Tales of the Tundra; Tundra Tales #1 Cecila Martz

One, two, three, four, five, seven. That's how my little boy codes. One, two, three, four, five, seven. They've turned that way. You know a lot of stories. You know the little people's stories? There's one story that we experienced as a bunch of us little girls. We were told when we were growing up that little people. There's different sets of little people. In my area, we have Ixunhaksugasa, Ixun, Jingxingaksar, something like that. There's three sets. And what these little people do is, one of the things they do is for tell events that are going to happen in the future. Another one is if you're by a mountain and you see a door or a window and you look through you look at that window at something that's happening inside.

Sometimes like you'd be looking at it for a few minutes, but when you turn away, when the event is, whatever you're looking at is over and you turn away, you had been looking at it for a whole year. There's different stories of different people. But one of the most, one of the Ixunhaksul people, one of the most important things they do is for tell the future, tell what's going to happen in the future. Well, there were a bunch of us girls that were either playing hopscotch or jumping rope by the river, there was a fish camp. And a river, there's a little jigik, to call it a little piece of protruding land going out into the river and you can see part of the water on the other side.

But some of the water was hidden beyond that jigik. Well, anyway, there were three or four of us that door. I think we were hopscotching, playing hopscotch. And one of us happened to look up river and do is a kayak, towing a big cube. Which log? And there was one man, one of the fathers of the girls that we were playing with was the only guy that had gone up river and there were some of them and had gone down river. So we told that girl, run up and tell your stepmother that your dad is coming home. When we were watching that kayak towing that big log on the other side of that jigik, she ran up to their tent, told her stepmother because they have to prepare tea and food for them as soon as they land.

Well, anyway, we watched that kayak and it disappeared from view on the other side of that jigik and that girl came back and we were sitting there and we were waiting for it to go around the bend, bend of that little jigik. We waited and we waited and we waited and he didn't appear into view and we were wondering if he stopped on the other side of that jigik or if he turned over in his kayak but it was a beautiful day and a man like that wouldn't turn over in his kayak. Anyway, we waited and waited and we didn't come out and then after a while we forgot about it and we were continuing our hopscotch and then that girl stepmother came down and asked you know where her husband was and we said he's on the other side of that jigik over there

but we don't know, he hasn't, it's been a long time and so she waited also and looked and waited nothing and then later on after we played hopscotch we went back to our tents I think it was a separate time and I was telling my dad about that happening and he told me that we saw an ichts in a little, you know, a little person but it seemed to us it was a regular size kayak and regular size man and then about two or three days later that girl's dad came, came down river and he was doing a big huge log exactly the way we had seen that other guy and but that time when I told my dad he had told me that we saw an ichts in rock and sure enough that girl's dad came toying a big huge log and

that's the end of my story. Oh, what is the story about the hand creature, oh that big huge hand? There's legends that came down to us in my area about two big huge hands and they have little mouths on the finger fingertips and one time there was a whole bunch of little kids playing, this is kind of a moral, you know, children have to be seen but not hurt. There are a whole bunch of children playing in the men's house kayak and they were making

the whole bunch of noise, lots of noise and when that happens usually that big cat comes, well anyway one time they were playing in the agiak and making lots of noise they had been told over and over again but adults not to make too much noise but they didn't listen so they were playing and making lots of noise and all of a sudden in the middle of the agiak is the fire pit and also the entrance exit so they appeared from under that middle of the agiak, a big cat came out and it had little mouths on the fingertips and it went around like this, it did big huge hand, went around like this and started eating with our children and one of the children hit underneath us skin aura, big dooming up those big plates, wooden plates, either a skin or one of those things and escaped from being

eaten and that after it felled around all of it went back out and when it was over that little boy, I think it was little boy came out and told the adults what happened and so the adults in the village you wanted to catch that big hand so what they did was they fashioned a big huge ullok, big huge woman's knife and they hung it up there on where the openings for the agiak, they hung it up there and they gathered another bunch of children and they told them to make as much noise as they can so they put them in the agiak and they were making lots of noise, lots of noise and then a lung came that began with these little mouths and just when it was going to go around eating their little

