ABOUT THIS BOOK

Lifeways in Southwest Alaska today remains inextricably bound to the seasonal cycles of sea and land. Community members continue to hunt, fish, and make products from the life found in the rivers and sea. Based on a wealth of oral histories collected over decades of research, this book explores the ancestral relationship between Yup’ik people and the natural world of Southwest Alaska. Nunakun-gguq Ciutengqertut studies the overlapping lives of the Yup’ik with native plants, animals, and birds, and traces how these relationships transform as more Yup’ik people relocate to urban areas and with the changing environment. The book will be hailed as a milestone work in the anthropological study of contemporary Alaska.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Ann Fienup-Riordan is an anthropologist who has lived and worked in Alaska for more than forty years. She has written and edited more than twenty books on Yup’ik history and oral traditions.

REVIEWS

"Great it is that Fienup-Riordan and her collaborators, with the support of the Calista Education and Culture organization, have brought together what amount to encyclopedias of Yup'ik knowledge, for the benefit of younger generations and the world at large. The value of what can be learned from and about the more-than-human world, especially in a time of change, is matched by lessons in how we all might live more responsibly."

— Anchorage Daily News

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Acknowledgments

Yup’ik Tradition Bearers

Introduction

I. Thinking on the Page

1. Uqlautekevkenaku | They Didn’t Make a Mess of It: Yup’ik Perspectives on Human and Animal Relations

2. How Raven Marked the Land When the Earth Was New

3. Ciissit | Insects in Yup’ik Oral Tradition

4. Urine, Blood, Saliva, and Slime: The Power of Bodily Fluids

5. Tua-i-gguq Makut Nemeryat Murilkelluki Pisqetuit | They Tell People to Be Careful around Those Eels

II. Gatherings

6. King Salmon on the Lower Yukon River: Past and Present

7. They Say Not to Fear Animals in the Wilderness since They Can Be Food: Yup’ik Understandings of Moose and Bear

8. Unguvalriit | Sea Mammals

9. Yaqulget Elpengcarilallrat | How Birds Notify Us

III. The Past Is Old, the Future Is Traditional

10. Ircenrraat, the DOT, and the Inventiveness of Tradition

Notes

Glossary

References

Index

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