New Kotzebue Variant from UAA Archives

An exciting day today, having found another Alaskan oral variant of story in the Charles Lucier Collection at the UAA Archives here in Anchorage. This Eskimo variant, coming from Kotzebue in northwest Alaska, fits quite clearly into Group C as described in my book (see pages 8-12). But it is also unique in that the blind man's vision is not restored by diving underwater with the loon, but by the loon laying the man down on the shore of the lake and pulling something out of his eyes that allows him to see again.

Another unique feature is that the loon's markings are the result of the blind man giving the loon a belt decorated with rows of caribou teeth. This is in contrast to the Indian variants in Group F where the loon's markings come from a gift to the loon in the form of a dentalium necklace. This belt, to my knowledge never mentioned in the ethnographic record, is taken from the blind man's sister, and it seems to have a ceremonial use, a kind of magical power. Perhaps some day such a belt may turn up in the archaeological record.

At any rate, here is the text of the story, which has never been published, as it was told by Ralph Gallahorn (Angnoiaq) of Kotzebue in Iñupiaq, circa 1950-1952 and translated by Judith Bailey. I typed it up from the original, which was written in pencil. There may actually be an oral recording of the performance in Lucier's extensive collection of tapes, but I will have to save that search for another day.

The Blind Young Man and the Loon
Charles Lucier Collection, Box 7, Folder 43, UAA Archives, Anchorage

Away on the coast there was a family living alone. The father was dead, there was only the mother and her son and daughter.
The son was a good hunter. He got caribou in winter and seals in summer. His mother was always busy drying caribou and seal meat. She was always tired because her son was such a good hunter.
One time when the mother was tired of her work, she put urine in the son's food. He ate the food that was mixed with his mother's urine. He began to be blind and got completely blind.
The son wanted fresh food, but his mother didn't give any to him. The dried meat from the animals he hunted was almost used up. The mother complained that they were getting short on food. When they ate, the mother gave her son only a little piece of meat. He got thin. His sister gave him food when her mother wasn't watching.
The son was very thin and crawled on hands and knees. When it was fall time, cool and dark, loons (malaGi) made noises, "Aa a a a", on a lake in back. He listened to the loons.
The son decided to go to the lake.
While his mother and sister were asleep, he searched for his sister's belt, the one with rows of caribou teeth all around. He found the belt and took it.
He crawled toward the lake. He heard loons hollering in the dark. He crawled toward the loons' voices and came to the edge of the lake.
He held up his sister's belt. A loon swam to him. The loon became like a human being.
The loon lay the blind young man down and worked on his eyes. The loon seemed to pull something from the blind man's eyes.
The light was so bright that he had to shut his eyes. Then he could see again.
The loon told the young man why he got blind. The young man gave his sister's belt to the loon to show his thanks.
The loon didn't know where to put the caribou tooth belt. The young man put the belt on the loon's wing.
The young man got strong again. He went hunting. The family lived there for one year: spring came and summer came. When belugas came, the son got ready to harpoon them from the beach.
Belugas came swimming close to the shore. The son harpooned a beluga. The mother and the sister helped to hold the harpoon line.
Then the young man wrapped the harpoon line around his mother. The beluga dragged his mother away.
Those caribou teeth stayed always on the loons' wings.
That's the end.

Book Preview

For anyone who hasn't yet seen my book, here's a free copy of the Forward, Table of Contents, and Introduction. Feel free to download and share.  https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1183&context=unpresssamples

Another oral variant uncovered!

Another oral variant of the Blind Man and the Loon uncovered! Last night I discovered this variant, told by the late Chief Peter John of Minto, through a Google key word search. To my pleasant surprise, it was recorded by James Kari in Fairbanks on March 7, 1990, accompanied by Jeff Leer and Elsie John.

There are two sound clips. On the first clip (ANLC2522A) Peter tells the story in English, and then at the end, Jim asks him to tell it in Lower Tanana. He does so (but only after expressing his displeasure about not being asked to tell it in his Minto language first). The second or Lower Tanana telling (ANLC 2522B) is continued in the second sound clip. Both are available for listening at the Alaska Native Language Archive site ( http://www.uaf.edu/anla/item.xml?id=ANLC2522). You may need to boost your volume to max to hear them clearly.

