Our Way of Living My dad always told me that before you go out on any kind of hunt, you have to cleanse yourself. And this was like a ritual. And you kept yourself quiet. In order to catch what youre going to get, you have to get your whole body and your soul ready. - Virginia Aleck, Alaska Peninsula, 1997 Harvesting, hunting, and eating wild foods are fundamental to the Alutiiq way of life. Fresh fish, game, shellfish, and plants provide more than half of the diet of many villagers. Yet súgucihpet, our way of living means much more than calories and taste. Sharing subsistence harvests with relatives, Elders, and those in need weaves the fabric of community life. Families work together to gather and prepare the bounty, and each generation learns by doing. Respect for the land and for all living things is an important cultural value. Fishing sets the pace of the year. In summer, five varieties of salmon gather in the bays or swim upriver to spawn - king, red, chum, pink, and silver. Ancestral salmon fishermen used harpoons or nets with stone weights and wooden floats. Today, nets are used for both subsistence and commercial fishing. By fall, salmon fill freezers and hang in the smokehouses, a wealth of food preserved for winter. Seals, sea lions, and beluga whales are prized foods in villages today. In earlier times, hunters in kayaks used poisoned darts to kill humpbacks and other large whales. Sea mammals gave the Alutiit much of what they needed to survive: skins for clothing and boat covers, intestines for waterproof garments and bags, sinew for thread, whale baleen for lashings, and seal stomachs for storage containers and floats. Sea mammal fat was used to preserve plant foods, make clothing waterproof, and provide fuel for lamps. The forest, tundra, and coast are stocked with edible plants - berries, greens, grasses, roots, and seaweed. Some plants have medicinal properties as well. Wild cranberries are good for colds and sore throats. The cow parsnip has edible stems, and its roots can be used to treat aches and infections. A favorite traditional recipe is akutaq (ice cream), which you make by mashing berries together with ingredients that may include seal oil, Crisco, dried fish, salmon eggs, sugar, and potatoes. Berries are also eaten fresh, with fish or meat, and in jams and pies.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 18:50:42 +0000
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