Tag: Culture

The Meaning of Family.

~

My family ties got a little broader and tighter this past week.  I got a chance to meet my mother’s sister’s son’s grandchildren.  Our family has relatives far-flung all over these United States.  It was not a conscious decision for my mother’s family to disperse in all directions from the Aleutian Islands.  It was, instead, due to a forced evacuation of all Native peoples from the islands during World War II.  My mother’s older sister Myrtle ended up being sent to her military husband’s family in the deep south.  After the war, they eventually ended up settling in Nevada and raising 3 children.  The kids had several chances to visit as they were growing up and these visits stuck like glue in the mind of the oldest son.  He made several trips as an adult, once with one of his children.  Several other times with his wife.  The time before this trip, to spread some of his mother’s ashes in the family plot, to be reunited with her mother, father, and brothers and sisters who had preceded her in passing.

On one of these trips, he was in Unalaska during the time that our Traditional Knowledge summer camp was taking place.  From that experience sprang the seeds of an idea to have his grandchildren experience their roots and learn about their indigenous culture.

Dennis and his two granddaughters arrived the day before camp began on a day with the fog hanging halfway down the mountains and after having spent two hours in Cold Bay, Alaska waiting for fuel.  They were unfortunate to land in Cold Bay after 2 Japanese military planes had emptied the fuel trucks of all fuel.  Two of his children were to arrive three days later.  His daughter, the mother of the girls, and his son, both of whom had never been here before.  They had the true Aleutian experience of flying to the point of being directly overhead, and turning around to return to Anchorage because they couldn’t find the airport in the fog.  Well….not a true Aleutian experience because they actually made it onto a flight the next day and landed.

Oh the girls had an experience like no other.  The fish – baked, smoked, made into lox.  The octopus.  The fish pie.  The sea lion.  Learning to weave.  Making masks.  Learning some Unangam tunuu, the Aleut language.  Songs and dance.  And the son and daughter?  Hiking some of the trails made by their ancestors some 8,000 years before.  Climbing above the clouds and watching the landscape and village magically appear as the clouds dissolved.

But the real magic was in the sharing of family and history.  Seeing the bonds forged between a great, great aunt and great, great nieces; between great aunts and great niece and great nephew; between cousins and second cousins, and beyond.  The magic of feeling a kinship with virtual strangers.  The real magic was in the wistful expressions on the day of departure.  The strange pulling at the heart strings that the islands give to people who come here with their hearts wide open.  Yes.  And the promise of returning again someday.

Happy International Women’s Day – Celebrate your feminine

Basketwoman by Unangan artist Gert Svarny
Basketwoman by Unangan artist Gert Svarny

In 1910 an International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. Clara Zetkin, leader of the Women’s Office for the Social Democratic Party in Germany, proposed that every year in each country there should be a celebration on the same day – a Women’s Day – to press for their demands.  Thus International Women’s Day was born.

In my strong, matriarchal society of Unangan women in Unalaska, I have had many stellar examples upon which to base my life attitude.  My mother, Gert Svarny, continues the values and ethics that her mother Alice Hope instilled in her.  Even my younger sister and my own daughters have taught me a thing or two about strength and character.  I am lucky to have a public reference about my grandmother to show my children and grandchildren how devoted she was to her community, by the love shown her at her death.  In his book Moments Rightly Placed, author Ray Hudson writes:  Then on the afternoon of December 4, 1966, Alice Hope died in Washington state.  The next day a service for this deeply loved woman was held at Unalaska, and when her body arrived five days later,  Anfesia (Shapsnikoff) assisted Father Ishmael Gromoff in yet another service.  Anfesia stayed all night with her departed friend, in the company of the Hope children and grandchildren and friends, until the service at the church on December 11th.  Anfesia noted in her diary, “had Liturgy with Mrs. Hope’s body; after funeral service walked her up all the way.”  Carrying the coffin the length of the village from the church to the graveyard was an act of uncommon devotion.

Who is the woman, or women, in your life who have guided you on your path?  Gentlemen…this is a question for you also.

Words

Charles Henry Hope writes to his daughter in 1940.

Words can be the most powerful tool that we have at our disposal.  We saw this with great clarity during the last election cycle.  With our instantaneously connected social networks, we saw words used as both a way to lift up our spirits, hopes, and dreams, and in the next instant, as a pointed jousting lance, with the purpose of neatly disposing of an opponent.  I must admit, I’ve done both; but the feeling of content lasts much longer when I’ve used my words in a positive way.

My 83 year old mother recently brought over a copy of a letter that her father had written to one of her older sisters who was away at boarding school.  These words from 73 years ago were precious to my mother, so much so that she sent a copy to each of her four daughters.  She loved the way that her father captured the essence of each of his children in a few succinct words or phrases. It brought back memories of things she had forgotten, or things that were skirting on the edges of her mind; the precious memories of a time before her life was indelibly changed by a forced evacuation during WWII.  But those are words for another story.

I am in awe of my two daughters who have taken their words into song.  They can turn a phrase that will make you think deeply, or in another direction that will absolutely YANK at your heartstrings.  Their words will make you nod in agreement, or sigh with the feelings of love you didn’t know you were harboring.  Alena (Syverson) once wrote a song about the Bosnian conflict called Beautiful Blind Followers.  It was the song that Laresa (Syverson) later sang, noting that it was the song that sparked her interest to write her own songs.  Beautiful blind followers with crowded thoughts and frightened minds – took their chances on twisted lives; wasted their time.  Occupied dead souls keep their silence of thousands, of millions disappearing into the void…

I love that you can put down words, let them sit awhile, and think of better ways of putting them together to better convey what you are thinking or feeling.  My esteemed friend Jerah Chadwick is a wonderful poet, who after living in the Aleutians for 26 years, was well known for the way he integrated local culture and environment into his writing.  In After the Aleut, Jerah turns a phrase that comes back to me time and time again.  Say a woman once stepped from volcano steam, or a man from the sea, desiring to live among us.  I appreciate his ability to take pieces of oral storytelling and integrate those pieces into a contemporary conglomeration of great depth and feeling that speaks to me in ways that it doesn’t speak to other readers.  A true gift.

Words, so personal but so public.  Words, that for good or bad, shape lives.  As I get older I find that I choose my words much more carefully than I used to do.  But once I have chosen those words, I use them with abandon – without fear of outside opinions.  I find as I get older that I prefer listening to words that have been chosen well; those that can bring harmony to conflict.  Those words that give purpose to a life well lived.  Much like when Laresa sings in Light – as the years go rolling by we’ll stand beside this rising tide, we’ll plant our seeds so they won’t die and sail into the afterlife. Where maybe things won’t seem so bad, we won’t regret the lives we’ve had, and maybe that’s where I’ll see you the way I’ve always wanted to.