In 1940s Nome, Alaska, a little Eskimo boy ran from his side
of the segregated school playground to no-man’s land in the middle and pointed
and yelled to a little white boy of about his age on the other side, “Aziuqpaqtutin!” (You’re a bad boy).
In return,
the little white boy looked at him and yelled, “Ilvituaq.” (You too).
Sixty years
later found me standing in the kitchen of a house in Unalakleet.
“You’re not a bad guy for a white man,”
rolled off of the elder woman’s lips with a smile as she looked up at me.
Growing up
in rural northern Michigan, moving to Alaska, and falling in love with an
Inupiaq woman left me in pretty alien territory.
Before my
mind could stop my tongue, “You’re not a bad lady for an Eskimo woman,” rolled
off my lips with a smile and we both laughed warmly together.
And so was
the first meeting with the mom of my then girlfriend.
The
daughter and I became closer and so there were many more meetings in the same
kitchen. Her mom and I became closer
too.
“I almost
married a white, army man once,” she revealed.
“My mom told me that she wanted to be able to talk with my husband in
her language and so I should not marry him.
He was very sad when he went away,” she ended quietly. “I married a
Siberian Yupik, and he couldn’t speak the same language anyway,” she smiled
remembering.
“Ellen,” I
said, “I would like to marry your daughter.”
“That would
be okay.”
“I
understand in your husband’s culture the young man is supposed to work for his
wife’s mother and father for a year,” I said.
“When we
got married,” she answered, “Howard did not work for me since that was not my
family’s way. Since I was a cheap bride,
Myra will be too.”
“May I
marry your daughter,” I asked to be sure of her answer.
“Just don’t
move my daughter too far away from me.”
Present day
and there is a little Ellen running around the living room as Grandma Ellen
tells her stories, “I don’t know about the little Eskimo boy, but last I knew,
the little white boy was still living in Nome.
His wife has died, but he is still there,” Ellen recounts.
Segregation was still the way of
the land in Alaska in the 1940s. Ellen,
who lived it refers to it as “the racist times.” Her cousin Maggie had been on the playground
on that day and saw the interaction.
“There was
a half-breed woman and an army guy who went to the theater. He didn’t know, but they were sitting in the
white section,” Ellen continues on the same theme. “They kicked them out.”
“Menadelook
tried to help during those days,” she emphasizes since names have meanings and
she gave a lot of thought to it before naming me after this man, her uncle. “He built schools, he was a teacher, he
helped people.”
Oral tradition
is cyclical and stories are repeated many times to assure they are told
correctly, and so Ellen returns to the story she started with.
“Aziuqpaqtutin!: You’re a bad boy,” Ellen repeats. “Ilvituaq: You too… the little Eskimo boy
wasn’t expecting that,” she smiles.
And, I write it down so that, though some cycles should come to an end, this story will continue and the story cycle will go on.
 |
| Ellen and Ellen |
No comments:
Post a Comment