Edward Hoffman: The Once And Only Chief

I've listened to that one guy who was there, I don't know what the heck was there. I don't know what the hell he's talking about. I study law myself, you know. I thought he was a law school, and you're too foolish. Might as well get the hell down there, let somebody else do the talker, just because you're sending his divas and everybody else and you appear to do all the talker, that's a bunch of baloney. I'm not finished with you yet. Yeah, I'm not finished with you, you. I see you gave a few remarks a while ago, which you should have kept your mouth shut.

And you know, it hurts everybody's pride out here. You, for people and sitting up there, you think you know it all. Point all over my eye. You don't say that to me. I'll be doing the talker tomorrow when all the senators are here. And we'll find out who the hell is the boss instead of these three. I don't know what the hell they talker about. They should get the hell officer off the bench there. I used to, when he was looking, I used to go down there and he leaves stubbed about that big, you know, I used to give a smoke in cigars. For that time, I was getting used to him. And then finally caught me one day. He said, well, he said, I'm going to fix you. So he gave me one of them big, long Canadian cigars. And then I'm going to make you sick, boy.

I just enjoyed that. I smoked it right to the button. Yeah, I said, you must have been smoking long time. I said, good many years. He said, I'll let you go now. He said, you could smoke all you want. He never bothered me after that. And many a time, you know, we used to fight around it. And my dad, he used to put me in the cellar. And we used to go in down in the cellar, pitch dark, you know, and the cooler, cool off for about a couple hours, you know, and then come back up again, you know. He said, now you'll be good boy. He did a couple hours after that. I was fighting again out there, back in the cellar, I went. Now, what sort of things did you have to? What sort of things did you do to get yourself into trouble that would happen? Well, fighting out all the way into part of the fighting, you know. Fighting with the people, not more, most of the people that would come from the different villages, you know. We get into a big fight, you know, because when I started,

we started school in 1920, and it was all kind of people here. And we used to, we said, time we go out there and we got in fight, you know, so that teacher grabbed me by the air, brought me in and took a big, they got these big rulers, rulers, you know, the thick rulers, I took my hand out to put it so hard. I got some mad at her, she was holding hard. I just ripped her, I ripped her, she ran to the bowl. How long did you have to spend in the cellar for that one? No, I didn't get spent, that wasn't my debt. I didn't get nothing for that. I just told him, I said, what we do in 15 minutes, that's on our own. I've been hearing lots about this, this might seem very good, you know, this self that should buy a brand new one. We couldn't see that.

I was coming down at noon today and I heard Mr. Cooper, I'm going to take him first and I'll take you last. Mr. Cooper was bragging about success and he was for success in about two years. But, you know, I talked to a bunch of people up in over an anchorage, he worked with some cuts of you, not slope, and lost the people, white people, and most in anchorage, said that Cooper was against subsistence. Now being you and him is running for governorship, he changed his mind. He turned Christian, you know. And we just made it, I'm not finished, Mr. Cooper. And then, you know that it's a bad thing to do. If you, can you speak against subsistence, regardless what you're saying now, is going to come on you at the election, not only from battle, but all the other villages.

There's a big piece and a ton of times today I wrote about you. He came out today in today's issue. There'll be one in a ton of drums, maybe tonight. The same speech now can down subsistence. You have, you had no right. I'll kept your word when you said you were for the full, when you was against subsistence, then all of a sudden two weeks ago you turned to something, I'm for subsistence now. You know, that's not the way to treat the people of the state of Alaska. Two weeks ago, and not that this city council meeting, Mr. Whittam said he was boss. He was going to be boss for long, he was city manager. And I got thinking about it. The more I thought about it, the angry I was getting. He said, P-A-T-C should not come in and tell the city council what to do.

But the P-A-T-C did, when they had their meeting, they didn't tell the city, they wanted advice from the city council. And Whittam, he didn't like that, you know, that's pretty bad for a city manager. He was elected, the council was elected by the people, therefore the council is his boss. Why I'm here today, you know, I like to talk about the city of Bethel. The city of Bethel is trying to run all these people, people, and take their land away from them, which I don't like. We're here today to kick the city council, also the management and the mayor, kick them out and let their people run the city. It's going to take a little time, but they've got to be done.

