Minuk: Ashes in the Pathway

Helper Jack

Helper Jack is a nice young man who dresses in the Eskimo way. He’s clean and neat and has short hair. After staying in our village a few days, he decides to go on to Kulkaromute to work with the people there. Helper Jack has learned to read and write in Mr. Hoff’s Bethel school, and every day he reads the Bible to himself. The young men of the village are very interested in him, and he visits them each day. They ask him why he’s given up the Yup’ik ways to take on the new ways.

Helper Jack says he no longer believes that shamans do what they say they do. The same as Mr. Hoff believes, Helper Jack now thinks they use trickery to make people believe they’ve been on the moon or have gone to the villages of the animal souls. He says these are fear tactics. Taulan and Iraluq laugh, and ask if he doesn’t think that hell is a story to make people afraid, too. The boys argue back and forth like that all the time that Helper Jack was with them.

Then, Helper Jack goes by dog team to Kulkaromute, and nobody knows if we’ll see him again.

Miss Danfort has a room next to Miss Oakes’ which is used as a clinic. She has a little bed, but nothing to make the room look pretty the way Mrs. Hoff and Miss Oakes do. Minuk sees that all kass’aq women are not the same.

Minuk visits Miss Danfort in her room while she’s putting away medicine. She has so many questions to ask, but the first thing that pops out of her mouth is “Corset?” Minuk points to Miss Danfort’s waist to show she wants to know if she’s wearing one. Miss Danfort says that she’s not wearing a corset. She says it’s not good for one’s health, having the organs pushed around like that. No wonder women have fainting spells and need smelling salts. She’s talking so fast that Minuk can’t understand her at all.

Minuk asks her to slow down. Miss Danfort slowly and loudly explains what fainting spells and smelling salts are to Minuk. Minuk can tell that Miss Danfort, like Grandma, has a lot of opinions.

Miss Danfort comments that Minuk must learn languages very easily. She’s very good at English. Minuk says that English words are very short, and Yup’ik words are very long. Despite that, Miss Danfort and Mr. Hoff both agree that Minuk is very bright and smart. Minuk is very proud of that.

Miss Danfort brought with her a stereoscope. She puts cards of pictures, called stereographs, inside the stereoscope, and when you look through it, the pictures look real, as if one can touch them. They’re not flat like magazines or photographs. Nothing the Hoffs brought has caused as much excitement as the stereoscope and the stereographs. Only one person can look at a time, but all the women in the village crowd into the living room and talk excitedly until it’s their turn. Even the men come, even the ones who seldom leave the men’s house at all. Of course, Minuk’s father and his friends don’t come.

There are stereographs of circuses and zoo animals and historic buildings. Minuk looks at them all, but the one she looks at over and over again shows a big flood called the Johnstown Flood, which happened just a year ago. There were hundreds of people left behind by the floodwaters, and their bodies flung about like driftwood.

Miss Oakes is getting along fine in the classroom. The boys speak enough English by now to understand her simple commands, and although she can’t speak Yup’ik, David translates for her when Mrs. Hoff is busy. Minuk thinks the boys like Miss Oakes’ teaching better than Mr. Hoffs’. Miss Oakes is jolly, and she laughs a lot more.

At home, Mamma is making new clothes for Minuk to wear for winter celebrations. She can hardly wait to wear them. On these clothes, Mamma has tried to add something new to her parka. She likes to try different patterns and designs. She puts together the two colors of the muskrat and the caribou. They look like layers in the sky when the sun is setting. Tassels of wolverine tails hang down the back and shoulders of the parka. The cuffs of the parka sleeves are trimmed with wolverine fur. Minuk’s new parka shows what a good hunter her father is; it shows off her mother’s sewing skills, too. In Yup’ik beliefs, all of the animals will be brought to the hunter whose wife is a good sewer. They want to be used by a sewer that is skillful, not one who will do a bad job with their skins.