Introduction-E

We’d like to hear you tell us your lifestory.
Elisapee: My family moved away from the RCMP in 1932. We moved to another area of
Tununiq. After spending a year there, we moved back to Mittimatalik. I recall a bit when
we were living at someone’s camp in 1936. I remember when we had our own camp. My
father did not have his boat at that time because somebody else was using it. He had
been given a boat when he was working for the RCMP. He had equipment which he had
acquired from them. He had left his other boat in the Tununirusiq area. At the camp
where we were, there was no material to make a boat, but I do not really remember as I
was six years old. There was an old boat that had belonged to the whalers, which was
near our camp. My father got some wood from there and built a small boat. It only
required five sealskins for the cover so it was really small. He made it so he could fetch
the seals he shot from the water. He was the only man of the camp, even though my
older brother helped him. That summer, my father caught twenty whales. I do not recall
that myself, but my brother does and he used to write about these things.
When winter came, thirty-four whales were trapped by ice and they were all
caught, not only by my father but also by men from nearby camps. We never went
hungry. As my father grew up an orphan, he was a determined hunter and he provided
well. There were days when the weather wasn’t hunting weather. Then we would run
out of food, as the food caches were far away.
Back then, children didn’t used to have money. The only source of money was fox
skins and narwhal tusks. Even though my father worked for the RCMP, as soon as he
quit his job, he had no more income from them. That’s how it used to be.
We can remember even when soap was scarce. We would go for long periods of
time when we didn’t have contact with qallunaat. Only when the ice froze over, would
we go where there were qallunaat, to get supplies such as tea and sugar. My father and
my mother would go without smoking for the whole summer, but that didn’t seem to
be a problem as we weren’t unhealthy then.
We lived a life which is completely different from today. We had lice on our heads
and clothing. It didn’t seem to be a problem then as it was a way of life. There wasn’t an
abundance of soap so we weren’t washed regularly.
I do recall my grandmother washing her face regularly though, each morning when
she woke up. She did not have a basin so she would take a sip of water and use it to
wash her face. That was how they used to wash their faces. There was never a question
of how there must be saliva in the water she was using to wash her face with. She would
take another sip of water and use that to rinse her face. The aroma of the soap used to
smell so nice, and the smell of a match that was lit outside also had a nice smell. Even
when I was a little child, it seemed to smell so good. I never considered it an awful
stench. It doesn’t smell good in a house, but the odor of a lit match has a nice odor
outside.
14 Introduction to the Oral Traditions