It has been a busy week up here in Arctic Village. We had culture week at the school and the community hosted Spring Carnival. Students came from all over the Yukon Flats to participate in Culture Week. We had students from Beaver, Chalkyitsik, Fort Yukon and Venetie, doubling the school's student population for the week.
Each day the students participated in Gwich'in classes to learn their Native language. This picture shows how to say each of the numbers one through ten. I made myself a cheat sheet with phonetic spellings of each word, because they do not always sound like what you would expect when writing the written words. The students practiced their formal introductions; saying their name, their family members names and where they are from. 
The students also had the opportunity to learn Native games as a part of culture week. The game pictured above is a string game where each participant has a string tied to both wrists and they are intertwined. The secret to getting free is something with the wrists, but it was really fun to watch the kids try and figure it out.
The students also learned how to use an "Eskimo Yo-Yo", which are two balls made of seal skin. The goal is to get one ball going one direction while the other ball goes the opposite direction. It is pretty challenging, but a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. Yo-yo is actually an Inupiaq game, but the Athabascans of Yukon Flats enjoy playing it too.
One of the main events of the week was dancing! Pictured here, Gideon, one of the elder, and Jack, a teacher at Fort Yukon play a jig for the kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment