Bethel Native Artist Profile; Story Knifing

When we used to go out and make, you know, to tell stories and mud with our story knives, we used to make sure that we had a good story in life and then we would find a real nice place and bring some mud if there's no good mud there to, you know, make our story places with, we'd bring our own mud in, we would pick up grass and like this one here, we'd put it under us so we don't get dirty. Sometimes we use cardboard and then before we go out we make sure that we have something to, you know, to like gum or if we don't have gum we would steal some little bit of tobacco from our mother or our father's box and then we'd bring that stuff so we can have saliva to spit on our story place. So when we erase the, you know, erase the story that the images

we put under, and the story place like this, you know, sometimes it's kind of hard to erase so when we spit, it helps to erase and it makes your going like this easier and then we chew sometimes we would chew young grass like this green ones like this, that gives saliva and then we tell stories, we'd spend hours and hours telling stories, that used to be one of my favorite past times. And then when we, in the summertime when our mothers don't have anything to do, sometimes they gather around after they eat, when we're outside, you know, sometimes we eat outside, they'd gather and they would tell stories to about their relatives and unusual happenings that

happened a long time ago to their men, to their friends. We'd mostly used to tell about that grandmother and her granddaughter or grandson, the grandson is always the one with no parents, you know, the parents had died or something and the grandmother would be taking care of that grandchild until they grew and are able to take care of themselves, they go hunting or they get married. Those are the things we used to mostly tell and then we used to tell some other stories like we'd go very picking or go ate hunting and then at the end of the day, you know, when the sun stays up for a long time in the summertime, so

we would eat and then go out and tell stories about what happened that day and where we found the nest and stuff like that and where we found all the berries and how our, you know, how our day went and it would always be interesting, it's never boring, we always had fun. Sometimes, not a little kids would come, hire younger sisters or younger brothers or cousins, a lot of little kids would just gather around and listen to the stories we told. We never got bored. Sometimes, we used to do it under snow, you know. We could, my dad used to make us learn wooden knifes, lanterns for the winter years, I don't know why. Maybe it's because we can go like this

and put some of the, you know, some of the handle insides so our hands won't get cold at least to make our wooden story knifes for a wintertime long, big in with land handles. The summertime we used to use everyone's and then in the wintertime we used wood. I just, I, the, every wood could cool in trees and break in the winter, I don't know. But then, but that's what we used to use, that's what we used to use the wood for the winter and, um, every for the summer. This is a girl's thing here. I never, in fact, I never see any boys tell stories under me. They used to come around and listen to the stories told. We would save our story knifes for the next summer. We just put them away in a good place,

you know, for the, nobody else will handle them. We used to have, sometimes we'd bring in mud for the winter, you know, on a board or cardboard paper, so we could tell stories in the house and when our mothers don't have anything to do, they tell us stories and we used to really enjoy that. Even though we didn't have TV, we used to have just a lot of fun. Sometimes I wish my children would, you know, enjoy those little things instead of watching TV all the time. Telling stories under mud is the way we passed down our, you know, legends like the

how the fox got red and how the crane got its blue ice. That's how we learned our, you know, legend stories by word of mouth. And I don't think we would have learned them any other way if there was no, you know, telling stories under mud. That's how we learned them. Sometimes when we go to bed at night, I used to have my dad tell a story or my mother tell a story. And then if I learned those stories, I would tell them on the mud, you know, to my friends. Even if we sometimes care stories over and over again, they're always fun, you know, maybe it's because we make these images under mud. That's what makes it used to even more interesting and not boring because sometimes they tell scary stories and sometimes really funny ones, sometimes really sad ones.

And then when they told stories, they all used to go, you know, I was going to see you. Just make the stories really interesting and exciting. There would be, you know, they sound and little things they do. And then they would be like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, you know, like, you know,

you know, you don't have a story, you don't have a story.