Introduction-E

wasn’t a hunter anymore. The men started talking amongst themselves. One said, “Let’s
see how the man who used to be alert reacts.” One of them went around, approached
the man, going towards him from a distance and from behind. Pretending to go get him
at a very slow pace, while he was nodding and napping. He was still very alert. Even
though the man approached him quietly, sure enough, he glanced at him right away. If
we strive to be a person like that, we can be like that too.
He was from Mittimatalik, the Tununiq area?
Elisapee: Yes, he was from the Tununiq area, around Iglulik. That’s the area where he
used to travel.
I’m going to move on to something else, to the months of the year. I have
heard there was some great singing to celebrate the return of the sun.
Can you tell me the story behind the song?
Elisapee: Yes. There’s no specific time for the song. During the summer, the seal and the
bearded seal were cached if there was an abundance, even if it was far from the main
camp. When you go hungry, you have no one to turn to, to let them know you are
hungry. The distance to the cache is no barrier in times of hunger. The weather does not
always cooperate either, for hunters to hunt daily. If they did not have caches, they
would wonder if they would starve, even though they were constantly hunting for seals
under the ice. Right now the dark season is coming to our land. The sky is getting
darker. November, December and January are dark months. Sickness comes at this time.
When you are recovering from an illness, the sun starts to come back. You know it’s a
new season again, even though nothing is written. They probably used their fingers to
count the months and used the stars to identify what season it was. You can see them
shining out there and eventually they disappear. Two stars that are like this
[demonstrating], akuttujuuk. When they start disappearing, you know that the days are
getting longer. One is no longer ill, the stars are disappearing at longer intervals, and
you know that daylight is returning.
So the two stars are called Akuttujuuk?
Elisapee: Yes, that term means that they have a certain distance between them. They
look like this [demonstrating]. We can see them in our home community when the daylight
arrives. So once the signs of daylight arrived, my grandfather made the song.
Life Stories – Elisapee Ootoova 29