Trip 3: Days 35-45

Okay. So its been over a week since I last wrote a blog post. Forgive me for that, I got both busy for a while and then lazy for a while and thus a few exciting things happened. But also many boring things happened. So in this post I'm not going to divide it into individual days (days 37-45) instead I'm just going to tell you about the highlights, the upsides, any cool observations I've made and just go ahead an ignore all the boring or less then happy events.

The late fall tundra seems to be a state of perpetual frost and a light dusting of snow. There are now storms here and there but they're never very heavy. The air bites. A hood is a must or your ears will fall off. Gloves are also recommended. I talked to an elder just the other day who had some mittens made out beaver, and another pair made out of muskrat. So soft and warm, especially the muskrat. I wish I had muskrat mittens. The river is frozen over completely and a rope has been strung from the city dock to a dock on the other side, for safety in crossing for those non-existent who wish to use it. Most people have put away their ATV's and pulled out their snow machines. They travel down the rivers as if they were highways. And across the tundra even though the grasses still predominate the land. I was kinda hoping to see a white tundra before I leave but it seems unlikely to occur. The elder's say the winters have been getting shorter and later. The river ice used to get 6-10 feet deep, but last year it only got about 2 feet deep. Climate change, and governmental land mismanagement (dis-preservation, hypocrisies). These issues are very apparent out here and the elders who still remember the old ways (from only about 40 years ago when their world truly, drastically changed thanks to the US school system/no-child left behind/BIA/land claims act).

Last Thursday I worked with the Yup'ik teacher again, and actually got my word list for my first required paper recorded! But I need between 2-7 people to do it and its suddenly looking like I won't have anyone else to sit down and do the word list with me. Its been hard to get people to not only work with me but do so regularly enough to make the word list possible (and I have to choose between the word list, elicitation of a topic I'm much more passionate about, or recording traditional stories and legends and personal stories). So I might have to move my first paper to after my April to trip to Kotlik and push up my 2nd paper to this upcoming semester. Works for me, I think. I dunno we'll see what my advisers say.

On Sunday I went over to the two longest married elders in the village (They have been together for about 54 years). He was out checking his traps so I sat down with her for awhile. She spoke in English about going up and life out in Caniliak. Then I asked her to speak in Yup'ik and she told me what she tells young people before they marry. About what her aunt taught her when she was a young girl. And about how she and her husband fell in love and married. It was pretty cool. I thin the biggest problem with most of my work this trip is that I have a lot of Yup'ik narration (several hours (2-3) worth in total I think) but none of it is translated because I've been trying to collect data first. So while if I can't find something to write about from this data once its transcribed, formatted, and compiled into a corpus then I'm a terrible linguist. If it is on a topic I'm not as passionate about, its still Yup'ik so its all cool (assirpaa). I just have no idea what any of it says or means.

On Tuesday morning I went in and gave a talk to the entire high school (about 30 students) and three of the teachers. I talked about historical linguistics, and structural linguistics, and Yup'ik, and Kotlik Yup'ik, and gave some linguistics puzzles. The teachers enjoyed it. Many of the students seemed to half pay attention. Some asked questions. If one tries to go to college and thinks about becoming a linguist I'll be happy.

On Wednesday afternoon I went back to the elders house and talked to the husband with the wife as translator. I had to keep turning off the recorder because he would talk for 10 minutes, get tired, ask me to turn it off, and then let his wife interpret (I finally asked after the second time If I could keep the recorder on for the interpretation so that was good). He told me about his life growing up. Then finally I got my first traditional story, about his grandfather and a shaman and magic bow which could hit anything all you had to do was shoot the water and the arrow would find its target. AWESOME. He told the story in 10 minute segments and let his wife interpret in between. The recorder started to die on me half way through I still don't know whats going on with it, but thankfully I had my second recorder on me, so the recordings are all across several files but that's okay.

I also met another elder, who I've been trying to work with for awhile because she was translating for the elections when I first got here. But she neither felt like an elder or a speaker and only spoke English. But I learned a lot of history. So that was cool.

Also, on Monday I spent about four hours talking to another guy who told a few stories and even told a joke in Yup'ik. But Yup'ik culture I oral based and has only ever been orally transmitted so I wasn't allowed to write down or even audio record anything. Even though audio recording is still oral, he was obstinate about it so yep. But we talked about politics, land claims, history, growing up, and some really cool Yup'ik pieces that would have been not only great to record but to preserve. So yep.

Otherwise things have been quiet. I've been reading, writing, and trying to get some of the elders to keep working with me and trying to find any elders or speakers that I haven't been able to work with yet. I've gotten a bunch of maybes and empty promises so far. Many people are out of town. I'm worried about the whole Thanksgiving week coming up, I wouldn't work over thanksgiving so... But I do have one meeting on Monday at least, but I'd rather do narrative and story and traditional knowledge recording with him than anything else including demonstrative work so... I guess we'll see what happens in this upcoming last week before I return home to pizza and J to plan for my April trip back here.

Well those are the highlights of my last week and my thoughts for now.

Piurra!