Youth and Elders draw images from Iñupiaq stories

Madilyn Nageak worked delicately with her thin brush, focusing closely on her painting: A round face of a raven was divided into two parts, one black with red accents, another — white trimmed with gold. On the opposite sides of the raven’s face, she placed the moon and the sun.

Nageak, 14, is from Utqiagvik, but she spent her Monday afternoon at the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage, attending the Elders and Youth Conference. In one of the workshops, she joined dozens of people painting and drawing while listening to Iñupiaq stories.

Iḷisaġvik College facilitated the interactive art activity to help pass on the knowledge of the ancient stories that showed the connection Iñupiaq people have to the animals, land and sea. First, organizers played three videos that students in the Iḷisaġvik’s Inupiaq Studies program created to depict stories they liked. The fourth video showed Iñupiaq Elder and educator Martha Ikayuaq Stackhouse, reading a story about the first whaling.

“We found some stories that people can relate to are relevant to the North Slope,” said Iḷisaġvik’s Iñupiaq Studies Coordinator Eqagiñ Natasha Itta who helped facilitate the activity.

Meanwhile, people in the room joined each other at round tables and painted the images from the stories that stood out to them the most. Some drew little people, some drew seals, whales, tundra and fireweed.

Nageak chose a raven after hearing the story about the bird bringing the sun, moon and stars to people.

“He got the daylight,” Nageak said. “After that, there was always sun.”

After the four videos played, several audience members shared their own stories with everyone — some true, some mythical. Ruby Murphy from Dillingham spoke about her childhood memories of berry picking, and a woman from Kaktovik spoke about her experience encountering the Little People.

The event idea came from this year’s theme of the Elders and Youth conference — Woosht Guganéix, which in Tlingit means “Let it be that we heal each other.”

“People heal in different ways,” Itta said. “They learn healing through songs, healing through painting, through Eskimo dancing. ... We just wanted to be all-inclusive, we wanted to be receptive to people healing in different ways.”

[Elders and Youth Conference opens in Anchorage with focus on healing through culture]

Itta said that to bring back the gift of storytelling through art, song, dance and other mediums, it is necessary to heal from the experience of losing language and identity during colonization and assimilation in the boarding school era.

“You can’t properly learn something if you’re not healed, you know if you’re sort of broken and you’re close-minded,” Itta said. “We wanted to open up a safe space for people to paint and draw and hear some old stories.

“The importance of healing,” she said, “is through bringing back who we are as Iñupiaq people.”