Ashes in the Pathway

Table of Contents

• Prologue
• Spring 1890
• Butterflies
• The Village
• Mr. Hoff
• Summer
• Trading
• Pockets
• Questions
• Lessons
• Panruk
• School
• Boots
• Speeches
• Miss Oakes
• Helper Jack
• A Time for Drumming
• Miss Danfort
• Mellgar
• Sickness
• Going On
• Then and Now: Yup’ik, Alaska

Prologue

When they are little girls, they are very carefully taught what their responsibilities as Yup’ik women would be when they are grown and have families of their own. When the girls bring food to the men’s house and wait for them to finish eating so they can take dishes away, one of the old men puts a stick across the doorway. That is the signal that they were going to be taught and no one can get up to leave. The girls sit on the floor, their legs stretched out, heads lowered and eyes down, and they listen carefully as the old men tell them about the behavior of good women.

They will be responsible for the food and the family. They have to prepare the food the men brought back, and gather berries and roots, and see it was all stored properly. They must eat very little themselves, and a woman could never eat by herself, save the best pieces for herself, or take food at any time but meals. During hungry times, a good woman has to feed her family before herself.

It is a woman’s job not only to see her family has enough good food, but also to see they have good clothes that are beautifully sewn and well-mended. She has to carefully tend to every skin and fur her husband brings home.

She has to get up early, as soon as she awakes, and must not sleep during the day. A good, modest woman who keeps her family well-clothed and well-fed will be praised in the men’s house, and her children will take care of her when she is old and can’t work anymore.

Minuk listens with her eyes on the floor, her heart nearly jumping out of her chest. She will be a good woman. She will sew so beautifully that people will take notice of her husband and children and will praise her craftsmanship. She will take good care of the food so she will be praised in the men’s house. There will never be too much food for Minuk to preserve, so her husband will never have to take another wife to do any work.

Minuk will be modest, and will follow all the rules for women very carefully so no one will find fault with her. She can hardly wait to grow up and become a woman. But she doesn’t know that being a good woman might mean something entirely different to women in other places. And that it might even mean something different to her when she grows up.