Wisdom Keeper (7 page)

Other times I would go to the shoreline to wander through the intertidal zone, exploring the myriad of living things I came across—the green spindly sea urchins that we called “aagonin,” kelp, snails we called “chimkaiyoon,” starfish, tiny rockfish we called “kundoolin,” sea anemones, the occasional octopus, and sand fleas we called “kootmies.” Unangan had words for every creature around.

I walked inland over grass-covered basalt boulders to sit atop the highest hills on the island. From this vantage point I could see most of the island and surrounding Bering Sea. The island is only twelve miles long and five miles wide at its widest point. Occasionally, hundreds of reindeer would pass below, grunting as they moved with incredible ease over the rocky hummocks. In the early evening I noted how the clouds descended, first only over two hills that later I came to know as the masculine and feminine aspects of this ethereal island, then later the rest of the hills. The masculine aspect is known as Bogoslov. This Russian name means “the voice of God.” Bogoslov is a dormant volcano that
prominently extends its rocky form upward in the center of the island. The feminine aspect is called Polovina, which means “halfway” in Russian. Its emerald-colored grassy profile appears like a pregnant woman with rounded breasts.

Beginning at age six, I began walking the three miles outside the village at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning to get to the many seabird nesting sites on cliffs sprinkled around the island shoreline. I wanted to get to these cliffs before sunrise when, by the thousands, the seabirds would stir and begin their circular flight in front of the cliffs.

I came to love the soup of smells along the island shoreline and the wonder and mystery of all this life that, intuitively, I knew was somehow beautifully and seamlessly intertwined. I floated with it, losing all sense of separation to the point that I could not tell where I began and where it ended. This experience was so profoundly familiar, like the place I found when I was sick and unconscious with pneumonia.

The deep connection to nature I had discovered would sustain me through the many trials and tribulations that lay ahead.

Later in my life I thought about what oppression does to people. I can only imagine what horrors my people faced, which then developed into a legacy of spiritual sickness and internalized oppression. We still have some stories of those times.

In the early 1990s, as part of a Discovery Channel–sponsored sea expedition to explore old Unangan settlements, I visited the island of the Unangan “Masada,” the place of the last stand between the Unangan and the Russian fur traders led by Soliev as described in
Chapter Two.
I was probably the first Unangan who dared go back to this place since that atrocity happened. On our team, we had a forensic anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institute (Bruno Frohlich), a geologist who had been specializing in Aleutian geology for twenty years, and a museum curator. We found that the island had settlements just about everywhere we looked. I sang an old Unangan song as we approached the site of the massacre and asked the film crew not to film the island from a distance, only close up. I didn't want treasure hunters to know its location.

I separated from the group and followed two eagles, my “guides,” to one end of the island while the group went to where the atrocities took place. I knew these two eagles. Every island we went to these two eagles would be there. And I knew there was some reason for this, so I followed the direction of their flight until I was at the cliff next to the sea. I felt strongly that I should sing an Unangan song in this place, and I drummed and cried. Inexplicably, a voice of one of my ancestors came into my head saying, “We are still here waiting. We are here to remind our people that they have not grieved the pain, suffering, and death that happened here and everywhere on these islands because they
have forgotten.” I was stunned to actually hear my ancestor. I had heard of people who experienced such things, but I had not paid that much attention to such stories. Now I experienced it. It struck me right in my heart. I knew that this message was absolutely right.

When people experience trauma, it is important to grieve in order to let go. Since that horrific day the Russian fur traders arrived to this place, however, my people have not grieved. I knew why. The survivors forced into slavery took on behaviors that led to depression, addictions, suicides, domestic violence, and murders—behaviors that deepened the traumas. They became parents and passed along these behaviors to their children, and these children became adults and had their own children. This intergenerational trauma compounds the sickness resulting from living with a colonial oppressor at the hands of the Russian fur traders and then the U.S. government. We suffer from this today not because the oppressor is physically present with us but because we internalized the oppressor so that we think we are no longer real human beings. I can't learn, I am stupid, I am less than a white person. Everything that the original oppressors used to say about us we now say to ourselves; we have become our worst enemies.

To reverse the internal dialogue and related external actions, we must first grieve. Grieving is an individual process and may take a long time. Fortunately, grief counselors and the Alaska Native Medical Center are available to help, and we must take advantage of such support.

Once we have managed to grieve, we must become aware of how our losses resulted in the decisions we made in our lifetime. Once that is done, we must be big enough to forgive ourselves. Unless and until we forgive ourselves, we cannot forgive anyone else. It is only then that we begin to understand forgiveness of and compassion for others: our parents, our ancestors, the Russian fur traders, the U.S. government.