kids, they dropped that big ullok and cut off, I mean heated and it slithered out, you know out and they, I think they killed it, well anyway that one had a wife and it's still people say it's still roaming around the baring sea looking for her husband and usually there's a big red glow when it's traveling, when you see a big red glow moving around on the baring sea, that means it's that, it took a quick call it, it took a quick looking for her husband and the very last time we saw that big glow was the very last time we had a part latch in the village because the church didn't want us to have part latches

anymore, we were all in there and a bunch of us came out and somebody got all excited and it was at night time, pointed toward the baring sea and there was a red glow moving slowly and then all the adults, they just left the part latch, all the adults came out and started looking at it and it moved all our, you know all the way towards who probaby and who probaby and disappeared there and the adults were saying that that was the best book that we can looking for her husband and that was the very, very last time we had a part latch until I think two or three years ago we started them back up by me. Your from Chivac, which is not too near, too far from the mud volcano, have you heard

any tales about the giant bird which supposedly is nestable, you know any stories about the giant, giant bird? No? On the lower you can't, um, ghost stories. If you ever experienced anything in the ghostry nature or no one would want to did. To some strange experiences with, um, these are all hearsay, secondhand. Um, there was one, one man shaman that died and he wasn't, he wasn't a good one. There's good shamans and bad shamans and he was a bad one. He used to put curses on people, play with their minds and everything. He died and they buried him at fish camp. Chivac, fish camp and niktak, niktak, niktak people used to fish camp few miles away from us on the Apon River

and they buried him about the middle and his, his grave is pretty high and certain events have been associated with his grave, for instance, in the winter time. Two men had the same, similar experience with him, with the grave. Uh, one, well, it's the same story told twice, I mean, told once because they had the same experience. One, one guy was out hunting in that area, upon area and he was coming home with his dark team and, uh, he saw the grave over there and he was getting dark and he had to stop pretty soon for the night. And when he saw that grave out in that distance, he, he see, here's the grave and he was coming and nobody likes to go around that grave. So he turns makes a loop to pass it and just

when he was making that loop to pass it, he turned dark and he traveled in that dark and he thought he passed the grave and then he stopped for the night and then next morning he came out of his tendon. There was the grave right, right beside him. And so he got rid of real fast and his dogs just zoomed away from there and that's happened twice when people, the hunter thought that they were going around it and they ended up right beside it. Um, see, another year over here about noises, noise, noise ghosts. My brother and his partner were out trapping and there's little eglues, you know, for hunters to stop

that. In a new way, they were stopped at this one eglue, sad eglue and they had made, I don't know if they should, they had made home brew in, in their house and they attributed this to their home brew. Well, anyway, uh, when you hear our noise and it is the noise, we call it our oven, the noise goes around in your house in a circle and gets closer and closer and closer. And at that time, there was nobody around outside except their dogs and their dogs were going, you know, that funny noise when something's going on, they were making that whining noise. And they heard that oven, that ghost noise, spirit noise, whatever it is in English and it kept coming closer and closer and one of the other

hunters, my brother's partner had rosary beats, you know, that Catholic salaries. He had those in his pocket and just when it was going, it got to their door, they had one entrance, got to their door, he took his rosary and he threw it as hard as he could at the door and then the noise suddenly stopped and the rosary fell on the floor and they were too scared to look so they went together and they went together and they went to bed, no light night light or anything. And then next morning, they got up and they were going to throw their home brew out there because they had that home brew, they were being bothered by spirits. And the guy went over to the door to look for his rosary and it wasn't there on the floor.

So he opened the door and there's a little porch that leads out to the outer and he opened the inner door and he walked out and there was his rosary beats outside of the inner entrance and they were all broken up and he gathered them together and put them back in his pocket. And back to my brother and said, we better throw our home brew out and they threw it. And after that, they weren't bothered, I get it. Doy. That's a great story. Good. Do you know any creature? You know any creature? A monster story that inhabits late to the mountain. No, they're just one that it's not a creature story but this guy told the hunters that he not to kill our one task wireless.

Okay, let's let's get to it. No, it's almost 12 o'clock. Okay. Okay. But that one is too close, you know, the story is too close. There are some stories too close to relate to people outside of the family. Right. You, some stories you don't tell to people but in this story that I have is too close. Was it told you by someone in your... No, I was, we experienced it but it happened before my time but the effect of it happened before now was a little close. I sure appreciate you doing this. I didn't know I knew lots of stuff.