Introduction-E

Once?
Saullu: He taught me once to use finals. That lesson also helped me to read Roman
orthography.
You read in Roman?
Saullu: Yes, I used to. I haven’t done so for a while.
Who taught you syllabics?
Saullu: I learned by reading names on letters. I used to know people’s names. I used to
know adults’ names. When I read “Taunguliqtuq,” I didn’t know that my grandmother
had that for a name. I didn’t like that name because she wasn’t ugly. I am called by my
name. I did not know she had that for a name, so I didn’t like it at all.
What did you call her? Did you just call her ananaatsiaq (grandmother)?
Saullu: I thought she was my cousin, because I called her illukuluk. When I was a child
I didn’t know adults’ names. I was called by relationship-name by my grandparents.
That’s why I didn’t know they had the names they had. When we were children we
didn’t know adult names. Nowadays, children say the names of adults, including their
mother’s and father’s names.
Is that because you were born before there were schools?
Saullu: Yes, long before there were schools.
How were you taught by your parents?
Saullu: We were taught only such things as sewing, and also I was taught by my father’s
sister to read.
Did you practice sewing by making doll clothes?
Saullu: Yes. For wooden dolls (inuujanut) we used to make clothing not only from cloth,
but out of seal skins and caribou skins. We even made short pants for wooden dolls. We
were told what to do even making doll clothes.
Did you use your own needles or did you use your mother’s?
Did you have your own?
Saullu: Only a thimble, that was all I had. My father had gotten a thimble for me.
Life Stories – Saullu Nakasuk 67