He kissed like I had a piece of land over there, they had a fish camp right in the corner across my place. The city came in and could bulldoze it in the river. Never asked me one question or not. Not even a question. When I came back from a river, the smoke house was gone. So I wrote a letter to the city that I was going to assume. Well, he said, you can't take it if they're... We cannot see us because the state holds that property. I said, how come the state holds that property when all this land belongs to the native people? That's why I would like to see as soon as possible, we... This is our criteria. Take over the city in management. If we have to take over that building, we'll take them over too. And then, let me go on a sidewalk and walk around the city of Memphis. Maybe I'll talk to them a little bit after a while,

but let's start with that. Yeah. Yeah, you heard you talk in about the grass down first. Our area to run that far, but when we stopped a blind village, we got nothing new enough for a country that's a different organization so it's up to them to fight for themselves. But I heard you saying that one of the rules that you know to fight all the villages. If you like to know to fight all that village that they've been here at the meeting today, and I don't think you've ever wrote them for us. They've got to be a meeting here and that one. Yes. Well, I didn't hear about it. You know, we said it to all the village councils in the digital council. Like, did you think of this? Here's a guy trying to eat it. He comes up on top. No, maybe that's why I'm trying to make a big lie out of it. No. So maybe you're probably going to come to getting it from whoever he's interested in. That's what he was like. Do you have something to do with his shoulders? Do you have something to do with his shoulders?

All right. I got a gift. I'm going to answer it. That's what I'm going to answer my question over there. I love how they need food. They'll just start a whole cycle. I've been in order from New River. Things got away from me, and I want to know who gives me laughter is they can just stay out of order or a village corporation. Why don't you talk to me after this meeting? They just are trying to tell you. Don't talk about it. I think it's something that doesn't surprise a business that they can have some federal land on the path. And so you should probably talk to each other afterwards. Because I think there's something to do with my comment. One more question. They don't hear from us. They can hear from us. They can hear from us. They're saying villages. That's what I don't want to talk about. I don't draw that down the drain. I will talk to them. When I left this place in nineteen, I left here in nineteen, thirty, thirty, three, I think. And I went to work over Niac and I stayed over there

until nineteen, thirty-eight. And I went down to water mousse. I clapped them. I put in a year down there. And then the rest of the time I stayed in Bessum. With them days, we was only working for about... Well, I worked before that on the river boat. She asked me about two dollars a day. 18 for me, from twelve to eighteen, twenty-four hours a day if it allows me two dollars. $60 a month. That's all we was getting. Well, what did you do with six dollars a month? Well, that time $60 a month went a long ways. All we spent it on pop a ice cream. One night we broke, you know. Go back to get work another month. But only thing that saved us, we had a good grub, you know. We had all we wanted to eat. You know, complain about the food coming. And the boats, river boats. The river boats.

It's going. Turned wheels. All the way to McGrath. Somewhere. Some bathroom to McGrath. Yeah, the boats used to anchor out across some standard oil. That was the original. The first boat to the Tupper was used to come in there. Back of that island, it was. That was the channel. Back of that island. So where were they getting their supplies from? They brought it in with the state. I'm talking from the state. Tupper, they called it. Okay, that would come in from the state. Yeah, twice a year. Most of the buildings can afford to have a priest. Because if you go to the money around, a priest makes a cook for a little bit today. Maybe today is some kind. And I will try to convince him to give the building just a little something. So we could go after the liquor and the drug that's in your village. It might be pretty hard to do.

But you might need them. Well, we should have done this long pub about ten years ago. But it's better this way because you could all of your sisters and brothers, children, you know. And they come up here and look at their whole, what their dads or their moms, I'm talking about the sons and daughters of my dad. And I think it would be a good experience for them this year. And maybe they can talk about it in the school, you know. And make an article, write an article in the newspaper, at school newspaper, have their trip to mid-year this summer. You know, and I think it will be pretty, pretty important, you know. Come on up here.

