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Publicity
" Lone Eagle Flies Again "
V:
Cathedral
as
reported by Rhonda McBride
Reprint
from KTUU-TV, Anchorage, Alaska 12-99
The
name Kwigillingok means village of no river, yet
it sits on the tundra amid rivers and sloughs. An
old story explains the paradox. A woman dropped
an ivory necklace in a pond; when the pond was drained
to look for the necklace, a spring formed. Now waters
twist their way around the village. Perhaps the
legend speaks to us, in the power each person holds
to shape their world. That's what Bill Wilkinson
is trying to do by reintroducing kayak building
into Yup'ik life.
Cathedral
He
believes he came one step closer this summer after
he put the finishing touches on his traditional
Yup'ik kayak. He named it Cathedral.
"When
you look inside that craft and the light is shining
through it's really, you know, a mystical kind of
experience," Wilkinson says. "Really odd, because
you can think for a moment, 'this is a similar kind
of color and light sensation that earlier people
felt looking inside this boat.'"
Wilkinson
is trying to live up to his native name Meterik,
the Yup'ik word for eagle. He can fly over the water
as he did in recurring childhood dreams. As a child,
the eagle's wings were a way of escape.
"Alcohol
was really devastating to our family," Wilkinson
says. "It caused the break-up of our family and
it ended up putting me into foster homes early on."
Perhaps that's why Wilkinson loves it in Kwigillingok.
There, the whole village is an extended family.
It has traditions he embraces.
The angyaq
This
summer at the village of no river, traditional ways
were reborn. On a sunny day there was the launching
of an angyaq, a traditional craft that looks like
a cross between a big canoe and dinghy. Kwig hasn't
seen this craft in a half century or more, but the
school's summer cultural preservation program helped
push it through. Frank Andrew guided the work, and
applause breaks out as the aged man boards. He's
one of the few elders left who knows how the boats
were made, and he never dreamed this knowledge would
be passed on.
"Here
it is, the 1990s, the year 2000 almost, and we have
an elder in an old traditional boat," says Art Lake,
tribal administrator. "(He's) steering the boat,
leading us on to where we need to go, and that's
how we always wanted ourselves to be viewed: respecting
our elders."
Andrew
has done even more than direct the boatbuilding;
he's also watched over his son-in-law's efforts
to craft a traditional kayak. It was finished just
a few weeks before the Angyaq was launched.
"It's
a really wonderful process in working with the elder,"
says Wilkinson. "It's really quite magical. There's
a zen to it."
Wilkinson's
tried to communicate that zen in his teaching. In
math, he asks students to analyze the accuracy of
the Yup'ik way of using fingers, hands and arms
to measure the parts of the kayak. It's not a traditional
lesson. As students learn about the measurements
they also learn about the ways of their people.
They learn each kayak is a custom fit, making the
boat a true extension of the body. With paddles
outstretched, this man --- Bill Wilkinson, Meterik,
eagle --- flies again.
"Taking
off was a totally different experience," Wilkinson
says of his first trip in Cathedral. "It was exciting,
it was exhilarating, unlike a plastic modern kayak.
You know, the silhouette of the water going through
it and the sound of the water rippling on the side,
and the lightness of it." Wilkinson has paddled
into a rich, ancient world.
"That
traditional boat is so rare," he says. "To feel
and sit in it, and have that connection with that
traditional aspect of antiquity is really a fine
feeling."
Main
Page
Text
adapted from newscasts by Rhonda McBride; photography
on linked subsite by Jeff Walsh.
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