Alaska (161 page)

'I've often wondered. When I get his students, they aren't up to speed, as I'm sure you know.'

'He teaches the glories of Eskimo life, the walrus hunt, the great whales. He's rather good at simple arithmetic.'

'I've noticed that.'

'But he despises things like poetry and history and traditional children's stories.

Says they're all bunk. What he does stress is the glory of Notre Dame football. And he encourages his students to follow the old Eskimo arts, like carving and basketmaking and skin-work.' He reflected on this for some moments, while both he and Kendra studied the tall principal from the rear, then Afanasi said: 'In our Molly Hootch schools the curriculum tends to be whatever interests the 981

teacher, and you just pray to God that he or she is interested in something. What, doesn't seem to matter much.'

This encouraged Kendra to say: 'You know, Mr. Afanasi, we have a near-genius in this little girl Amy Ekseavik.'

'You mentioned that before.'

'And she told me the other night in Frankfurt that she might have to drop out of school.'

'Why? She's doing superbly, what I hear.'

Kendra knew that what she was about to say was pejorative, but she had no warning that it was going to be as explosive as it proved: 'She told me that her father drinks too much and she might have to go back and help her mother.'

She could hear Afanasi suck in his breath and click his teeth: 'Miss Scott, there are two aspects of Eskimo life that we do not wish to have ventilated, especially not by strangers who come here from the Lower Forty-eight.' His dark face furrowed in anger, he pointed his finger at Kendra and said harshly: 'Do not comment on our drunkenness. Do not spread stories about our rate of suicide. These are problems which hide in the Eskimo soul, and we do not appreciate preaching from others. In your case in particular, still a stranger among strangers, I would advise you to keep your mouth shut.' Trembling with an old fury, for he had had to give this lecture to many white men and women who moved among the Eskimos, he left his seat and did not resume speaking to Kendra for the rest of the trip, but when they reached Desolation and the father of one of the high-school boys appeared at the plane too drunk to recognize his son, a common occurrence with that man, Afanasi pointed to him and said to Kendra: 'It's the canker that gnaws at our soul. But we have to bear it ourselves.

You can add nothing, neither condemnation nor hope. So please do what I so rudely suggested. Keep your mouth shut.'

Tight-lipped, Kendra started looking more closely at the local situation, and she saw that beneath the good humor of the gymnasium meetings and the lively entertainments to which she invited the parents of her pupils, there was a silent undercurrent composed of the two dark streams that infected Eskimo life: the drunkenness that had been cynically introduced by the Boston whalers like Captain Schransky and his Erebus,

and the general malaise that had been introduced with the best intentions by the missionaries like Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the bearers of the white man's law like Captain Mike Healy and his

Bear, and the promulgators of education like Kasm Hooker and Kendra Scott.

Such a wealth of change, all of it defended as superior to the ancient ways of the Eskimo, had been too much to absorb 982

in so few generations, so that this malaise, a sickness of the soul, evolved, with the all too frequent result that those who did not find refuge in drunkenness found release in suicide. Ignorant of the true situation, Kendra had not taken count of the men in Desolation who were drunks, nor had she the information to list the suicides over the past five years, but now that she had been alerted to the two dreadful burdens of the Eskimo, she compiled a sorrowful dossier.

One informant, an elderly woman, unknowingly revealed the cause of Afanasi's harsh reactions: 'His grandfather, missionary, he was man come from God, come to help us.

He bring many good things. Many times he try to keep alcohol away from the village.

But always white men bring it back. Much money. That Afanasi try to help lost ones.

Always he say ”turn to God,”but nothing change. And his sons. They lost too. One, Vladimir's father. He always drunk. He should be strong hunter. But he die young.

His brother Ivan, uncle to Vladimir, he become very quiet. No more talk. No more fish. No more hunt. Just stop. Then he shoot hisself.'

The woman halted her story, studied the young schoolteacher for some moments, and added: 'Eskimo sickness jump generations like salmon upstream. First Afanasi noble man, but both his sons destroy selves. Our Afanasi in next generation noble man, but you heard what happen to his son?'

