Re: [Paddlewise] The Death of Art

Aye, I'll second that.
    There is an enchanting little book entitled Eskimo Island by Phillip and
Ellen Viereck (1962) that deals with King Island and King Islanders, and
Bearing Sea hunters, written by the  two teachers who ferried over to the island
with the migration of King Islanders from Gnome to hunker down for the winter
--ice bound and happy to be home once again. The book deals with a couple of
kids who free (momentarily) from scholastic burdens, beachcomb and find a
drift-find of a rowing boat half buried in the sand....and then their adventures
begin.    Kids, a boat, a bailer, a paddle, and entirely too much free time.
Sounds a bit like my own childhood.
    In this lovely little book the kids reject Gnome life with it's temptations
of the cinema and soda pop and the occasional drunken countrymen
sleeping/freezing on the street, and instead opt for learning their
grandfather's ways of hunting, fishing for salmon, and fending for themselves-
on King Island.  They ask the old man to teach the old ways that were rapidly
giving way to mainland life (if you call it that) that seemingly was overtaking
every aspect of their beleaguered lives. But the old folk hung on the the old
ways.....and these unlikely kids were their last hope.
    It is beautifully illustrated with ample four color woodcuts that depict
umiaks, walrus hunts, and one particularly pleasant scene in a men's communal
house where figures are stripped to the waist with only their muckalucks and
sealskin pants on-- one with a bow-drill in his mouth making a hole in a figure
he is carving.  Another sands a walrus tusk bird, three or four younger kids lie
on their stomachs on long boards hung above the artisans who are seated cross
legged on the floor, watching, and one commenting playfully, it seems.  To the
side there is a figure of an old man lying back with his fingers laced behind
his head looking up at the ceiling of the communal house eyes shut and
dreaming....or is he?
    Across this elder's stomach in the large red letters of a library stamp are
the words DISCARD Merced County (California) Free Library.  My wife rescued it
at a library sale some 15 years ago.   If not sold  by the second time around
they must be burnt.  So said the librarian.   No, sorry we cannot donate them to
your homeschool group or even your homeschool, they must be burnt.   (And all
this time I thought that only Nazis historically burnt books.)

    I read it to my children Eve and Justin a couple of times a year  as they
grew up,  and now to our two kids we adopted in California (who are yet little
and  with us yet) well- --maybe not so little, as the older ones got too big to
cuddle,  (these we are not feeding as much so as to slow the growing process).
    And now the first two have flown and nested down for  themselves, and have
given me grandbabies........ I bide my time.  I await.   I have my magical book
at the ready. Always. Always.
                                                            Chris

Richard Kemmer wrote:

> John Winters Wrote:
> > Long ago when the caribou flowed across the tundra in great antlered waves
> > and the steam of their breathing raised clouds above the barrens that
> > hunters could see for miles, before the missionaries taught us to sin,
> > before the silent diseases of the white man broke our hearts with the
> frozen
> > bodies of our children, the elders sat in smoky igloos eating fermented
> > caribou paunch and argued for hours the merits impressionist soapstone
> > carving and the symbolism of bifid bows.
> Etc.
>
> What a great post!  John, where did you come across it?  If you created it,
> it's magnificent.
>
> Rick
>
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