First Kill - Alaska

The training to be a hunter starts early in Alaska. I was reminded of that one day in Hooper Bay while sitting at my computer and watching two kids out the window stalking around my courtyard.

A very small boy was throwing a stick at a bird with no other plan than to kill it, or so it seemed. Arctic birds must not be too smart because it never moved more than a few inches.

Eventually the young hunters out witted the bird and it fell dutifully to the ground. I expected the two boys would be on their way. However, they crouched over the bird and poked at it for awhile with their weapon. They then went about stripping the bird of its feathers, tearing it in two and scraping out the insides. Then they looked up and saw me, said something to one another, waved and proceeded to my door.

They asked if I wanted the bird. I usually don't eat anything I have seen alive or that resembles itself when it was alive, but having lived up here for over a year at that time I knew that to reject the bird would have been a grievous error. I would not have been the first Gussick to cause a cultural incident, but we teachers, for the most part, are sensitive to differences. Transgressions are strictly by accident.

Usually problems between Gussicks and Eskimos are initiated by the Gussicks, and then we fall all over ourselves trying to dig ourselves out. For instance, when you are correcting a child, he or she does not make eye contact. It is a sign of disrespect to look an elder in the eye while being corrected.

Many a teacher in the past has been heard to say "look at me while I am talking to you!" All that does up here is cause confusion.

Luckily, new teachers are told of such forms of communication, but sometimes we really step on it, with terrible results.

Refusing the bird could have been one of those times. Whenever a young boy or girl makes their first kill they are not to use it for themselves; they must give it away. Usually to an elder or worthy person. Seldom does an Eskimo blunder across the cultural line ... well usually.

A teacher friend, Dave, called one night and said Simon, one of our seniors at school, had sold him some moose very cheap. So cheap that Dave gave Simon more money than he asked for. He asked me if I wanted to buy any. "No," I replied. But I said I would not turn down a moose meal if I were invited over.

The next night I was treated to a delicious moose stew.

Dave showed me all the meat he had bought from Simon. My mind started calculating my savings if I bought my winter supply of meat from Simon but decided against it. My wife, with great insight and contemplation, said "No."

All she would have had to have done was to cut the hind quarter into chunks big enough to fit in a crock pot and then grind the rest into moose patties. But she seemed rather adamant.

Later that same week I stopped by another teacher's, house to check on some maintenance complaints.

Brian, the teacher, was cutting up a big chunk of moose on the kitchen table. He said he had purchased the meat from Simon.

While standing next to the copying machine the next morning I was talking about Dave and Brian's windfall to a third teacher and found that several teachers had bought from Simon.

Apparently the school secretary heard me. That evening several elders visited each teacher who had purchased moose from Simon. They brought with them the amount of moose each teacher had bought and gave their meat to the respective educator. They said, "Yup'iks do not sell meat, we give it away."

They seemed very embarrassed and apologized for Simon's behavior. Simon returned later that night and each teacher received their money back.

This brings me back to two boys and a small bird at my back door. I invited them in and gave each a soft drink and let them watch TV. They were starting to out-stay their welcome when one asked if I knew how to cook the bird.

I sighed and knew what was coming. We put the bird in the oven and 30 minutes later I served it up. The boys ate ravenously as I watched and they seemed in no hurry to leave. As they watched more TV, I took my normal Saturday afternoon position on the couch. I drifted off to sleep somewhere between Sponge Bob and The Big Blue Bear.

When I woke, Paula had returned from wherever women go on Saturday afternoons, even in Hooper Bay. The boys were sitting at the table consuming potato chips, pizza rolls and Pepsi. Paula, being the soft touch that she was, had invited the boys for dinner and was feeding them appetizers.

Looking back on the entire affair, I feel pleased that I was selected to receive their first kill. It probably didn't count. Perhaps they even figured it was a good ruse to get inside, watch TV and be fed. Or they could have just been proud and wanted to participate in the tradition as their older brothers and sisters had.

In a few years, long after I left, they will hunt for real and kill a moose, caribou, or maybe a duck or goose. They will give their first kill to some elder or worthy person without blinking an eye and the community will embrace the two new men as members of the tribe.

I hope they will remember the first time they gave a kill away and for a fleeting second wonder what ever happened to the old Gussick and his wife who fed them that afternoon.

But perhaps times will have changed by then and they will have gone to work for Simon. The elders, by then, will have left Hooper Bay and found happier hunting grounds where game is easily obtained, freely given, and never sold.