remote the village, the better the dancers. Barrow stood out in that their dancers were young - an adolescent boy who won the male youth contest and two tiny, perhaps 4 years and younger, boy and girl dancers. The younger dancers often looked to the older dancers for guidance and the ladies in the audience moaned sighs of affection as the little dancers performed.

The strongest performers hailed from Wainwright - the Utuqqagmiut dancers. The Utuqqagmiut dancers were actually invited to and performed at the 57th Presidential Inauguration Parade in Jan. 2013 in the nation’s capital. At Qatnut, they were exceptional performers, especially their female dancers. They wore matching dancing regalia - black atikluqs and pants with multicolored lining, mukluks and gloves. The women dancers were mesmerizing as they danced in sync, their movements controlled and deliberate. Their feet were planted firmly to the ground, their knees bent lower than most women dancers. The most talented dancers danced in near-perfect rhythm with the drumbeat. What’s more - they weren’t flashy or trying to show off. As my friend remarked, “their strength comes from within.”

Usually in any dance group you can tell which dancers are the most talented but it seemed that most of the women dancers were strong performers. In fact, I would argue that they were better dancers than the men. I enjoyed all of their dances but one of my favorite dances was the whaling dance. Three men and one woman performed, the dance starting out somewhat slow and calm, as most dances do. Then, as the drumbeat quickened and the singers sang louder, the dancers began to “chase” the whale in their boat. In this dance, the performers moved as if they were really giving chase. You could feel the energy of the crowd as people cheered while the dancers pursued the imaginary whale. The dance was so good that the dancers performed an encore.

It was especially touching to see the elders dance at the end of the performances. Wainwright's elders, for example, danced for us, each dancer flaunting his or her own style. The audience cheered loudly and applauded their performances. My heart swells with pride and respect to see our elders dance.

I'm trying to upload some of my videos but it takes forever! I will keep trying and I would like to include more photos. Stay tuned.

THE ULU: A SYMBOL OF INUPIAQ WOMANHOOD

In my opinion, there are three things that represent Inupiaq womanhood: an ulu, seal oil, and sourdough. An ulu is a woman's knife that is usually made with a handle (wooden or ivory) and a blade (saw blade typically). Back in the day women often used ulus made of stone.  I say it is a woman's knife because that is exactly what it is: a knife that is used almost exclusively by women. You probably wouldn't see a man using an ulu as he would use a regular knife and if he were using an ulu, it might seem a bit unusual and silly. Perhaps this is an indicator of the traditional gendered roles in Inupiaq culture, I don't know.

Anyway, women use their ulus to cut up ugruk, fish, muktuk, caribou, moose, vegetables, etc etc etc. These handy instruments can cut up most things and are often a superior choice to knives. Wanna cut up some quaq (frozen meat/fish)? Grab an ulu. Need to cut vegetables? Cut up an entire ugruk? Cut up some muktuk? Use your ulu.

My tiny ulu: a symbol of my early childhood and time spent in Kivalina.

Both my aana (maternal grandmother) and aaqa (paternal grandmother) have a collection of ulus, some right handed, some left handed, some big ones, some designed to fit smaller hands. At fish camp we would use ulus to clean up the ugruk meat and cut fish. A skilled woman could even use the ulu blade to scale fish (we used knives). While working my aana would bring out her box of ulus and rotate them, using one ulu until the blade became dull with use, switching it out to another ulu, and so on, until all the ulus needed sharpening. I prefer smaller ulus as they are easier to use, especially for an unskilled user.

My aaqa's ulu: a symbol of Inupiaq womanhood.

My aaqa gave me tiny ulu as a child and I've kept it all these years. To me, it is a symbol of affection and love and the time I spent in Kivalina in my early childhood. During my recent trip to Kivalina, I acquired one of my most prized possessions: my aaqa's first ulu. My aapa (paternal grandfather) told me that when she first got it the blade was huge. After years of use and sharpening the blade has become a lot smaller. The wooden handle is smooth and knicked, the blade oxidized and discolored. I love it.

My aaqa is a hardworking, loving, kind, gentle and resilient woman. These are known facts. She's also funny as heck and always finds humor in even the most difficult situations. My aana is also a strong, hardworking, generous and meticulous. And so you can see why an ulu represents the finer aspects of Inupiaq womanhood.

Ulus also represent tradition and knowledge. I aspire to be like my aana and aaqa. One of my goals, as an Inupiaq woman, is to become a skilled ulu user.

AFTER 25+ YEARS, I GO BACK HOME

Aerial view of Kivalina. A bit hard to see but you get the idea.

I just returned from a week-long trip to Kivalina, Alaska. My dad is from Kivalina and all of my paternal relatives live there. Kivalina is a tiny village located approx 80 miles north of Kotzebue. In the summer you can travel between Kivalina and Kotzebue via boat and in the winter, some travel by snowmachine. Otherwise, you can fly with local airlines such as Bering Air or Ravn. There are roughly 400 residents in this whaling community. Kivalina still lacks running water (although most people have Dish network) and very few people have cars - most have four-wheelers and/or snowmachines. A lot of the people, including my grandparents, carry on our Inupiaq traditions and continue to whale, hunt and fish. I would argue that they must to rely on our traditions, considering that jobs are scarce and store-bought food is limited in choice and very expensive. 

