We were on the beach one summer day—only a quarter-mile from the village—all rolling in the sand, immersed in fits of laughter, and unable to muffle our raucousness even at the risk of being discovered by federal agents. These “feds” were not FBI agents; they were government overseers, and we had just broken the law by killing four seals.4 This was my first glimpse of civil disobedience; it was illegal to do what our people have done for at least ten thousand years—take seals for food.5
It was a time when Unangan families had little money, and most of the food we ate still came from the land or sea—halibut, sea lions, cormorants, seals, wild celery, berries, and whatever the land and water offered to us to eat. The government rations of salt, sugar, potatoes, rice, onions, and salt beef were never enough for our household of nine people: two brothers, two sisters, my grandfather, my uncle, my mother, my father, and me. I remember being hungry from late fall to early spring every year. I always looked forward to mid-spring and summer when the seals, halibut, and birds returned to our mystical island.
I remember all the times my mother would put off preparing dinner, confident that my dad, who hunted the entire day, would bring her something to cook. We children and my mother greeted him eagerly at the door, but I was always first to spot him through the window. I would watch how he walked—if he was stooped over from the weight of his packsack, I knew he had a sea lion or a lot of birds. If he wasn’t stooped over, he probably had a bird or two. It was easy to tell what he had in the packsack before my mother opened it because it would smell of meat or wet feathers. My dad rarely failed, even if he only brought back a few cormorants. Cormorant meat was tough, but it made good soup—enough to fill our stomachs. We called the cormorant the “Unangan turkey” as that was what we usually had to eat for Thanksgiving.
So here was my uncle, Iliodor, or “Eddie,” a serious, upstanding leader of the Russian Orthodox church choir, president of the traditional council, and high-level federal administrator on a federally controlled island; his best friend, “Kusukahx” (the name means “Russian” in the Unangan language); and Kusukahx’s wife, Tina, out on the most visible (right next to the village) rookery on the island at 4:00 on a Saturday morning poaching fur seals. As a five-year-old, I was struck by the strange incongruity of this scene—adults sneaking around on the beach, whispering intensely as if speaking normally would give us away to the “government man” who might be up at this time on a weekend morning, listening to us through the foot-thick concrete walls of the government house a mile away.
We were like caricatures of real people, stooped low, creeping toward the herd of seals sleeping on the beach at the break of a very quiet dawn. Uncle Eddie and Kusukahx went ahead, carrying thick, heavy pieces of driftwood found at the edge of the beach, their eyes fixed on the herd of seals with the singular intent to get seals for food.
Prudence dictated expeditious action and quick movement. Too long on the beach and we risked discovery by the government agent. Uncle Eddie and Kusukahx returned, each dragging one seal up with each hand—four total—toward the road. Tina and I were far enough up on the beach, toward the road, that we could only see their silhouettes. The man closest to us had a much smaller frame than the other, so he was Uncle Eddie. Suddenly, behind him, Kusukahx collapsed!
Tina called out in Unangan Tunuu, “Something’s not right with my husband!” My uncle dropped the dead seals he’d been pulling and ran back. To our amazement, he too collapsed. Tina and I were both bewildered, watching the two men rolling back and forth on the sand. We thought something bad must have happened to them.
We started running toward them, Tina in the lead. As we got closer, it became clear why they could not get up—they were in fits of hysterical laughter! Kusukahx struggled to get out an explanation in Unangan Tunuu, “My suspenders came off and I was so worried that we would be spotted, so I kept running. I tried to keep my pants from falling by making bow-legs, but it didn’t work too good! My pants fell to my ankles and let me trip. When I understood what was happening, I started to laugh so hard that I could not get up again!”
We couldn’t help it. Tina and I joined the two hapless men in doing what we all pledged not to do that morning—make loud noises. We engaged in a chorus of stomach-busting, incapacitating laughter, made all the more comically extreme by the implausible sight of a grown man with his pants down, wearing polka-dotted boxer shorts, next to a dead seal. I love so much that Unangan always had room for humor no matter how difficult or trying the situation was, and perhaps that is how we survived what life brought us.