I live in a house that belonged to my husband’s grandfather. The kitchen window overlooks the south shore of Lake Aleknagik. My husband remembers when the caribou – tuntu – heard would cross the lake by the hundreds. His A’pa (grandfather) would tell him: “Get out there, Sonny. Get us two of them.” My husband would do as his A’pa said and get him tuntu. He would go around and share with people. He sends our kids to bring food to people just like he was instructed, but my kids have never butchered tuntu. I have never seen tuntu on the lake in the 5 winters we have lived here.
The water freezes later than it used to. It feels like qassaq people chased the animals away by offending them with the noisy lodge planes and the lack of respect for yupiaq proprietary customs. Aleknagik Lake and Wood River have spirits. I didn’t learn to listen well enough to see them until I was in my mid-30s. It is like when you can feel a bear nearby – you have an instinct you can’t help but respect.
That feeling is an example of our relationship with natural laws. You may not recognize when you have caused harm, but the spirits in the land and water always do and they provide a consequence anyway. I can feel the emptiness when the lake is frozen and the animals should pass through, but they don’t.
Now, the tribes in western Bristol Bay get a handful of permits from the State of Alaska and they choose the hunters that will go out. If they catch, they portion out the meat to households in the community so that everyone gets a taste.
Tuntu fur is hollow and light. It can keep a person warm, even if they fall in water. We used to make caribou everyday clothing for our warriors because it would keep them alive.
Once there was a contest for young men. They had to cross a river and go through a certain area, then the one who got back first would be the winner. Before the race, one of the young men listened to his grandfather who told him to wear his caribou clothes when he crossed the river – not to take them off – so that he wouldn’t freeze. On the day of the race, the other young men froze to death before they could finish the contest because they were trying to be proud instead of practical. Every single one of our stories is about listening and following natural laws.
I wonder if the real reason tuntu is disappearing is that our warrior training – our birthright – got stolen from many of us in boarding schools. When we become disenfranchised from our ways of knowing, the languages that tie us to our land, the land struggles to recognize us. Some elders tell us that our ways of knowing have Qavarni – gone to sleep. The only way forward is to listen.