Whale bones of the whale my aapa caught in the 90s.

As a very young child I would often travel to Kivalina to spend time with my relatives. I have a few memories of it, most of which revolve around my grandparent’s house, playing in the sand and the beach and playing with my cousin Eric, who was more like a brother to me. Last September was my first time visiting Kivalina in approx 27 years. This year was my second visit.

Initially I felt apprehensive about going back because I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t seen some of my relatives since I had stopped visiting some 25+ years ago and I was nervous to see them again. I worried that I would be uncomfortable and homesick. I worried that I wouldn’t belong; that I would feel like an outsider, a stranger. I had grown up mostly in the city and felt that I would be different from everybody.

In reality, I did experience a lot of these things. I often felt like a stranger because I had forgotten what town had looked like. I had very little recollection of the people who lived there. I felt lost among my numerous family members, especially my cousins, because I couldn’t remember their names and had only met them once or twice before. The thought of reconnecting with relatives and rebuilding our relationships seemed daunting and overwhelming.

Playing a game, something like "Traffic Jam"

And yet, despite all my apprehensions and reservations, I am happy that I went back. The people are very warm and welcoming and friendly. People I barely know come up to me and hug me and say “Welcome.” The children are very curious and ask a lot of questions: “What’s your name? Where are you from? Who is your mom/sister etc etc etc?” And they remember, even a year later.

My first day back I attended church, namely the Episcopal church. My family in Kotzebue has a tradition of attending the Friends Church but my aaqa is a member of the Episcopal church. I remember going to church with her as a child and feeling nostalgic, I wanted to go again.

The wanted to show me their human pyramid

I am used to the anonymity of living in the city and so I believed, erroneously, that I wouldn’t be recognized. Church members recognized me and one other visitor and as per custom, they went up and sang a song for its visitors. One lady welcomed me and called me - guess what - “Iglaaq.” I immediately thought of my blog after she said that and in a way, it pleased me. The way she said it made me feel welcomed and acknowledged.

I have learned that Kivalina people are wonderful singers and I enjoy listening to and singing with them. They sang an old song, “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder,” accompanied by their guitarists. I thoroughly enjoyed their performance and at the end, the musicians stopped playing and the group sang in Inupiaq, their voices filling the church. It gave me goosebumps and I felt proud at that moment. Proud to have been acknowledged, proud that they would perform for us, and proud because I come from that community.

And so I see a transition in the meaning of my blog from - traveler, stranger - to guest. But not just a guest, a welcomed guest. My experiences going back home have been fresh in my mind and I cannot wait to return. It’s funny how things having a way of coming full circle; at least, that’s how I see it. I always knew that I would return back home but I didn’t know how or when. I also didn’t anticipate it being so rewarding.

COLONIZATION: PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED

I mentioned before that colonization and decolonization go hand in hand. They do, and the relationship between the two is quite complex. I'm a little bit stoked because in the following posts I'm going to get into some of the good stuff! In the various books we read there were often two characters, if you will, that portray the relationships that occur as a result of colonization: 

Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist born in Martinique, discusses two "protagonists": the colonist and the colonized, the outsider and the indigenous populations ("the others") (Wretched of the Earth, 1961).

Albert Memmi, a French writer born in Tunisia, discusses the colonizer and the colonized (The Colonizer and and Colonized, 1965).

Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator, discusses the oppressor and the oppressed (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968).

Edward Said, a Palestinian literary theorist born in Jerusalem, discusses the Occident and the Orient; the West and the East; the European and "the Other" (Orientalism, 1978).

You can also add the civilized and the uncivilized; the European and the savage; the American and the native.

What comes to mind when you look at these words? When I see these words I think of power: the power one holds over the other. That much is evident. But it is a lot more complex than that. There are also the notions of human and less human; to humanize and dehumanize; to lose or regain one's humanity; humanization and dehumanization. When we examine more closely Paulo Freire's concepts, there are also notions of exploitation, domination and transformation.

Freire, in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, defines oppression as "any situation in which 'A' objectively exploits 'B' or hinders his pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person..." (40).  He also states that when the oppressor dehumanizes the oppressed, the oppressor also becomes dehumanized (42). Ahhhh...so the act of oppression dehumanizes both the oppressor and the oppressed. 

Freire continues by stating that for the oppressors,  the concept of "human beings" only applies to themselves; other people are not human but are "things" instead. He also adds that for the oppressor, humanity itself is just a thing and the oppressors possess it as their exclusive right (45).  And for the oppressors, there exists only one right: for the oppressors to live in peace (43). 

