Once the sea lion was spotted and its dive pattern determined, we would wait for it to fill its lungs at the moment it was within a forty-five-degree angle from either side of our body to allow for the appropriate killing shot right behind the ear. We would synchronize our shooting, taking our lead from the most experienced hunter, and firing within a few microseconds of each other—we were so aware of each other that we could function as a single unit. Acting in complete synchronicity was important because the sea lion would react quickly and begin to dive within a couple of seconds of the first shot. If one hunter fired two seconds too late, he would hit the back of that animal, only wounding it and thus causing suffering. As a result, we always seemed to know that we had killed the animal even before the bullet struck its target.
On average three to six men hunted with high-powered rifles. In my childhood, we always killed the sea lions; we never wounded them. Unangan hunters were incredible marksmen. Imagine trying to shoot at a fast-moving target the size of a basketball (sea lions expose only their heads when engaged in directed swimming), bouncing up and down in rough water and stiff winds, 75 to 170 yards away. Equally challenging are the fast-moving king and common eider ducks that fly by at dawn. Sometimes flying with the wind rather than against it, it was not uncommon for the ducks to be moving thirty-five to forty miles an hour at distances up to one hundred yards away from us. During such times, I would frequently witness hunters discharging their twelve- or twenty-gauge shotguns far in advance of the ducks, wait for a few seconds, and then watch the duck drop and hit the ground almost a quarter-mile away from where we were.
We would sit out on volcanic basalt boulders, next to the sea, for hours, frequently six, seven, or ten hours, waiting for a sea lion to come by. No one can tell me that a five-year-old child does not have the ability to sit patiently in one place for more than ten minutes. I was able to sit for hours at this age and be perfectly content. At my young age, I found that it would be very easy for me to be lulled into a serene stupor by the rhythm of the waves and the wind, and the sounds from thousands of boisterous seals swimming in the water. There is a background cacophony of sound in this wild environment. When we are quiet in a natural setting of redundant and rhythmic sound, we can easily drift away into a dreamlike state. I used to wonder how the hunters were never lulled as I was. A good hunter has to be fully present, taking in all of these rhythms without being lulled into a semi-conscious stupor. Otherwise, the hunter won’t be successful with the hunt.
In a seemingly unrelated way, I found out that the only way a human could be there without going into a “mind lull” is to be present in the moment and aware as an unattached witness—to be the watcher side of ourselves. Beginning at age six, I took to walking out of the village very early in the morning to a place three miles outside the village called Tolstoi, so I could be where tens of thousands of seabirds nested and raised their young. I made regular trips like this until I was about twelve years of age, arriving early enough to be present just before sunrise when the seabirds stirred to begin their foraging for the day, eating sand lance, herring, capelin, pollock (a species of oil-laden fish), and tiny sea creatures called copepods.
Near sunrise, birds began to slip off the ledges and circle around in front of the dark basalt cliffs. Soon, thousands of thick-billed and common murres, tufted and crested puffins, red-faced and pelagic cormorants, least and crested auklets, fulmars, and red- and black-legged kittiwakes would be flying in every direction in loops around the face of the cliff; the air was filled with the rich sound of wings and calls. Some species flew quickly like the murres, some slowly like the kittiwakes. The puffins had burrows near the top of the cliff ledge. The murres and kittiwakes had nests made of tundra grass on the main body of the cliff. The cormorants preferred the promontories sticking out from the edges of the cliff face. Least and crested auklets nested in crevices underneath basalt boulders at the base of the cliff.
I watched as the birds would expertly maneuver around each other, land, and take off repeatedly from the tiny ledges. I loved this place because it resonated with the intensity of life, and the birds seemed to be celebrating the arrival of another day.
One day, after about a year or so of making these trips, while underneath the bird cliffs, I was marveling at how thousands of birds could fly up-down, right-left, down-up, left-right, and diagonally, and never did I witness any bird hitting another or even grazing a wing. I contemplated their ability to do this and finally saw a connection between these birds and the hunters who never were lulled into a hypnotic state when hunting. The birds were full of life and intensely present in the moment. And somehow, this awareness allows the birds to sense and know where the others are at any moment. It was then I realized the power of being present. I wanted to be a bird. I practiced dropping out of thought and just being. I was doing it all along in watching these birds, and began to understand how I was taking everything in without interference of thought. Now my grandfather’s teaching about not using words, but to experience, came to life for me.
I could not put words to it at the time, but in this state, one becomes nothing but pure consciousness, not attached to anything, even thought. As soon as I got into my head, into thoughts, I got lulled. I found that simply “being” in awareness and without thought profoundly enhances the experience and opens up new dimensions of human capability. As I applied this knowing to my hunting experiences, I too was able to stay fully alert, to feel the sea lion before it came, and to feel a deeper connection with the hunters and all life. And thus, I learned, hunting is a meditation, a spiritual practice. No one had told me of this way of being; however, though unstated, it was implied in old Unangan stories. Perhaps if I had been told, my mind would have interfered and fooled me into believing I had achieved that state. This learning was clean. It was my learning without interference of any other person’s spiritual constructs. But it is what the other hunters knew and practiced.