Without grieving, we will continue to carry anger and rage toward ourselves first, then others. When we carry anger or rage, we contribute to destroying our people and ourselves. It is the cause of violence toward ourselves and others. It is the cause of wars between peoples.

Once we separate from our hearts, it is easy to separate from others,
including Mother Earth. The Elders say that “nothing is created outside until it is created inside first.”

“The doctor is going to operate on all the boys who are nine years old!” Buxaa exclaimed, in a state of high anxiety.

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“My daddy told me that the doctor is going to cut all the nine-year-old boys! You know, down there!”

“What does that mean?” I asked, not knowing anything about circumcision at the time.

“My daddy said that the doctor will have to cut our skin around our poonies (Unangan Tunuu for penis) so we can stay clean, and we all have to go—you, me, Junior—everybody that is nine years old!”

“I don't want to go!” I said, scared and defiant. I didn't trust the doctor. Not after what I went through with the double pneumonia when I was six. And the thought of being cut horrified me as I knew that the doctor wouldn't use any painkillers. I only found out later that such patients were put to sleep with ether, a primitive “knock-out” gas applied with medical gauze to the nose and mouth. The dosage and duration a patient received depended on the doctor's experience and personal judgment, however. Too much and we could die; too little and we would regain consciousness during the operation.

In those days, the doctor's orders carried the same weight as orders from the government agent. Everybody followed those orders, lest they suffer the repercussions—demerits reflected in the already meager pay the men received, assignment to a lower-paying or less “prestigious” job (such as working on the garbage truck or “road gang”), jail, loss of home, or deportation (for the greatest offenders). But I had the inspiration of people like my uncle, Eddie (aka Iliodor), challenger of the federal government when he was the tribal chairman and launched the
1951 claim accusing the U.S. government of failure to treat Unangan fairly and honorably. I was adamant that the doctor would not touch me, no matter what!

When I arrived home, my parents already had the order from the government doctor to take me to the hospital for the surgery. “I am not going!” I screamed, half crying and half angry. “I don't care what you do; I'm
not
going! I'll run away if you try to make me go, and I will never come back!” I proclaimed in a hysterical voice.

“Okay, okay,” my father said, in a voice of real concern. “We won't make you go, but the doctor will have to come and get you if you don't go,” he said.

“Let him; I don't care!” I cried out, tears streaming from my face, realizing that my parents were not going to protect me from this horror. I knew they were forced to obey the government, just like everyone else in the village, lest our entire family suffer the consequences.

My mother and father talked in Unangan Tunuu. My father was telling my mother to go to the clinic to tell the doctor that I refused to have the surgery. My mother dressed in her finest.

For whatever reason, whenever Unangan people went to talk with one of the white overseers, they dressed up. In retrospect, I think our people were shamed by government agents and other white people terming us as “filthy” people, and dressing in Sunday's finest was intended to show the agent that we were not filthy at all. Most of the women in my mother's generation still keep their homes immaculately clean as a matter of habit due to all the years that the government doctor, wearing a white smock and carrying a clipboard, would inspect our homes weekly for cleanliness and sanitation. If something did not meet the doctor's standards, the “man of the house” was given demerits that would affect food rations or his job performance rating and ultimately pay. I remember how my mother would wash and wax the floors until they were spotless, wash the windows, clean all the cupboards, carefully fold and put clothes away, and wash every pot, pan, and cup in the house before the government doctor would come.

The government agent, likewise, ran the community like a military
camp, insisting on “order and cleanliness” in everything. The government-owned concrete houses, sitting in neat rows, were repainted every year white with green trim. The roads, built from red volcanic material called scoria, were frequently graded; the “road gang” would walk behind the grader, picking up loose rocks and pitching them off the road until it was relatively smooth. There was no junk machinery anywhere in the village; the government owned all the vehicles and machines in what was essentially a government-run company town. Unangan men maintained the machinery; women were expected to stay at the house, cook, take care of the family, and keep the house clean. We never used the word “home”; it was always “house.” Every spring, the family would “spring clean” the house, washing and painting the walls, and cleaning the windows.

I waited by the open door for my mother to return. Our house was at the end of the first row of houses, at the top of the hill on the south side of the village. The clinic where the doctor worked was on the lower part of the north side. I saw my mother coming around Apaloon's house in the second row, on her way back from the clinic. She was clearly distraught and, in tears, spoke to my father in Unangan Tunuu. She explained that the government doctor was so angry that his face got red and he hollered at her, saying that he would come up and get me right away, calling her an unfit mother because she couldn't get me to obey. I was sorry that I had created this situation for my parents, but it was not enough to make me change my mind. I was not going to be tortured by this man, no matter what the consequences.