'I didn't,' Kendra said, and she gasped when the woman said: 'One day, no reason, he shoot hisself.' Shaking her head, she concluded: 'Maybe someday Vladimir's sister in Seattle have a grandson, maybe noble man too.'

THAT FIRST WINTER ENDED WITH SUCH A SAVAGE CHAIN of days in which the thermometer stayed always below thirty and often forty, that Kendra sought to provide respite from the boredom that attacked her students. She told them of the wonders of Salt Lake City and Denver and tried to explain what a rodeo was, and when she learned that one of the Barrow teachers had brought back from a vacation in Honolulu some high-quality movies of the islands, she asked Mr. Hooker if he had funds to invite the teacher down to talk to their students, and he said: 'We'll throw it open to the whole community,' and it was a festive evening.

But along with the colorful shots of tropical flowers and hula dancers throwing fiery swords from one to the other, the film had an unusual segment which the teacher introduced with special care: 'We're now going to witness the dedication of a new high school.

See the lovely murals . . . imagine a 983

gymnasium with open sides . . . that's a bell tower. But what I want you to see is this old man he's coming to bless the building before anyone can enter, reassuring the gods of the islands that all is in order. He's a kahuna ... he speaks with the gods. He's what we would call a shaman.'

The film showed the solemn ceremonies, the mountains behind the new school, the wonderful craggy face of the kahuna as he asked for a blessing: 'But I want you to see especially those four men in black looking on ... Catholic priests. They don't like kahunas but they've invited him to bless their school . . . and can you guess why?' And she stopped the film and said solemnly: 'I want you to study these next pictures carefully.

Eight months before what you've just seen, an earlier version of the school was finished ... students about to come to class. And someone warned the Catholic priests: ”You better have the kahuna bless your school because if the gods aren't happy, it might burn down.” The priests said: ”Nonsense!”. . . and look what happened!'

She showed film taken earlier of the huge fire consuming the school, and after several minutes, when the fires abated and the ashes were visible, she said: 'The kahuna had warned them and they hadn't listened, so this time when their school was ready, they had him come in. He wears about his neck the leaves of a sacred tree, the maile.

He prays to the god of fire: ”Don't burn this school”... to the god of winds: ”Don't blow down this school.”And now he blesses even the priests who had fought against him: ”Keep these good men in health and help them to teach.”And now the old man blesses us all: ”Help everyone to learn.” And the school had no more troubles, for the Hawaiian shaman had protected it in the proper way.'

The effect of this film on Jonathan Borodin was so disturbing that he could not sleep, and toward two in the morning he came banging on Kendra's door.

'Who's there?' she called.

'Jonathan. I have to speak with you.'

'In the morning, Jonathan. I'm sleeping now.'

'But I must. I have to see you,' so against her better judgment she put on her robe, opened the door gingerly, and admitted the distraught young man.

His problem was unique. Both in Germany and in the film he had seen that sensible men and women revered the ancient ways, and that treasured beings like shamans survived in both cultures. 'What's wrong with my grandfather?' he asked, so abruptly and so combatively that she drew back and said quickly: 'Nothing at all, Jonathan. I hear he's a fine man. Mr. Afanasi said so.'

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'Afanasi!' the boy repeated with contempt. 'In our little village he opposes everything my grandfather does. But in that big city they respect their shamans. They know they're needed.'

Suddenly, without any warning, he fell heavily upon her bed, trembling as if caught by some wracking force, and after several attempts to control himself, he said softly: 'I see things that others don't see, Miss Scott. I know when the whales are coining back.' When Kendra said nothing, he caught her hand and said quietly but with great force: 'That new girl you like so much, Amy, dreadful things are going to happen to her. She'll never go to college the way you want her to. I'm not going either.

I'm going to be a shaman.'

With that, he rose, bowed toward where she stood, thanked her for her help, and said at the doorway: 'You're a fine teacher, Miss Scott, but you won't stay at Desolation very long. You represent the new ways, but with us the old ways never d
ie.
' Before she could respond he was gone, closing the door silently behind him.