I know this being a pretty hard race for everybody. But yeah, they got a frog in my throat. I like to thank all the measures that travel the 300 up and down the cusp of quim. And I know how it is, you know, the slick ice and it's pretty hard to be. And they put out a good race. And I would like to present this trophy from the cusp of quim valley, to the Canadian Association, to the first prize. Great match. APPLAUSE Young big day, he went up to the chair, the person who was sharing the meeting in the Senate and he came back and then the chairman said, well, we could have a little break.

Because I see the big chief and the little chief of the cusp of the quim valley are covered in. So they stopped and we call our name, which stood up and Gene Peltola stood up. And boy, everybody was clapping us. You know, wave of their heads and everything. It was interesting to listen to them guys, you know. I'll be talking tomorrow when I get to talk down there. I got the picture of us when we went to the school kids in 1921, when they first opened the school. And I'll talk about that after a while. I have to picture with me and we'll talk about it. And this ship jibboons of wife, we went to school together. Well, quite a few of these old type Peter Borskund, Willie Rabbit, all them guys that passed away. So I'll be talking a little bit more about it. I think it'll be interesting for me to tell the story I've been for everybody. I got a good one now.

You know, every year me and my dad, and this Danny parent, that's Anita's uncle. We used to carry, we used to, we bring kamos and a bully moves in from the States. And we get them bread, you know. We get them bread, you know. And we, one, we butcher like this one this time, we had a butcher, our meat, a big crooked cook. So we butcher the meat and we started home in the evening, you know. We started to move with shining, and then shining, you know. And maybe about 20, 30 below, we was all wrapped up. And we come down, we was coming down, because that opposite of, there's an old horn village on this side of the river,

a new horn village and across the river. So we got about 1000 feet away from that place. And I have to glance, glance over there at the graveyard and up pops a big ball of fire, you know. Maybe six to eight feet in diameter. It rolled, it, it came out, rolled down the bank, it was traveling, it was traveling on top of the ice, about four feet. And we kept it going, you know. We didn't know what to tell it was. We kept it going. We got there about a hundred feet and our dogs, they just stopped, reared back, stopped short, you know. And by golly, when they stopped, the ball of fire passed us, you know.

Went right up the bank into the other graveyard and disappeared. And I told my partner, let's get out of here and get out of here fast. But first, I had a Martin Capra, and it was cold, I had to tie it up. And I don't know how I lost it. I looked on top of my head, there was no Martin Capra disappeared. He did it, he fell out of my head, he rolled, fell in the snow a little ways. And I, to this day, you know, I would think about that. I don't even know how the hell they cracked the hell out of my head. And they would know feeling, you know, when they put a hat up, he would feel it, you know. And boy, we got, we got the hell out of there fast too, I tell you.

Boy, that's one of the big experience we had, you know. Yesterday I turned on a radio and I heard that they were going to have a reunion up here and the last four or five days, all they wanted me to do, give them a speech and they're going to get one today. I, I was old enough to see what my father coming that place for a few people and not my family, but all the families, got big water tobacco in their mouth. Would you see my dad coming? They swore that's why he looked in their mouth. He was no tobacco. They swallowed everything. But he went out, they went out, you know. But I, I like to tell you my last one now. I've got to fix it that's true, but when we were going to school up there and they had a big fat school teacher, you know what I mean? I can't, I can't. I can't, I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't.

It's big fat school teacher. I'm dressed in on it, but it's just knowing like that. It's kind of your fault, but it's it. All right. This, she was about three acts and is white, you know. But I'm a very nice person. A very nice girl in front of our teachers. She's a good person. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. And then we had a small school house, you know. And every day we've been, we're going on for 10 days. She come, we had a little eye of every day. She turned her butt, put her butt in my nose. So I was getting, I was getting tired of that. So it's boring. Before they, she came in. I took them, I didn't, we're gonna append you for a pencil. Ken in. Once she came by, stuck her butt against my nose, I proddered her right. Boy, she jumped her, and she went, she went, she went, but five steps on her nose. Never bother me again.

Now go, you, you, you, you. Just go, you remember? Yeah, you, you, you, you, you. I got to the gym, what kind of clothes you've had to wear. You've got to be seen, how to act. I like that so now for a beat. Any word to not even go. Who's the part I'm here? Let's Remember A . . . . . . . .

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