Living on Thin Ice. Steven C. Dinero
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within the community was to play out throughout the twentieth century (Nickelson 2013); Tritt’s family was often in conflict with other village residents (G. James 2002), creating an uneasy dynamic.
Further still, Tritt’s building of the Bishop Rowe Chapel secured his role in the community and, further, finally made permanent the settlement of the Nets’aii Gwich’in at Arctic Village. In turn, the building also further concretized the role of Christianity within the community. The triangular relationship of the institution of Episcopalian Christianity, the leadership of Rev. Albert E. Tritt, and the physical presence of the Bishop Rowe Chapel together served as key anchors in the social development of what would eventually become the permanent community of Arctic Village, Alaska.
Traditional Nets’aii Gwich’in Spirituality
It is rather difficult to acquire information about Nets’aii Gwich’in spirituality prior to the arrival of Christianity that is not filtered through the perspective of outside or White observers. Relatively little is known among the community members themselves. Understanding of the pre-Christian period was limited at best. As one elder put it: “They were good people, but they didn’t know the Christian way. You do something wrong and you die. You’re stuck. If you fool around, you’re not living very long. That’s what the old people told the young” (I. Tritt 1987b).
One excellent source of information about the days before European contact is Johnny Frank’s testimony, found in Neerihiinjik, edited by Craig Mishler. Quoting Frank at length:
In those days, we didn’t know anything about God. Still, something really odd happened. People still say there is no secret about us up in heaven. But besides this they also talked about the Devil … The Russians were the first to help the Indians around here. We also heard that after them the English people landed somewhere down that way. But we didn’t get any help from them. Because of them many Alaskan Indians died off from all the diseases they brought over. But before that, our people didn’t die from diseases, and people didn’t get hurt. And it was really because of lots of people that they lived so well.
Nobody knows how long there have been men on this earth. Even the small animals that were alive back then were people, they say. The wolverines, the wolves, and the brown bears were all people. Even the foxes were people. The fish in the water were people, they say. But there were no moose in those days. They say all the animals died from the great flood long, long ago … In those days all the fish and all the small animals and big animals were human. And yet they all spoke one language, they say. (1995: 17, 19, 21)
Another noted exception is the Arctic Village minister and traditional chief Rev. Trimble Gilbert, one of the very few village residents who is familiar with the pre-Christian era and who acknowledges that this period even existed (Hadleigh-West 1963: 36). Understandably, however, his perspective concerning the early days before contact tends to emphasize the degree to which the arrival of Christianity was a positive force (Gilbert 1996). For example, he writes that early on, before Christianity arrived in the region, life was very difficult for the Nets’aii Gwich’in, and many struggled and starved:
And there’s a lot of different ways that people have problems during that time. And when Jesus was preaching on his sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter five and Jesus was talking about the pour people, the ones that are really thirsty, people suffering, there are many different ways people suffer in there before Jesus come and Jesus talk about people. That’s the same way I look at that [period] now [before the] first clergy arrive from Canada. People love to hear it, the Word of God, and they all believed, have true faith. Once they hear the good news. And they really become, they all become very strong Christians in this country. (Gilbert 1996)
Gilbert goes on to explain that once the Nets’aii Gwich’in were introduced to Christianity, they embraced it fully, reading from the Bible and holding prayer services, both on a daily basis. He emphasizes too that those who prayed hard worked hard and that prayer, work, and contemplation all were facets of early life in the new village settlement. He writes:
And when people travel and they make sure they are going to have service in the evening after all the hunting is done during the daytime and the people coming home from long hiking with snowshoes break trail all day looking for animals. After everybody come home, and they know for sure they going to have serve that night. Evening service. Sounds like there is a lot of people, a whole camp, I don’t know what they’ve been using for bibles maybe the small one … they carry around … everybody goes, once everybody ready for the service, then they all put on their snowshoes and they all run or walk to that camp and the evening service …
And I think that during that time in the cold winter when they traveled without food that they never stop believing in God, that they still follow, and Jesus and all they can, and all they depend on is in our heavenly father … And this is the way that they survive and many, many years they having hard time but they never did leave this country …
And the way I look at [the early village leaders] is that they never stop working even when they are eighty years old. They work hard for a living and I remember they get up early in the morning all of them early in the morning and they cook for themselves three times a day and they don’t stay up very late either in the camp, they all go to sleep and they get up early in the morning, around five. And they do something in the morning. So my thought about later on is that they are very strong and healthy and trained people. So what they teach us is the true life. So many of them said if you take the word which is good for your life and learn more about bibles, what bible says is true if you live by it you’re going to have long life. This is one of the good teachings for everyone. So this is the way our Episcopal Church came into this country many years ago in 1847 and some later in the whole Yukon flat people are very strong Christian people. So that Church is still there and we should really think about our Great grandfathers and grandmothers who used to live in this community why did they have a good life. (Gilbert 1996)
Gilbert’s thoughts, as well as Johnny Frank’s, are instructive. As elders, their observations provide much to the younger generations who may know little about their own history and heritage. In addition, much of our knowledge of precontact Nets’aii Gwich’in spirituality also comes from external sources. By combining the observations of the outsider with those of communal memory, a broader picture of spiritual development may begin to take shape.
For instance, Western sources generally accept that Nets’aii Gwich’in spirituality was similar to other Alaska Native traditions; as an example, Nets’aii Gwich’in tradition traced creation to supernatural spirits in the region. As hunters and gatherers, a connection with the land was understandably strong. The Nets’aii Gwich’in held that there was little if any distinction between the human and animal worlds. This was most especially true when it came to the caribou, an animal believed to share a physical connection with the human race in a literal sense (Dinero 2003a: 9).
Gwich’in spirituality prior to contact also included belief in a variety of supernatural beings. Most prominent among them was the bushman, or the “Na’in” (Hadleigh-West 1963: 37; McKennan 1965: 77; Osgood 1936: 160; Slobodin 1981: 527). Outsiders or others encountered in the bush who were not recognized by community members were at times thought to be such creatures. White authors have written about such topics with romantic fascination, suggesting, for example, that bushmen were humans who at one point were forced by starvation to resort to cannibalism. As a result, they left the community and lived in the bush in caves or underground. In effect, these men were pushed to the periphery of the community through blood feuds or other communal strife, forced to live outside of the village in holes or other unenviable places (Mason 1924: 60).
As Richard Slobodin suggests, bushmen may be viewed as isolated men who became ostracized by the broader community for failing to offer mutual support in times of need. Though stronger than humans, due to their supernatural condition, these beings could be “overmatched” and overpowered under the right circumstances, but their origins stemmed from their dysfunctional or inadequate role in the community:
If [a] family happened to find game and was unable to bring food to the main party in time, so that the others died, tradition holds that the line family of survivors avoided other people thenceforth. As an informant put