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UPPER KUSKOKWIM ATHABASKANS: personal, ethnic, and national history

UPPER KUSKOKWIM ATHABASKANS: personal, ethnic, and national history. ICASS VI , Nuuk, Greenland 22-26 August 2008. Andrej A. Kibrik (Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences ) kibrik@comtv.ru. Upper Kuskokwim. Some facts.

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UPPER KUSKOKWIM ATHABASKANS: personal, ethnic, and national history

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  1. UPPER KUSKOKWIM ATHABASKANS:personal, ethnic, and national history ICASS VI, Nuuk, Greenland 22-26 August 2008 Andrej A. Kibrik (Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences) kibrik@comtv.ru

  2. Upper Kuskokwim

  3. 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

  4. Nikolai: the bird’s eye view

  5. Welcome to Nikolai, a “second class city”

  6. Plan of talk • Social domainsImpact of the dominant society in the 20th century • 1. Religion none • 2. Legal regulations mild • 3. Technology strong • 4. School overwhelming

  7. 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

  8. Lt. Lavrenty Zagoskin

  9. McGrath

  10. 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

  11. Wedding ceremony in Nikolai church

  12. Lena Petruska (b. 1908) • Lena’s story about the way she was upbrought Betty Petruska

  13. 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’onh we never prayed it used to be at that time hidighenesh­na 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 hidighene and then better it became they said

  14. 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

  15. Power of faith LONG TIME nezohw tagh ’oghoghist’a’ long time in water I stayed k’inodle sizan ziLtone icon my neck I have it there heye ghoda hwt’al ’oghoghist’a’ it because maybe I remained

  16. Religion: conlusion • Devotion to the old style religion points to resilience of the people to the 20th century influences

  17. 2. Legal regulations • Story by Miska Deaphon recorded in 1970s by Ray Collins, about the legal restrictions related to hunting

  18. 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

  19. 3. Technology • Lena Petruska’s story about first seeing an airplane around 1923

  20. 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 dine this 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 me always yihwts’ dihwtazne’ hwt’al yiniszinh like that starting to become may be I am thinking BP SHE SAID HER GRANDMOTHER USED TO SAY THAT

  21. 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’ ywgh what 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

  22. 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

  23. Technology: conclusion • Modern technological developments are very much used by the community for their good, and that has significantly altered the traditional patterns

  24. 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

  25. 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

  26. 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

  27. 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

  28. The modern Top of the Kuskokwim School

  29. Sociolinguistic phenomena • Language shift • Code 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

  30. 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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