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Publicity
" Lone Eagle Flies Again "
III:
The ways of old
as
reported by Rhonda McBride
Reprint
from KTUU-TV, Anchorage, Alaska 12-99
In
the beginning it just seemed like a boat floating
in the water. But now, as Bill Wilkinson paddles
across the waters of Kwig, he tries to imagine what
it was like to live a hundred years ago, to put
himself in the same frame of mind as early kayakers.
That's why he tries to reproduce them as faithfully
as he can. He can only go so far. Some things have
been lost to the Yup'ik. For instance, it's now
impossible to find the necessary group of women
who would know how to stretch and sew seal skins
making up the kayak's sides.
On
a sunny day in Kwig, Wilkinson's youngest son Ethan
tries out the first Kayak his father ever made.
It's his first time in a traditional craft. The
evening water is calm, but Ethan is nervous. He's
used to easily balanced modern kayaks.
Ethan Wilkinson
"I'll
tip over," the smiling youth groans. After some
time in the craft he says, "My grandfather never
tipped over in his whole life using these."
As
a young Yup'ik, grandfather Frank Andrew had to
master more than balance. When Andrew was Ethan's
age, he learned how to fashion driftwood with a
curved knife. Andrew remembers those days: he says
Yup'iks gathered all their food and no one wore
clothing bought at a store.
"He's
saying we're not true Yup'iks in a sense, even though
we are Yup'iks," Mary Ann Wilkinson translates as
the weathered man speaks. Mary Ann, Andrew's daughter
and Wilkinson's wife, says her father is right.
Even in a traditional village like Kwigillingok
only a few know how to truly subsist. The Wilkinsons
hope that a lost world of heritage can be reached
with the kayak, a craft made almost from the will
of the people.
In
many sections of the Yup'ik kayak, pieces of wood
need to come together. In at least one juncture, elders
would do this buy using their own blood. They would
cut their noses, taking out a few ounces. They then
would allow it to coagulate and congeal, keeping the
wood together.
For
sewing the kayak's sealskin cover, thin strands
of sinew from the back of a beluga whale were collected
and braided. Urine from small boys was especially
prized for preparing the skins for sewing. After
several days of soaking, the urine would generate
ammonia.
"That
would prevent the skins from being very slick and
difficult to work with and sew," Wilkinson says.
"If there's a lot of seal oil on them, they'd be
very slippery."
Witerak
Moss
from the tundra was dried and then crushed, mixed
with seal oil for caulking the kayak's seams. Then
kayakers would search --- hundreds of miles, if
need be --- for a red siltstone rock called witerak.
Crushed into a powder and then rubbed on a kayak's
rib, one ball of the stone is enough to paint an
entire kayak. That was a job for the men.
The
Yup'ik knew the minutiae of kayak-making; they knew
where the "tigigak" was, where sap concentrates
in the wood and makes it easier to bend. Sometimes,
bending the wood required more than arm strength;
it required clamping a piece of wood in the teeth,
tweaking it back and forth with both arms.
"You
slowly work it down," says Wilkinson, demonstrating.
He holds between his teeth an arched piece of wood.
"Your teeth crush the individual layers and hold
them in place."
It's
an apt metaphor, Wilkinson biting off more than
he can chew. After years of lessons, he says he's
only learned a fraction of what his father-in-law
knows.
"He's
like the Internet," Wilkinson says of Andrew. "You
go and start off and you ask a question, and that's
like a window. And every window leads you into other
questions."
Those
windows take Wilkinson down a river less traveled.
He's found that the kayak is not only a vehicle
to the past but also to the future: Wilkinson, a
schoolteacher, uses the kayak to teach his students
subjects like mathematics and water safety.
Next
Text
adapted from newscasts by Rhonda McBride; photography
on linked subsite by Jeff Walsh.
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