I learned that the Unangan hunter suspended ego for group cohesion and hunting success. I learned how Unangan hunters deferred to the most experienced hunter and fired their rifles within microseconds of each other, and how everyone knew, even if we all fired a killing shot at the sea lion, whose bullet actually struck the animal first. This hunter got the first pick of the meat. I watched as the hunters all worked to retrieve the sea lion, taking turns cutting the carcass then dividing up the parts in roughly equal portions, no matter how many hunters were present. And, I knew that each hunter gave meat to others before his own family, especially the elderly and widows.
I am so thankful that my male role models, like my Papa, my Aachaa, my father, and the hunters and fishermen, showed me that being a man means being patient, keenly observant, considerate of people and wildlife, cooperative, not macho or aggressive, soft-spoken, and present in the moment. Western society calls these qualities “feminine,” and somehow that is a negative, but in the Unangan worldview, these qualities are necessary to be a true man and a good hunter and provider. Without these qualities one cannot be an accomplished hunter and fisherman, or be safe when hunting or fishing.
No Unangan hunter can kill an animal without knowing the profoundness of killing a conscious being. We were taught to have a reverence for all life and all life forms, that all life has the same kind of spirit as we do. Life comes from the same place, the same source, Agox or “The Maker.” It is one thing to intellectually know the sacredness; it is another thing entirely to embody this knowing.
I was eleven years old the first time I came to know the true sacredness of life. One day I was alone on the reef while my Aachaa was about a quarter-mile away. A sea lion came by in front of me, and I shot it. I knew the moment of its death, not because I was sure of my marksmanship, but because something inexplicable had happened. In an instant, an extremely subtle electrical impulse rushed through my body. There was no doubt in my mind that what I was experiencing was the spirit of this animal. In the instant that the life force came through my
body, this sea lion told me it had consciousness, it had intelligence, and it was surrendering itself to me. That experience changed the way I looked at all life on this planet. My reverence and regard for all life expanded exponentially in that instant. I later told my Aachaa what I had experienced, and he looked at me, smiled, and said “Exumnaakoxt!” “Good!” That was all he said to me. In that single word, he affirmed that what I had experienced was real and not a figment of my imagination. In one word, he told me that he knew what this experience was and that it was natural and real.
I could see why my people always had a reverence for any animal they took. And I understood why they developed a relationship of reciprocity. Pribilof Unangan are People of the Sea Lion. The Steller sea lion has provided for us through good times and hard times. In return for the sea lion sustaining us, we protect these animals from wanton killing; we protect them and their habitat from disruption; and we honor each sea lion we kill by eating it and using every possible part of the body and sharing each animal with as many families as possible. When we finish taking the meat off the animal, we return the remains to the sea with a prayer of thanks to the animal and to The Maker.
In experiencing the profoundness of a sea lion’s death in the way that I’ve described here, I truly came into connection with what it means to touch and be part of the Divine, to sense the proverbial oneness with all Creation. In that experience, when I killed that sea lion, I realized we are connected at the deepest level. We are not separate no matter what our minds tell us.
Chapter 6
Boxer Shorts and Seals
We were on the beach one summer day—only a quarter-mile from the village—all rolling in the sand, immersed in fits of laughter, and unable to muffle our raucousness even at the risk of being discovered by federal agents. These “feds” were not FBI agents; they were government overseers, and we had just broken the law by killing four seals.4 This was my first glimpse of civil disobedience; it was illegal to do what our people have done for at least ten thousand years—take seals for food.5
It was a time when Unangan families had little money, and most of the food we ate still came from the land or sea—halibut, sea lions, cormorants, seals, wild celery, berries, and whatever the land and water offered to us to eat. The government rations of salt, sugar, potatoes, rice, onions, and salt beef were never enough for our household of nine people: two brothers, two sisters, my grandfather, my uncle, my mother, my father, and me. I remember being hungry from late fall to early spring every year. I always looked forward to mid-spring and summer when the seals, halibut, and birds returned to our mystical island.
I remember all the times my mother would put off preparing dinner, confident that my dad, who hunted the entire day, would bring her something to cook. We children and my mother greeted him eagerly at the door, but I was always first to spot him through the window. I would watch how he walked—if he was stooped over from the weight of his packsack, I knew he had a sea lion or a lot of birds. If he wasn’t stooped over, he probably had a bird or two. It was easy to tell what he had in the packsack before my mother opened it because it would smell of meat or wet feathers. My dad rarely failed, even if he only brought back a few cormorants. Cormorant meat was tough, but it made good soup—enough to fill our stomachs. We called the cormorant the “Unangan turkey” as that was what we usually had to eat for Thanksgiving.
So here was my uncle, Iliodor, or “Eddie,” a serious, upstanding leader of the Russian Orthodox church choir, president of the traditional council, and high-level federal administrator on a federally controlled island; his best friend, “Kusukahx” (the name means “Russian” in the Unangan language); and Kusukahx’s wife, Tina, out on the most visible (right next to the village) rookery on the island at 4:00 on a Saturday morning poaching fur seals. As a five-year-old, I was struck by the strange incongruity of this scene—adults sneaking around on the beach, whispering intensely as if speaking normally would give us away to the “government man” who might be up at this time on a weekend morning, listening to us through the foot-thick concrete walls of the government house a mile away.
