Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival (2 page)

During the cold, hunting required more energy than at other times. Thus, the hunters were fed first, as it was their skills on which The People depended. Yet, with so many to feed, what food they had was depleted quickly. Despite their best efforts, many of the women and children suffered from malnutrition, and some would die of starvation.

In this particular band were two old women
cared for by The People for many years. The older woman’s name was Ch’idzigyaak, for she reminded her parents of a chickadee bird when she was born. The other woman’s name was Sa’, meaning “star,” because at the time of her birth her mother had been looking at the fall night sky, concentrating on the distant stars to take her mind away from the painful labor contractions.

The chief would instruct the younger men to set up shelters for these two old women each time the band arrived at a new campsite, and to provide them with wood and water. The younger women pulled the two elder women’s possessions from one camp to the next and, in turn, the old women tanned animal skins for those who helped them. The arrangement worked well.

However, the two old women shared a character flaw unusual for people of those times. Constantly they complained of aches and pains, and they carried walking sticks to attest to their handicaps. Surprisingly, the others seemed not
to mind, despite having been taught from the days of their childhood that weakness was not tolerated among the inhabitants of this harsh motherland. Yet, no one reprimanded the two women, and they continued to travel with the stronger ones—until one fateful day.

On that day, something more than the cold hung in the air as The People gathered around their few flickering fires and listened to the chief. He was a man who stood almost a head taller than the other men. From within the folds of his parka ruff he spoke about the cold, hard days they were to expect and of what each would have to contribute if they were to survive the winter.

Then, in a loud, clear voice he made a sudden announcement: “The council and I have arrived at a decision.” The chief paused as if to find the strength to voice his next words. “We are going to have to leave the old ones behind.”

His eyes quickly scanned the crowd for reactions. But the hunger and cold had taken their toll, and The People did not seem to be
shocked. Many expected this to happen, and some thought it for the best. In those days, leaving the old behind in times of starvation was not an unknown act, although in this band it was happening for the first time. The starkness of the primitive land seemed to demand it, as the people, to survive, were forced to imitate some of the ways of the animals. Like the younger, more able wolves who shun the old leader of the pack, these people would leave the old behind so that they could move faster without the extra burden.

The older woman, Ch’idzigyaak, had a daughter and a grandson among the group. The chief looked into the crowd for them and saw that they, too, had shown no reaction. Greatly relieved that the unpleasant anouncement had been made without incident, the chief instructed everyone to pack immediately. Meanwhile, this brave man who was their leader could not bring himself to look at the two old women, for he did not feel so strong now.

The chief understood why The People who
cared for the old women did not raise objections. In these hard times, many of the men became frustrated and were angered easily, and one wrong thing said or done could cause an uproar and make matters worse. So it was that the weak and beaten members of the tribe kept what dismay they felt to themselves, for they knew that the cold could bring on a wave of panic followed by cruelty and brutality among people fighting for survival.

In the many years the women had been with the band, the chief had come to feel affection for them. Now, he wanted to be away as quickly as possible so that the two old women could not look at him and make him feel worse than he had ever felt in his life.

The two women sat old and small before the campfire with their chins held up proudly, disguising their shock. In their younger days they had seen very old people left behind, but they never expected such a fate. They stared ahead numbly as if they had not heard the chief condemn them to a certain death—to be left alone
to fend for themselves in a land that understood only strength. Two weak old women stood no chance against such a rule. The news left them without words or action and no way to defend themselves.

Of the two, Ch’idzigyaak was the only one with a family—a daughter, Ozhii Nelii, and a grandson, Shruh Zhuu. She waited for her daughter to protest, but none came, and a deeper sense of shock overcame her. Not even her own daughter would try to protect her. Next to her, Sa’ also was stunned. Her mind reeled and, though she wanted to cry out, no words came. She felt as if she were in a terrible nightmare where she could neither move nor speak.

As the band slowly trudged away, Ch’idzigyaak’s daughter went over to her mother, carrying a bundle of babiche—thickly stripped raw moosehide that served many purposes. She hung her head in shame and grief, for her mother refused to acknowledge her presence. Instead, Ch’idzigyaak stared unflinchingly ahead.

Ozhii Nelii was in deep turmoil. She feared that, if she defended her mother, The People would settle the matter by leaving her behind and her son, too. Worse yet, in their famished state, they might do something even more terrible. She could not chance it.

With those frightening thoughts, Ozhii Nelii silently begged with sorrowful eyes for forgiveness and understanding as she gently laid the babiche down in front of her rigid parent. Then she slowly turned and walked away with a heaviness in her heart, knowing she had just lost her mother.

The grandson, Shruh Zhuu, was deeply disturbed by the cruelty. He was an unusual boy. While the other boys competed for their manhood by hunting and wrestling, this one was content to help provide for his mother and the two old women. His behavior seemed to be outside of the structure of the band’s organization handed down from generation to generation. In this case, the women did most of the burdensome tasks such as pulling the
well-packed toboggans. In addition, much other time-consuming work was expected to be done by the women while the men concentrated on hunting so that the band could survive. No one complained, for that was the way things were and always had been.

Shruh Zhuu held much respect for the women. He saw how they were treated and he disapproved. And while it was explained to him over and over, he never understood why the men did not help the women. But his training told him that he never was to question the ways of The People, for that would be disrespectful. When he was younger, Shruh Zhuu was not afraid to voice his opinions on this subject, for youth and innocence were his guardians. Later, he learned that such behavior invited punishment. He felt the pain of the silent treatment when even his mother refused to speak to him for days. So Shruh Zhuu learned that it caused less pain to think about certain things than to speak out about them.