He left a bewildered Kendra, aware that she should never have allowed him entrance to her room. As to his announcement that he intended to follow in his grandfather's steps and become a shaman, she understood the psychological impact the opera in Munich and the kahuna's performance in the film had had, but because her knowledge of Alaskan history was imperfect, she had no basis for judging whether his decision to become a shaman made sense or not. She was distraught and failed to sleep until nearly five in the morning.

She was inclined to report the night's bizarre events to Afanasi, but she judged that this would not be fruitful, for while the Eskimo leader had tried to be impartial in his judgment of shamanism, she had seen that he opposed it in even its mildest and most ineffective survival. What she really wished was that Jeb might have been there, for she knew that his appraisal would have been sober and relevant. In this unsettled frame of mind she prepared to complete her exciting first year of teaching, and sometimes in the late afternoon as spring approached the still-frozen north, she stopped young Borodin as he sped along on his snowmobile and tried to talk with him about returning to the university with the coming of summer.

Cryptically he referred to other interests, saying that he might look for a job at Prudhoe Bay, then adding: 'Anyway, whales will be arriving on their way north next week,” and with that prediction uttered so carelessly, she was catapulted into the heart of ancient Eskimo experience. For on Thursday the village exploded with excitement when scouts from ' 984

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Afanasi's umiak stationed at the edge of the landfast ice along the inshore lane of open water reported over their portable radio: 'Lookout at Point Hope radioed five bowheads heading our way.'

Afanasi, who had been waiting many days for just such a report, stopped by the school in his pickup, shouted for Kendra to join him, then waited impatiently while she slipped into her Eskimo gear. 'You'll see something now!' he cried exultantly as they went down to the edge of the ice, where a skidoo waited to skim him over the shore ice to the open water of the lane. 'I don't like these things,' he told Kendra, 'but jump on,' and over the rumpled ice they sped, picking their way through the hummocks.

When they reached water and the waiting umiak, they were greeted by Afanasi's crew of five tested whale hunters, and Kendra watched with admiration as Afanasi deftly eased himself into position, lest his heavy feet puncture the sealskin bottom.

The whale hunters of Desolation, and any man who took pride in his reputation wanted to be one, used two kinds of craft: the traditional umiak rowed by hand when the bowheads came close to the edge of the landfast ice, and an aluminum skiff with outboard motor when the lane water was wide and the whales stayed far from shore. Afanasi, as the conservator of old ways, abhorred the skiffs as much as he did the noisy skidoos.

He was an umiak man.

Moving lazily north up the narrow lane of free water, hemmed in on both sides by thick ice, came four adult whales, two of them more than fifty feet long and weighing fifty tons each according to the rule 'One foot, one ton,' accompanied by a youthful one not more than twenty feet long, and in stately procession the whales approached the hunters. 'Oh!' Kendra gasped as she stood alone at the edge of the ice. 'They look like galleons coming back to England after a tussle with the Spanish.'

Now Afanasi, as the most practiced and respected hunter, took over, and from the rear of his umiak, not much different from those constructed in Siberia fifteen thousand years earlier, he and his five helpers set forth in freezing seas to harpoon themselves a whale. When the huge lead whale sounded, they knew from long experience that it might stay submerged as long as six or seven minutes, and they assumed that they had missed it. But on came the others, and when they too sounded at irregular intervals, Afanasi's men feared that they might have lost their opportunity. When the second fifty-footer reappeared, it had moved over to the far side of open water, where it slipped by unscathed, but one of the 986

smaller ones, about forty feet long, sounded well south of where Afanasi and his umiak waited, and an Eskimo who had come to stand beside Kendra said: 'That one's gonna come up right where Vladimir wants it,' and about five minutes later the whale broke through the surface, spouted, and to the disgust of the men in the umiak and those watching from shore, immediately sounded again with its great flukes thrashing, and disappeared before any of Afanasi's men could attack it with any likelihood of success.

'Oh!' the man standing beside Kendra groaned with a pain that was obviously real, and when she looked at him for an explanation, he told her: 'The International Whaling Commission, Russia and Canada and them, wanted to halt whaling altogether. But our Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission said: ”Hey! It's our way of life. Allow us a few each year.”'