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Chris Cuomo, Wendy Eisner and Kenneth Hinkel,
"Environmental Change, Indigenous Knowledge, and Subsistence on Alaska's North Slope"
(page 8 of 9)
The centrality of women in successful whaling is described in detail
in an interview we conducted with Ida Olemaun, a female elder of Barrow
and a whaling captain's wife. Here she describes what she learned from
her mother (also a whaling captain's wife) about the spiritual
connection between women and whales, and the responsibilities of the
wife of a whaling captain to the whaling crew:
One thing that Mom has told me was that whenever there is
a whaling crew that is setting up to become whalers . . . it's the lady that's
more the one that's really in control . . .. And that the whale looks at the
woman and that the whale lands on real like, green pasture. That's how
I can describe it. And gives of itself . . .. And what the woman does is
prepare for their clothing, make sure that they have food as the
preparation is going on, and they have warm parkas . . .. So as a whaling
captain's wife you have to be responsible for that, to ensure that they
have their needs met.
Because the presence and participation of women, and wives in
particular, is necessary for a successful whale hunt, their role is in
no way auxiliary. As Bodenhorn summarizes, "wives ritually attract the
animals and are thus classified as hunters by Iñupiaq men," and
"animals give themselves up to men whose wives are generous and
skillful; it is also the men's responsibility to treat the animal
properly, but it is the woman to whom the animal comes."[40]
Sociologists Janet Mancini Billson and Kyra Mancini provide a similar
analysis of traditional Inuit culture in Nunavut, Canada prior to
European influence:
The Inuit did not delineate gender roles as precisely as
some have reported, which, in turn, had a profound effect on the balance
of power . . .. Contrary to popular images of nomadic life, females crossed
over into "male" territory when it was necessary for survival. They also
fished and helped with communal caribou drives . . .. Similarly, although
women counted food preparation and cooking as a central part of their
role, men crossed into the woman's territory of preparing food and
mending clothes when they lived on the land for extended periods while
hunting or fishing.[41]
Evelyn Donovan captures the sense of complementary roles and the
sharing of in the following quote. Although she is a skilled hunter, she
also takes great pride and pleasure in the work of sewing and cooking:
I've gone up and hunted myself . . . and there's other women
who've done the same . . .. We need each other to balance the subsistence
lifestyle as well. We all have our own places, we have our own jobs to
do. The minute we go to camp, while the male, the men set up camp, I've
already started cooking so we can eat and make for sure that
everything's right. And we work hard like this instead of standing
around. There's a difference but really not, I guess if you will, in the
sense where we go hunting every person no matter whether they're a
woman, a man, or child, we all have a job to do.
Mary Sage is a young Iñupiaq mother who grew up in Seattle and
Fairbanks but moved to Barrow several years ago, because she wanted to
become more involved in traditional culture (her mother is originally
from the North Slope). Here she describes learning to butcher, and its
multilayered significance concerning identity and community
participation:
At first I was really intimidated because I've never seen
butchering and I've never participated in butchering an animal or
hunting . . .. The first time I saw someone butchering was my neighbor and it
was this huge bearded seal and it just shocked me because oh my gosh,
you know, I've never seen that. You don't see that in Fairbanks, you
know? . . . And then I felt like a tourist cause when my friends parents'
were butchering I would take pictures . . .. Once I learned how to butcher, you
feel like you're giving more, you know, you're helping out and it gives
you a good feeling of connection to your ancestors . . .. So, it's a lot of
fun. I've learned a lot.
Iñupiat women have distinct and special roles in relation to
subsistence practices, but their contributions are not strictly limited
to those roles. In a different vein, Evelyn Donovan enthusiastically
describes her love of hunting, and how she learned to hunt:
Four of us older sisters we were taught to hunt. So
that's why I love to go. A lot of women don't do all what men do . . .. The
way I learned my Dad would take us cause we're four older girls. He'd
take us on the boat and we'd go hunting. And back then, I'm almost
sixty, back then you have to be really rich to have an outboard motor.
So what did we do? We'd go on the edge of the water and by the edge of
the rivers and pull the boat along . . .. And I loved to hunt so I always
went with him. I know I carried many hundreds of hind-quarter of
caribou every hunting season.
In interviews, participants often mentioned women hunting caribou,
and on the walls of quite a few of the homes we visited were yellowed
photos of female ancestors and family members, posing proudly on the
tundra next to felled caribou, looking fabulous, with hunting rifles in
hand. Both male and female participants discussed women hunters with
admiration, and although women whalers and hunters of sea mammals are
far less common, exceptional women whalers and seal hunters were also
mentioned. This is consistent with the picture of gendered norms in
Iñupiat society presented by Bodenhorn, who found that women who
slay animals are considered skilled rather than "unwoman-like," and "men
and women are not thought to be somehow congenitally incapable of doing
something generally assigned to" the other sex.[42]
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