We were like caricatures of real people, stooped low, creeping toward the herd of seals sleeping on the beach at the break of a very quiet dawn. Uncle Eddie and Kusukahx went ahead, carrying thick, heavy pieces of driftwood found at the edge of the beach, their eyes fixed on the herd of seals with the singular intent to get seals for food.
Prudence dictated expeditious action and quick movement. Too long on the beach and we risked discovery by the government agent. Uncle Eddie and Kusukahx returned, each dragging one seal up with each hand—four total—toward the road. Tina and I were far enough up on the beach, toward the road, that we could only see their silhouettes. The man closest to us had a much smaller frame than the other, so he was Uncle Eddie. Suddenly, behind him, Kusukahx collapsed!
Tina called out in Unangan Tunuu, “Something’s not right with my husband!” My uncle dropped the dead seals he’d been pulling and ran back. To our amazement, he too collapsed. Tina and I were both bewildered, watching the two men rolling back and forth on the sand. We thought something bad must have happened to them.
We started running toward them, Tina in the lead. As we got closer, it became clear why they could not get up—they were in fits of hysterical laughter! Kusukahx struggled to get out an explanation in Unangan Tunuu, “My suspenders came off and I was so worried that we would be spotted, so I kept running. I tried to keep my pants from falling by making bow-legs, but it didn’t work too good! My pants fell to my ankles and let me trip. When I understood what was happening, I started to laugh so hard that I could not get up again!”
We couldn’t help it. Tina and I joined the two hapless men in doing what we all pledged not to do that morning—make loud noises. We engaged in a chorus of stomach-busting, incapacitating laughter, made all the more comically extreme by the implausible sight of a grown man with his pants down, wearing polka-dotted boxer shorts, next to a dead seal. I love so much that Unangan always had room for humor no matter how difficult or trying the situation was, and perhaps that is how we survived what life brought us.
Chapter 7
Every Unangan Child: The Indirect Effects of Government Oppression
No child in my generation escaped the terror, chaos, confusion, and lack of safety posed by intoxicated adults on their weekend binges that occurred every weekend except during Russian Orthodox lent. I witnessed these events from perhaps the age of three until I left for boarding school at the age of twelve.
The men of the island worked brutalizing hours killing seals for the federal government, sometimes seventeen hours a day during the three to four months of summer when the seals returned to the island. While they had a breakfast of pancakes, powdered eggs, and bacon, the rest of their day the workers had meager rations to fuel their bodies—they only had coffee and a sandwich during the lunch hour, and coffee and a sandwich after 5:00 p.m. To these “sealers” as well as the men who worked in the village, it was not uncommon to hear the agent bark commands while saying such things as “you stupid Aleuts, it takes five of you to dig a ditch,” or “you think you are so smart—get on the garbage truck.” For years, day in and day out, the men were subjected to these kinds of verbal abuse. The only time the men were left alone was on the weekend—when they perhaps let off steam from the indignities they suffered by drinking “peeva,” a homemade brew that they made in fifty-gallon barrels. The brew was mixed with raisins, sugar, fruit, and potatoes. It was awful stuff. But the men, joined by their wives, would drink to a stupor every weekend. Except for just a few families, the entire village of adults would be drunk. The men frequently got into fist fights, and I remember once seeing my uncle, Eddie (aka Iliodor), on the floor after being knocked out by Tracy, a family friend. It was not a safe place for kids during these times, especially for girls.
Once, when I was nine years old, I heard my seven-year-old sister, staying in her own room downstairs, screaming
for help. I ran to her room, but the door was locked. My sister screamed that some man was inside. I could not get the door to budge, so I ran outside to her window and opened it. There was a thirty-five-year-old man, drunk, trying to fondle my sister; I screamed at him to stop as I crawled through the window. I guess he saw the rage in my face and heard it in my voice, so he quickly unlocked the door and ran out. The next day, we told our parents what happened as soon as they were sober, but they did not believe us. Everything went on as “normal” that day and the days afterward. This was the story of many girls in the village: the girls would tell their parents, when they were sober, what had happened over the weekend, but their parents would not believe their own children. The adults acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened during their weekend drinking binges.
The drinking intensified during American holidays such as the Fourth of July, Christmas, and Easter, although most of us kids found a way to have fun during these holidays anyway. My aunt and Aachaa liked to share what they had with others, and prior to Christmas I would help them by carrying presents to other houses on my sled. I loved doing this. On Christmas we looked forward to our presents after we, the children, put on a Christmas program rehearsed for weeks—Santa would arrive to a chorus of “Here Comes Santa Claus” sung by the entire community gathered in a large hall. The tribal council would always have a very large Christmas tree, decorated to the hilt, on the left side of the hall, and underneath would be presents for every child in the village and large bags of fruit and candy provided by the Fouke Fur Company, one bag for every member of the community. The Fouke Fur Company had the exclusive contract with the government to process the fur seal pelts into luxury coats that, at the time, cost at least four thousand dollars apiece.
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