Freire brings up another aspect of colonization, that of exploitation. Freire states that the oppressor wishes to transform everything in its surroundings into an object of domination. This includes the earth, property, production, and humans themselves (p. 44). I know that there are often confrontations between Alaska Native hunters and government employees over hunting and fishing rights. I once had a conversation with a man from Kivalina who expressed this very idea of exploitation. He had had a confrontation with a government employee, probably a National Parks Service officer of some sort, who had told him that he could not be out hunting, to which he replied: "You want to control everything. You want to control the land, the animals, the ocean, everything. What's next? Do you want to control the air too?" 

Voila. Exploitation in a nutshell.  

I find it interesting that Freire uses "transform" in both a negative and positive light - that the oppressors wish to transform their surroundings via domination and that the oppressed must transform their reality (via praxis, but I'll get into that later). Freire's ideas provide a nice introduction to some of the underlying concepts of colonization, something I wanted to explore before I got into some of the other works! 

COLONIZATION: CONTINUED

In Thursday’s post I shared an experience in which a white male told me that American/Western/white culture were superior to Native cultures. American culture brought Western medicine and Western education and Native people should embrace American culture. In short, he was racist and made several racist statements that reminded me of the historical notion of the “uncivilized” or “savage” Natives. 

Alaska Natives, like many many other Indigenous groups worldwide, were considered “uncivilized” or “savages.” To be “civilized” meant to relinquish tribal affiliations and assimilate into mainstream American society. This meant that Indigenous people were to be re-named, "educated," and Christianized, among other things. You can see what Smith meant when she wrote that colonization brought “disorder” to Indigenous peoples’ worlds; how it fragmented our realities.

Some missionaries renamed several families in our region. My family surnames are Knox and Greene. Other common names to this day are “Washington,” “Lincoln,” "Cleveland," (presidential names...?) “Black,” “Brown,” etc. Though we still give Inupiaq names to our children, most of us have English first names.  My grandparents speak Inupiaq as their first language but most of the younger generations are English-only. Why? I’m sure that the fact that my aana was punished in school for speaking Inupiaq played a key role in that. The missionaries must have scared the heck out of our elders because in my family, we were not allowed to Inupiaq dance because the missionaries had deemed it “evil.”

In elementary school in Kotzebue, we had something akin to “Inupiaq week.” An Inupiaq teacher would come and teach us Inupiaq words. We also had Inupiaq dancers who would teach us dances - the teacher would stand in front of the class and show us the movements to various dances. I wanted to join so badly but I remember not participating because I knew that it would displease my aana. I wanted to learn but I didn’t want to go against her wishes. So I sat in the back and watched. 

Our languages, our names, our ways of being, all disordered.

COLONIZATION, IN A NUTSHELL

I'd like to elaborate on the process of colonization a bit. If you're unfamiliar with the notion of colonization as I understand it, perhaps you would think that the standard definition of "colonization" would be something like, "to establish a colony in" or "to send a group of settlers to another place to establish political control over it." You wouldn't be wrong. But these are rather vague and general definitions and I am thinking of something that isn't so innocent.

I can give you historical accounts of colonization but I'd rather not at this point. Instead, I will share something else. I once had a conversation with a fellow Alaskan that was so unpleasant, uncomfortable and upsetting that if I had to tell you what colonization meant to me in a nutshell, it would be this. This fellow Alaskan, a white male approximately 30 years old, said to me point blank that "white" ways (and he used "white," "American" and "Western" interchangeably) were literally much better than Native ways. The examples he gave?

1) Farming
2) Western Medicine
3) Education (including written form)
4) Western art, such as the Mona Lisa and Beethoven and Mozart, were much better than any Native art he had ever seen
5) Native people aren't as smart as Americans
6) Native people are too angry with Americans/Westerners, and cry too much of being exploited: "waa waa waa exploitation" (his words verbatim)
7) His ancestors, (i.e. farmers) were much smarter than any Native hunter/fisher/whaler
8) Native culture isn't going to survive because of "survival of the fittest"
9) Western culture is better because it brought astronomy, physics, mathematics, etc
10) Native people should embrace American culture because it is inevitable that American culture is going to win
11) Native people aren't "Native enough" because we use guns, motorized boats, and snowmachines (all introduced by white Americans)
12) Native people will eventually die out because there aren't any more "pure bloods"

YIKES. So you can see why it was such an upsetting experience! But look at this way, his attitudes and beliefs are colonization in a nutshell. I couldn't have defined it better myself.  Every point he made, every statement, are reflections of the attitudes and beliefs that many white Americans/Westerners/colonizers held, and continue to hold, about Indigenous people. These are the attitudes and beliefs that influenced and shaped policies and institutions and ideologies that so negatively affected Indigenous people worldwide. And they continue to affect Indigenous people.

And honestly, where do you even begin with this guy? Do you even bother trying to have a dialogue with him? Goodness knows, I tried. I have encountered these attitudes both formally and informally and it is an ongoing battle but I will say that I never experienced such a blatant onslaught of racist statements all at once. I was shaken up by it and it bothered me for days. But this is evidence that attitudes like these persist and that is still a battle. Some believe that colonization, colonialism, imperialism, what-have-you, is over and done with but I disagree. Statements like these only prove my point.