Minuk: Ashes in the Pathway

Trading

After the salmon fishing ends, Minuk’s father and grandfather and uncle load up their canoes and go to Bethel. They meet with the lower-river people who have bags of seal oil and other things to trade. Minuk’s village has furs because they live in the woods, and the lower-river people have sea animals because they live near the ocean. Each needs what the other has, so they’re happy to trade with each other.

Panruk and Minuk are sent to count the furs into bundles. Each bundle of fur is enough for one man’s parka: forty-five ground squirrel skins or thirty-three muskrat skins. Sometimes they have caribou, beaver, and otter skins, too. One bundle of parka furs for a small bag of seal oil, and two bundles and one set of caribou legs for a large bag of seal oil.

Iraluq and Taulan will be going along, as well as Maklak for the first time. Sometimes, Minuk’s father and grandfather come home with the stomach of a whale filled with the oil and blubber of the seal or the white whale. They save that for winter festivals. They also trade for seal skins and walrus skins for boot bottoms. And any furs leftover are taken to the American trading post.

While the men are off trading, the women will do the last of the summer work. They’ll make bundles of dry grass to weave into baskets and socks and mats. They dig up little roots and pick cotton grass for fire-starters. They collect pieces of driftwood for torches and moss for wicks for lamps. They pick Labrador tea leaves as well. Grandma and Mamma and the aunts are always so proud when they fill the cache with the good things for winter. Sometimes, Grandma climbs up and opens the door just to look around, smiling.

When summer jobs are finished, they’ll begin to mend all clothes and sew new ones. Only food is more important than good clothes. Yup’ik children are taught how to take good care of their clothes. They beat the snow and frost off outdoor clothes and dry them on racks near doors. When clothes get wet, they let them freeze, and then beat the frost out of them. Grandma must be shown bloodstains or grease on clothes right away so they can be rubbed out with snow. She always says that dirty clothes don’t keep you warm.

But even with the best care, everyone in the family needs at least two sets of clothes a year—summer clothes and winter clothes. Skins are soaked in urine to get the fat off, and then stretched and scraped and dried and softened by twisting and rubbing. Sinew is prepared and twisted, and needles are made, and knives are sharpened so they can cut the skins. Panruk and Minuk were both given a sewing kit and a woman’s knife, an uluaq, when they were little. Sewing is a very complicated art.

When the men return from trading, Iraluq and Taulan come to their house to tell them about the news from downriver. They say the Yup’ik people from the lower river look different. Their legs are shorter and their faces are broader. They also say that everyone is afraid of the American soldiers. The United States Army has built a fort at St. Michael, and they send soldiers to villages. When the soldiers came to Bethel, the people sent the big boys to hide. They’re all afraid the soldiers will take the big boys into the army.

Minuk wouldn’t want to run and hide. She’d want to see the soldiers. There’s so much of the world she wants to see.