Death was very personal in the village. Local carpenters like my dad, John Paul Merculieff, built the coffins. Local people dug the graves and reverently washed and clothed the bodies. The coffins, frequently open, would lie in state in incense-filled living rooms or be taken to the church for three days. Mirrors would be covered in the homes because too many had seen the ghostly image of the deceased in them. All the members of the community would come to the deceased’s home to pay their last respects and to demonstrate emotional support for those left behind.
After three days, the body was removed to the Russian Orthodox church where final ceremonies were performed. The church was always packed with community members. Muffled crying was heard as cathartic a cappella funeral songs were sung. The priest sang as if he were moaning, symbolically expressing the pain of loss felt by everyone. There were no seats, so everyone would stand through the one-and-a-half-hour ceremony—men and boys on one side, women and girls on the other, all wearing their best Sunday clothes.
I was no stranger to death; no one in a village is. But I had the peculiar experience of being handpicked at age nine to watch over the coffins when they were placed in the church. I was given this job because I was willing to take it. It was a job few chose because it required a person to be alone in the church with the body throughout the night (unless he or she had a friend willing to join). I was never able to get any friend to join me. I can’t say I blamed them. I don’t know how many times I imagined the person moving inside the open coffin if I looked at it long enough. My hair would stand on end, and I would go into cold sweats. Nevertheless, I stayed at my post.
The tradition of watching coffins before burial began many decades before because something inexplicable had happened to one coffin in the church when it wasn’t watched. When local people returned to the church the day after a closed coffin had been left alone there, they found it off its pedestals and on the floor. Thinking someone was playing a cruel joke, they locked the church doors. The next day, they found the same thing, so the priest asked folks to stand guard outside the church even though the doors and windows were locked. The next day, they found the coffin on the floor again. From that day forward, all coffins were watched.
I can vividly remember during the funeral services how I always just stared at the dead person lying in the open coffin, trying to make sense of death and the fact that this person I had seen smiling, working, or playing was now gone. I half expected the person to move. But the cotton placed in the nose and ears to prevent drainage of blood, the beautifully engraved paper band around the head, the arms crossed over each other, the icon clutched in stiff hands, the closed eyes, and the coffin all made it undeniable that the person was no longer here.
Before the coffin was closed, everyone would pass by the body and perform personal rituals to release themselves and the deceased from old wounds that may have arisen between them—a fight, an argument, an unkind word, anything that needed forgiveness. Some people would kiss the forehead, the hands, the lips of the deceased. I did this and was always struck by how cold and lifeless the person felt to kiss. Others would take the icon from the deceased’s hands and bless the person with it, making a movement of the cross. Others would stand by the coffin, just taking in a last look while silently saying prayers and asking for forgiveness or simply crying or wailing.
When everyone completed these rituals, the coffin was ceremoniously closed to a song of grieving that wrenched everyone’s heart when sung. The coffin was then placed in a vehicle that led a solemn parade to the graveyard where twenty generations of my people had been buried. After the burial, a wake was held in the home of the deceased, where people feasted, expressed condolences, and shared funny stories of the departed. It was a great way to experience a death, a beautiful way.
Once my mother, Stefanida, told me that Unangan people would cry when a person was born and celebrate when a person died. This is because Unangan people understand that to be born into the body from spirit means to experience the suffering and heaviness of the human body. Death is understood to be a reverse birthing process, a release into the spirit world where one is again free beyond imagination and limitations. It is a great way to understand and accept death.
But I knew that no one who killed themselves or died while drunk would be treated in this way by the Church. I had had powerful lessons in this, so powerful it led me to leave the Orthodox Church that was the spiritual lifeblood of my people, my parents, and all my ancestors buried on that hill across from the village. I was only sixteen.
I was returning home on a cold winter’s night after having been to the local movie theater. The shortest route home from Irish’s theater was either through the churchyard or a road adjacent to the church. At night, alone, I always felt spooked when walking through the churchyard where all the deacons, readers, and priests were buried, so I chose to walk on the road. It was a dark and very cold, windy night, typical of the Pribilof winters, when clouds covered the sky. As I neared the church I could make out a dark form on the ground lying up against the rockery that made a small wall. I knew it had to be a person. It was an old lady named Perscodia, obviously intoxicated.
“What are you doing here, Grandma?” I asked in a voice of deep concern. “You could die here in the cold like this! Let me take you home,” I said, half commanding, half asking permission, out of respect for her age.
My parents taught me always to respect the “old people” no matter what; Perscodia’s intoxication made no difference in how I would treat her. This beautiful woman looked directly at me with her sad, wise, ancient eyes that showed a clarity I did not expect from someone in her state. Intuitively, I realized she was going to say something she considered to be of extreme importance.
Perscodia talked to me in Unangan, in a strong, clear, and deeply loving voice. “Please leave me be, son. I know what I am doing. I want to die with the church I love.”
This woman had been an Orthodox Christian all her life. I was unprepared for how this struck me. Her tone, her demeanor, and the power of her words all touched my heart in a direct way I had never experienced before. This woman is preparing to die, and I interrupted what may be one of the most private and powerful moments in her life! I thought. My God, she is asking me to honor her dying wish!
My mind hesitated, but my heart knew I had to do as she wished.
“I love you, Grandma!” I said.
“I love you too, son. And I thank you in a big way.” I walked slowly away, profoundly affected by the courage, beauty, dignity, love, and lack of fear this woman had shown me in a few minutes. It changed my view of all my people for the rest of my life.
Miraculously, Perscodia didn’t die that cold night. I don’t know how she managed. Perhaps someone else came along and forcibly took her home. I felt so relieved; I didn’t know how I would take it knowing I could have saved her life but didn’t. She died a week later, drunk. “Elders always know when they are going to die. It’s God’s gift,” my mom’s voice echoed in my memory.
The local priest made the decision that Perscodia would not have the honor of an Orthodox burial—no prayers, no ceremonies, nothing but placement of her body in a grave separate and apart from all her ancestors, an action that symbolized the view that she had died in sin and disgrace. All I could think was how her dying wish had been to be with her Church and how the Church abandoned her through the decision of a misguided priest. I determined then and there that I could not be part of the harsh judgment of beautiful people. At the time I blamed the Church rather than the priest, not knowing if it was Church policy or simply an individual decision. To me, it didn’t matter at the time. I left the Church for many years because of this incident.