Minuk: Ashes in the Pathway

The Village

In other years, the first thing Panruk and Minuk did when they got back from spring camp was to get their dolls out and repair their clothes. But this year, they’d almost forgotten about their dolls. So, after they tell Momma and Grandma and the aunts about the Hoffs, they take their dolls out of the fish-skin bags where they’d spent the fall and winter. They’re like little dear friends they’d not seen for a long time. Minuk thinks it must be hard to be a grown-up and not play.

Their grandfather had carved their dolls from driftwood. Minuk’s has tiny lines for tattoos on the chin and little black eyes with a straight mouth. She can tell the doll is a good woman. They’re not allowed to play with their dolls in the winter. People believe if girls play with their dolls before spring, the weather would punish them. Winter would come again before spring even begins.

Mamma and the aunts had helped the girls sew tiny boots and mittens and caribou pants and beautiful parkas. Last year, Minuk made a qaspeq, a parka cover, for her doll out of red calico cloth. Panruk can sew even better than Minuk, and she made a fish-skin parka for her doll. Minuk isn’t good enough at sewing yet to use fish skin, which is delicate.

Grandma also made them tiny dishes of clay and little vole-skin blankets and rabbit-fur robes. Everything they have for their dolls is so little and perfect that their world became real to the girls.

Because Maklak is a boy, he doesn’t get to play with dolls, but he likes to sit near to them and play with the little sled and dogs their uncle carved for him.

In their village, there’s five women’s houses and one men’s house. A woman’s house is called an ena, and is built partially underground. The houses look like beaver houses, with the wood framework covered in grass and sod. The small passageway that leads into the house is where they cook. Then, there’s one short step that leads into the big room. They put it one step higher so the cold doesn’t come in. In the summer, they use an entrance on the side of the house. The big room has a firepit, and above that is the seal-gut window that they open to let out smoke. They have a seal-oil lamp made of clay, and to use it, they set fire to a piece of oil-soaked moss in the lamp.

Their house isn’t very big compared to other houses. Uliggaq’s house has ten women, and Cakayak’s house has fifteen.

The men’s house is called the qasgiq. It’s much bigger than the women’s houses because it holds all of the village men. When visitors come to the village, the men will stay there, too. Sometimes, everyone from two villages—men, women, and children—crowd into the house for festivities and ceremonies. There are three tiers of wide benches all around the inside.

The village is very proud of their men’s house because it’s the biggest one along the whole Kuskokwim River. They say the benches were very old, and were brought from another men’s house along the Yukon River. Their men defeated another village in a war, and so they brought the benches home to remember their victory. Their men dance that story at every big festival in the men’s house, and the war cries are so fierce and terrible that the children hide their faces.

Each man has his own place in the house. The oldest nearest to the door, and the youngest under the benches. There’s a wooden floor in the qasgiq, even over the firepit. When it’s time to light a fire, the men remove the boards, and when there’s a dance, they put the floorboards back.

In the men’s house, the men make sleds and carve wooden trays, bowls, and boat paddles. They make snowshoes, tools, and weapons, and tan the big skins the women can’t handle. Maklak will go live there starting next year.

The women cook for the men in their enas and take the food to the men’s house in wooden trays and bowls. Panruk and Minuk usually bring the food because Mamma and the aunts are always busy. They sit on the floor, with their heads down, and wait for the men to finish before taking the bowls away. If the girls look really quickly when they walk into the men’s house, they can sometimes see what the men are doing, but that’s the only chance they get. They’re to keep their eyes down at all times and not look at any men or boys. Minuk wants to look out of the corners of her eyes, but she’s afraid she’d disgrace herself.

Every day, the men make a sweat bath in the qasgiq. First, they make a fire in the firepit, and then they take off the smoke-hole cover so the sparks that fly up don’t damage the house. After the thick smoke is gone, the men take their clothes off. Each man has a little bundle of spruce shavings to bite on because the air is so hot and dry, it’d singe their lungs if they didn’t filter it. Sweat pours down the men’s bodies, and their skin turns bright pink.

There are a lot of things boys can do that girls can’t that Minuk is jealous of, but not the sweat bath. Minuk never wanted to bake herself each day like that.

The night after Panruk and Minuk go to the kass’aq house, Iraluq and Taulan come to their ena to tell them what happened in the qasgiq that day. Mr. Hoff, the missionary, had gone for the first time to the men’s house to speak with them. Some of the men didn’t think the missionary should be there, and they thought what he said was foolish. Mr. Hoff says his religion has a god who was the boss of everything and loves everyone. Mr. Hoff told the men the Yup’ik were heathens who don’t believe what Mr. Hoff believes. Heathens can’t go to heaven. And if the Yup’ik don’t go to heaven, they’ll go to hell, where people are roasted in a fire that lasts forever.

Minuk sucks in her breath when Taulan says this. She looks hard to see if Taulan is joking, but he isn’t. Taulan continues that Mr. Hoff says he’s come to teach them about his religion so they won’t be heathens anymore. The men in the qasgiq interrupted Mr. Hoff, saying they already have a good place to go after they die, so why do they need Mr. Hoff’s heaven? If there’s a god in charge of the world, why do bad things happen?

After Mr. Hoff left, the old men instructed everyone to be courteous to Mr. Hoff. He should be treated politely. They don’t need to believe what he says or follow his rules, but they must be polite. They said Mr. Hoff has already proved that he’s hardworking, and he’s willing to help others. He learned their language, and they must remember that their Yup’ik ways are strange to him as well.

Minuk tells Taulan and Iraluq what they saw in the log house. When she tells them about Mrs. Hoff’s corsets, they laugh so hard that Grandma has to frown at them to keep them quiet.