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UPPER KUSKOKWIM ATHABASKANS:

personal, ethnic, and national history

Andrej A. Kibrik(Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences)

kibrik@comtv.ru

ICASS VI, Nuuk, Greenland 22-26 August 2008

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Upper Kuskokwim

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Some facts

Upper Kuskokwim belongs to the Athabaskan language family

Number of people of Upper Kuskokwim descent: about 200

The major Upper Kuskokwim town is the village of Nikolai: about 100 residents

About 90% of Nikolai residents are of Upper Kuskokwim descent

Upper Kuskokwim is a highly endangered language: one about 25 speakers remain, and there are only two or three couples still using it for daily communication

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Nikolai: the bird’s eye view

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Welcome to Nikolai, a “second class city”

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Plan of talk

Social domains Impact of the dominant

society in the 20th century

1. Religion none 2. Legal regulations mild 3. Technology strong 4. School overwhelming

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1. Religion

Upper Kuskokwim people adopted Russian Orthodox Christianity in mid-19th century

Although the operation of the Russian-American company in Alaska was mostly confined to coastal areas

Probably the expedition of the explorer Lt. Lavrenty Zagoskin to the UK area (1844) was important for establishing or reinforcing contacts between the UK people and Russians

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Lt. Lavrenty Zagoskin

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McGrath

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Religion (continued)

Russian Orthodox religion is by far the most visible element of traditional culture

Church services are conducted in English but most hymns are sung in Old Church Slavonic

“White man’s Christmas”UK people are devout Russian

Orthodox Christians

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Wedding ceremony in Nikolai church

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Lena Petruska (b. 1908)

Lena’s story about the way she was upbrought

Betty Petruska

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Before Russian Orthodox faith

BP BUT WHAT WAS BEFORE, BEFORE THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CAME?

LP I DON’T KNOW

WE NEVER PRAY I GUESS

k’inots’isdle’ ts’e’ dihughet’a’ di’onhwe never prayed it used to be at that time

hidighenesh na Lide’ the people used to say

LONG TIME AGO I GUESS

’idle ’iL detsenh ’iL k’inoy’tasdle’cold and hungry and when we started praying

hwye’iL ts’al ts’e’ dihudiyok hidigheneand thenbetter it became they said

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Bobby Esai (b. 1918)

Bobby’s story of his pectoral icon saving his life when he fell through ice into cold water with his dog team

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Power of faith

LONG TIME nezohw tagh ’oghoghist’a’long time in water I stayed

k’inodle sizan ziLtoneicon my neck I have it there

heye ghoda hwt’al’oghoghist’a’

it because maybe I remained

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Religion: conlusion

Devotion to the old style religion points to resilience of the people to the 20th century influences

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2. Legal regulations

Story by Miska Deaphon recorded in 1970s by Ray Collins, about the legal restrictions related to hunting

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Miska Deaphon

“Are we not people from around here? We are Alaskan people. They should leave it up to us. They guard the game from us. This is what I do not like now. I remember what the old timers used to do and I do not want to go to jail because of what I eat. When someone is hungry he eats. And then he eats something fresh and because of that he has to stay in jail …”

However, the general patterns of subsistence hunting have been preserved and still play an importan role in the UK community’s lifestyle

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3. Technology

Lena Petruska’s story about first seeing an airplane around 1923

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Lena’s airplane story11:05 – 12:13

BP SHE SAID SHE WAS TRAPPING SQUIRREL, MOUNTAIN SQUIRREL I THINK THEY CALL, THEN SHE SAID SHE HEARD A NOISE, SOUND LIKE WIND WAS COMING

LP sitsuyda chu’my grandmother

jone nin’ ’iL sritonohwtodiziL dinethis earth with it will be ruined (again) it is

tetin ye hodohwdetodinish dine siLdighenesh ts’ihwyan’world in big noise will be heard it is she used to tell mealways

yihwts’ dihwtazne’ hwt’al yiniszinhlike that starting to become may be I am

thinking

BP SHE SAID HER GRANDMOTHER USED TO SAY THAT

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Lena’s airplane story (continued)LP jone nin’ ’iL sritohutoziL

this earth too it will be ruined

BP THIS WORLD WILL= SOMETHING WILL HAPPEN TO THIS WORLD, SHE SAID: MAYBE BIG NOISE AND SHE THOUGHT THAT WAS HAPPENING

LP hwye’iL chu nodigw chu @@@@@and then again up there again

yada ghwla’ ywghwhat I don’t know around there

BP @@@@@@@

Sharon She thought that was the end of the world?

BP AHA, I GUESS IT MUST BE AT THE END OF THE WORLD, BUT HER GRANDMOTHER USED TO SAY JUST WILL BE NO MORE YOU

KNOW

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Technology (continued)

Junior Gregory’s story about his injury

Jim Nikolai’s story about skillful operation of various equipment

Bobby Esai’s stories of his operation of complex equipment during WW2

Modern situation with vehicles

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Technology: conclusion

Modern technological developments are very much used by the community for their good, and that has significantly altered the traditional patterns

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4. School

In 1948, two American missionaries of the Assembly of God, Agnes Rodli and Mildred James, opened the first regular school in Nikolai

The impact of this school upon the community was tremendous

In the first place, the traditional nomadic lifestyle was abandoned

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Positive

The two ladies served as a link of the UK community with the outer world

They introduced literacy They familiarized the UK people with

some basic agriculture

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Negative

The teachers banned the use of the native language at school, punishing kids for speaking it

This had devastating consequences for the fate of the language and the whole ethnic identity

Formal and detailed accounts of the story are extremely rare, as the recollections are too bitter

Sporadic mentions of humiliation in conversations allow to reconstruct the experiences of those who went through the school in late 1940s and early 1950s

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School: conclusion

The hidden issue of shameful and rankling experiences at school underlie much of the life stories of the generation born in late 1930s and 1940s

This generation’s school experience led to rejection of the UK language in their communication with their own children during 1960s, and to extremely rapid language shift by the end of 1960s

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The modern Top of the Kuskokwim School

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Sociolinguistic phenomena

Language shiftCode switching and mixing

In 17-pages-long Bobby Esai’s story, 62% of all instances of code shifting/mixing appear at the points where Western concepts are introduced, such as names, institutions, artifacts, measurements of time or distance, and abstract concepts

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Discourse practices

Many discourse types have been lost during the modern era

Telling fairy tales and native singing, registered at earlier times, are not practiced anymore

In more mundane discourse types, such as storytelling, discourse practices of UK people are not affected by the modernization of the life style

They are even transferred to English-language stories recounted by UK people – see studies by Mira Bergelson

Discourse practices are more resilient than linguistic structures

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