Peter John's variant is quite similar to other Tanana River variants, like the one told by Walter Titus in Nenana (see http://www.uaf.edu/loon/audio/), but there are a couple of traits here worth commenting on. For one, the hunter in Peter John's variant kills a moose, while the hunter in Walter Titus's variant kills a caribou. Now Minto and Nenana are only a few miles apart on the Tanana River, so this is a surprise.

As I noted in my book, the Tanana River area displays some interesting mixing between a moose (Regional Group G) or a caribou (Regional Group F), as the animal hunted by the blind man. Peter John's blind man shoots a moose (a trait distinctive of Group G) but he rewards the loon with a beaded necklace (a trait distinctive of Group F). For the location of these groups see my map below in an earlier posting.  For the location of these groups see my map below in an earlier posting.

The Peter John variant also injects a new twist on the wicked wife's final insult. Instead of giving her blind husband the usual ladle of bug-infested water when he finds his way back to her camp, here the wife gives him some sinew to eat. In both the John and Titus variants the storytellers quote the hunter's final words to his wife as "Naduya' ole'!" ('You will become an ant.')

Another unique trait of Peter John's variant is that at the beginning of the story the blind man positions himself next to a game trail and ties a string or rope across the trail. When he feels the rope get taut, he uses that as a sensory signal to shoot his arrow and kill the moose. In all the other Indian variants I know of (including the one by Walter Titus) he depends on his wife to tell him where to aim and when to shoot.

Cape Dorset Art Works

Ningeokuluk Teevee's "Lumaaq Taken to the Deep," 2011, and her "Lumaajuuq's Story," 2014. It fascinates me that artists like Teevee keep returning to the story every few years, only to come up with new scenes and images. These are the second and third ones she has produced in recent years. Davidialuk was another artist who had four or five different visions of the tale.

In "Lumaaaq Taken to the Deep" we see the blind man diving underwater holding onto a loon's leg with each hand, but in nearly all Inuit oral variants he puts his arms around the neck of one or two loons and holds on underwater that way. It makes me think there are oral accounts in Cape Dorset which depict him diving down this way, but to my knowledge none have ever been published.

In "Lumaajuuq's Story" there's no sign of the blind man, only his mother. So I'm guessing Lumaaq refers to the blind man and the name Lumaajuuq is reserved for his mother.

I truly feel drawn to make a visit to Cape Dorset, a village where a wealth of BM&L art continues to flourish.

Second Journal Review of BM&L

Thanks again to Karen Workman for sending along a copy of Alisha Drabek's review of my book, published in the latest issue of the Alaska Journal of Anthropology (AJA) Vol 12. No. 1 (2014), pp. 77-78.  It's very positive and validating, indeed.  I consider it a little Christmas present!  Alisha is the Executive Director of the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak and wrote her dissertation on Alutiiq storytelling.

New Children's Book

I just received a copy of yet another children's book on the story.  This one is by the Inuit filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and was published this year.  It is an adaptation using still images from her eight minute animated film Lumaajuuq, released by the National Film Board of Canada in 2010.  She says in her introduction that "Lumaajuuq is an epic story.  There are many chapters to it, and I really hope that someone [!] does a good job of collecting and documenting them all some day. . .Knowing that the story was so huge that it could take hours to tell, I felt I could never do it justice with a few minutes of film."

First Review

Thanks to a referral from my friend Karen Workman, I just received a copy of the first scholarly journal review of The Blind Man and the Loon. It comes from the hand of the well-known Tlingit folklorist and former Alaska Poet Laureate, Richard Dauenhauer. Dauenhauer calls it "an excellent book. . .well gounded in folklore methods and scholarship. It is certainly the definitive study on this folktale and a model for similar studies." The full review can be found in Alaska History Vol. 29 No. 1, Spring 1914, p. 53. Alaska History is published by The Alaska Historical Society. I was sorry to hear of Dick's death on August 19, 2014.  He really did a lot.  http://juneauempire.com/local/2014-08-19/poet-translator-richard-dauenhauer-dies-72#.U_V49RbCeKI