Although he thought abandoning the helpless old women was the worst thing The People could do, Shruh Zhuu was struggling with himself. His mother saw the turmoil raging in his eyes and she knew that he was close to protesting. She went to him quickly and whispered urgently into his ear not to think of it, for the men were desperate enough to commit any kind of cruel action. Shruh Zhuu saw the men’s dark faces and knew this to be true, so he held his tongue even as his heart continued to rage rebelliously.

In those days, each young boy was trained to care for his weapons, sometimes better than he cared for his loved ones, for the weapons were to be his livelihood when he became a man. When a boy was caught handling his weapon the wrong way or for the wrong purpose, it resulted in harsh punishment. As he grew older, the boy would learn the power of his weapon and how much significance it had, not only for his own survival but also for that of his people.

Shruh Zhuu threw all this training and thoughts of his own safety to the winds. He
took from his belt a hatchet made of sharpened animal bones bound tightly together with hardened babiche and stealthily placed it high in the thick boughs of a bushy young spruce tree, well concealed from the eyes of The People.

As Shruh Zhuu’s mother packed their things, he turned toward his grandmother. Though she seemed to look right through him, Shruh Zhuu made sure no one was watching as he pointed
to his empty belt, then toward the spruce tree. Once more he gave his grandmother a look of hopelessness, and reluctantly turned and walked away to join the others, wishing with a sinking feeling that he could do something miraculous to end this nightmarish day.

The large band of famished people slowly moved away, leaving the two women sitting in the same stunned position on their piled spruce boughs. Their small fire cast a soft orange glow onto their weathered faces. A long time passed before the cold brought Ch’idzigyaak out of her stupor. She was aware of her daughter’s helpless gesture but believed that her only child should have defended her even in the face of danger. The old woman’s heart softened as she thought of her grandson. How could she bear hard feelings toward one so young and gentle? The others made her angry, especially her daughter! Had she not trained her to be strong? Hot, unbidden tears ran from her eyes.

At that moment, Sa’ lifted her head in time to see her friend’s tears. A rush of anger surged
within her. How dare they! Her cheeks burned with the humiliation. She and the other old woman were not close to dying! Had they not sewed and tanned for what the people gave them? They did not have to be carried from camp to camp. They were neither helpless nor hopeless. Yet they had been condemned to die.

Her friend had seen eighty summers, she, seventy-five. The old ones she had seen left behind when she was young were so close to death that some were blind and could not walk. Now here she was, still able to walk, to see, to talk, yet . . . bah! Younger people these days looked for easier ways out of hard times. As the cold air smothered the campfire, Sa’ came alive with a greater fire within her, almost as if her spirit had absorbed the energy from the now-glowing embers of the campfire. She went to the tree and retrieved the hatchet, smiling softly as she thought of her friend’s grandson. She sighed as she walked toward her companion, who had not stirred.

Sa’ looked up at the blue sky. To an experienced
eye, the blue this time of winter meant cold. Soon it would be colder yet as night approached. With a worried frown on her face, Sa’ kneeled beside her friend and spoke in a gentle but firm voice. “My friend,” she said and paused, hoping for more strength than she felt. “We can sit here and wait to die. We will not have long to wait . . .

“Our time of leaving this world should not come for a long time yet,” she added quickly when her friend looked up with panic-stricken eyes. “But we will die if we just sit here and wait. This would prove them right about our helplessness.”

Ch’idzigyaak listened with despair. Knowing that her friend was dangerously close to accepting a fate of death from cold and hunger, Sa’ spoke more urgently. “Yes, in their own way they have condemned us to die! They think that we are too old and useless. They forget that we, too, have earned the right to live! So I say if we are going to die, my friend, let us die trying, not sitting.”

C
h’idzigyaak sat quietly as if trying to make up her confused mind. A small feeling of hope sparked in the blackness of her being as she listened to her friend’s strong words. She felt the cold stinging her cheeks where her tears had fallen, and she listened to the silence that The People left behind. She knew that what her friend said was true, that within this calm, cold land waited a certain death if they did nothing for themselves. Finally, more in desperation than in determination she echoed her friend’s words, “Let us die trying.” With that, her friend helped her up off the sodden branches.

The women gathered sticks to build the fire and they added pieces of fungus that grew large and dry on fallen cottonwood trees to keep it smoldering. They went around to other campfires to salvage what embers they could find. As they packed to travel, the migrating bands in these times preserved hot coals in hardened mooseskin sacks or birchbark containers filled with ash in which the embers pulsated, ready to spark the next campfire.

As night approached, the women cut thin strips from the bundle of babiche, fashioning them into nooses the size of a rabbit’s head. Then, despite their weariness, the women managed to make some rabbit snares, which they immediately set out.

The moon hung big and orange on the horizon as they trudged through the knee-deep snow, searching in the dimness for signs of rabbit life. It was hard to see, and what rabbits existed stayed quiet in the cold weather. But they found several old, hardened rabbit trails frozen solid beneath the trees and arching willows. Ch’idzigyaak tied a babiche noose to a long, thick willow branch and placed it across one of the trails. She made little fences of willows and spruce boughs on each side of the noose to guide the rabbit through the snare. The two women set a few more snares but felt little hope that even one rabbit would be caught.