My father, thinking I would acquiesce when the doctor arrived, told me, “Get ready, the doctor is coming for you!”

I stood at the doorway watching the area around Apaloon's house. Soon I saw someone in a long white coat walk up the road past Apaloon's and the Russian Orthodox Church school, until he was on the straight road that led to my house. I screwed up my courage and determination, staring at the doctor as he walked quickly down the road toward me. Our eyes locked when he was just two houses away. In his eyes I could see nothing but sheer, almost crazy rage. No Unangan had ever dared
challenge his authority. He was going to make an example of me.

I moved down the two concrete steps outside my house, waiting until there was just one house between us. Then I bolted down the road, and the enraged doctor came after me. Although I was only nine years old, I was big and strong for my age. At least four of my nine years had been spent running free on the island. I was a running fool; everywhere I went as a child, I would run, never walk—even when it was miles outside the village. The doctor was probably in his forties and obviously not in good physical shape. I knew I could outrun him.

As I ran down to the third row of houses, I could hear him huffing and puffing. This made me even more confident—I wasn't even winded. I stopped in the middle of the road. The doctor thought he had me, but I bolted again when he was about two hundred yards away. I kept this up, running through row after row of houses. In my bolstered self-confidence, I was toying with him. When he discovered what I was doing, he started screaming at me, promising to whip me when he got hold of me. I said nothing, continuing this act of ultimate defiance in silence. When I hit the bottom row on my side of the village, two of my best friends (of the same age) joined me. Now there were three of us running away from the feared authority figure. We started to laugh and giggle nervously as the doctor, now quite tired, continued to chase us.

I led my friends up the hill below the Russian Orthodox church and past the “government house” to the bottom row of houses, planning to run each row from bottom to top this time. By now people were watching us, either from outside their houses or through their windows. I could see grins on some peoples' faces. That made me feel really good.

As we banked up the second row of houses, now on the north side of the village, the doctor hollered out to two young men ahead of us and ordered them to stop us. I slowed down as my two friends went ahead and were unceremoniously grabbed by the two Unangan who were just “following the doctor's orders.” Later on in life, I realized that most people took an entirely different meaning from that phrase than I did. If the Unangan men hadn't done what was instructed of them, they and their families no doubt would have suffered for it later.
As the doctor passed the two men, he ordered them to take the boys to the clinic. They complied.

Meanwhile, the doctor, having gained his second wind, started to pick up the pace. I had to make my move to get away from him. I visualized the hiding place I needed. I outran him, sprinting up the grassy slope known only as “Village Hill.” The grass smelled heavily of the fifty-gallon drums of gasoline the government stored atop the hill, many of them leaking and leaching their lethal content into the tundra overlooking the town proper. It was to be a year later, recalling this incident, that I got the idea of doing something about the foul-smelling grass that covered the hill.

I ran up the hill as fast as my body would carry me. When I reached the top, I jumped down among the large rocks on the other side of Village Hill, stealing inside a “mini-cave” created by basalt boulders and hidden by the subarctic alpine tundra's emerald-green grass. A couple of minutes later I heard the doctor's heavy breathing about twenty feet above me. I knew he was scanning the area. I held my breath. Surprisingly, he didn't climb down the rocks or stay very long. I waited for an hour before slowly coming out of my safe haven among the rocks and tundra grass. The doctor was nowhere to be seen. I crept back to my house along the hills at the edge of the village, keeping just below the hills' crests to minimize the risk of being seen. The government might put out orders to “bring me in”—I neither wanted to put anyone in a compromising situation that could hurt them, nor did I want to be caught by those who always followed the orders of the colonial oppressors.

I was convinced that, eventually, the doctor would try to surprise me at school or get my parents to physically force me to the clinic; curiously, that never happened. To this day I don't understand why the doctor didn't try to either get me again or make a disciplinary example of me. No word of what happened was ever mentioned beyond whispers in the village. My friends were not so lucky. It took them weeks to recover from the physical trauma of the experience due to infection, and perhaps a lifetime to deal with the emotional trauma. This was the beginning of my journey toward a life of questioning authority, never passively accepting
decisions by those in control, and challenging injustice wherever I found it. But there were many adventures in between, like the day I lit a match to a gasoline- and diesel-soaked hillside adjacent to the village. But that is another story.