Alaska - State & Local History, Native North American Peoples - General & Miscellaneous, Social Change, Native Arctic Peoples, Native North American Peoples - Social Life & Customs

Raven's Children

Name: Raven's Children
Author: Richard Adams Carey
ISBN: 9780395486771

by Richard Adams Carey

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Overview

In this startlingly intimate book of reportage, Richard Adams Carey takes us to the furthest frontier of American society. Kongiganak, Alaska, cannot be reached by road. In its school, children say the pledge of allegiance in Yupik, their Eskimo language. By any measure, Kongiganak is one of the most remote places in the United States. Yet it finds itself in the midst of radical change. Just two generations ago, Kongiganak knew no cash economy. Its men went to sea in sealskin kayaks and fed their families with what they caught. Today they still go to sea, but in manufactured boats, and they depend on selling their catch to the Japanese processing ships that hover offshore. The modern world has insinuated itself in other, more pernicious ways--not the least of them whiskey and the VCR. Oscar and Margaret Active are one Yupik couple struggling bravely against the force of these incongruities. Margaret works in the village school, and to her husband's distress, her salary is essential to the family's well-being. Oscar is a hunter and fisherman, and his pride--his very identity--depends on being able to survive on the terms established by his ancestors. But these terms arc being changed by forces beyond his control: by the intrusion of a world economic system; by motors and snow machines, which he can't resist, even though they plunge him into debt; and by the culture of alcohol. This book is in large part Oscar's story, as he tries to find a way to stay alive and remain Yupik. Richard Adams Carey first went to Kongiganak more than a decade ago, as a teacher. He learned the language and fished and hunted with the townspeople. In Raven's Children, he skillfully interweaves the story of Oscar Active and his family with the rich store of Yupik legend, lore, and folkways that he has collected over the years. The reader feels a mounting sense of loss over the transformation of this society, which long ago achieved a nearly perfect balance with its environment. Raven's C

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This thoroughly researched, engagingly written sociological study puts Kongiganak, Alaska, on the literary map. The dramatic thread of the book is a 1989 summer fishing expedition that Carey, who teaches in Kongiganak, spends with Yupik Eskimos Oscar and Margaret Active. He intersperses regional history and cultural anthropology with the psychology of Oscar's extended family, including older brother Charlie's ``chemical obsession'' with alcohol. A poignant Memorial Day visit to family graves unravels the desperate past; another haunting chapter ends with the gift of Stove Top stuffing for a child's birthday party in exchange for a meal for the Active family. The author explains the intricate process of obtaining and retaining fishing permits and how the ``land of wealth'' maintains its frontier status with ``deep shadows of poverty,'' as Oscar feels an ``iron collar'' of debt when herring fishing barely brings in gas money. Carey brings this world alive with compelling examination of modern mores descended from ancestral values, proving that ``time collapses, accordions together.'' Illustrations not seen by PW. (June)

Library Journal

Carey is a gifted writer who in 1977 began teaching high school English in the Alaskan village of Kongiganak. In his beautifully conceived and written book, he acquaints readers with the Yupiks (the native Eskimos) and their culture--its sophistication, its virtues, and its traditions. Carey brings vividly to life the Yupik shamans and the Moravian missionaries, especially Native American John Kilbuck, and highlights the problems brought about by interlopers. Detailing the Yupiks' economic life, he clarifies the perennial subsistence versus sport (hunting/fishing) debate. The book's lead roles are played by Oscar the fisherman and his wife, Margaret, while the U.S. Bureau of Education and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs are not among its heroes. This masterpiece of life along Alaska's Kuskokwim River is better than any ethnographic study. Every library should own it.-- Katherine Dahl, Western Illinois Univ., Macomb