Traditional Stories
Wood Chips
I was born in the town of Uelen, located on the cape.
Long, long ago, there were very few people living on the Uelen cape, just an old man and an old woman. They had no children. When they were younger, they didn't notice being lonely. They were busy - the man with hunting and the woman with sewing the yaranga and clothes. All their lives each did their own work. She looked after the yaranga as if it were a child. She washed, sewed, cooked, and fed the old man, In the summer she gathered plants in preparation for the winter. And he made straps and sleds, also getting ready for winter in his own way. He did his hunting and now he was working on his sleigh.
In Uelen the wind gets up. If the north wind blows, a big storm is coming. The sea throws all kinds of things onto the shore. And if you leave anything on the shore, the wind carries it away. When the weather gets bad in Uelen nobody comes visiting from other villages.
The people began to get bored. The old woman said, "Oh, if only somebody would come visiting. How I would love to talk to somebody. Fall is coming, and then winter. Nobody will come and we'll be so bored."
"Yes," said the old man, "We'll get bored." And he went back out to work on his sleigh. He worked with an ax, and a pile of wood chips formed beside him. Once in a while the woman would come down and take the wood chips back to start the fire. Sometimes the weather gets bad, rainy, and the chips get wet, so she liked to keep them inside.
Well, one day the wind got very strong. Again, nobody would be coming. And there were many, many chips on the shore. Suddenly the old man though, "What if I were to throw these chips out over the sea and the wind carried them across to the other side? I'll bet somebody lives over there. There must be a shore, and land. I'll throw them!"
And the wind got stronger and stronger. He threw all the wood chips. He threw them and said, "Go over to the other side. Turn into people! So there will be people over there." And the wind carried them and carried them. None were left on his shore. "Go, go to the other side. Build yourself yarangas and earth houses. Live there. And come visit us every year! You'll be our guests."
He went home happy, but he didn't tell the woman anything about it. The summer passed, and the fall. The long harsh winter came with its high winds. Then bright warm sun, and everything thawed. Then summer came again. Long white nights. And then at last it began to get darker again, And the old man was sitting on the shore, working, getting ready for winter again.
And then he got up and looked out to sea. He could see something in the distance. He looked and looked. It seemed somebody was coming. He went inside and said, "Old woman, my old woman, come and look. It looks as if somebody is coming."
She said, "Who would be coming? You're probably looking at your own eyelashes!"
He went back out. They were coming closer and closer. Maybe it was walrus? He went back to work.
Then he looked up again. They were coming closer. He rushed inside again.
"Come out! Look, guests are coming."
"What guests?"
"Come and look!"
"All right. If you're fooling me there'll be more work tomorrow."
"Come look. If there's nothing, you can come right back and get back to work."
"All right."
She came out and looked. Boats were coming closer and closer.
"Who are they, where are they coming from? Did they come from around the cape?"
"No, they came from straight across the water."
"What kind of people can they be?"
"I told you somebody was coming. Let's go greet them."
They went out on the shore. The boats came up and people got out. The old people listened to them curiously. What's that? They were speaking differently. Some different language.
The old man said, "Can you understand what they're talking about?"
"No, I don't understand a word," she said. "Who can it be?"
But the strangers brought gifts from their boats. They surrounded the old people with presents. The old man and woman looked at each other and didn't understand a word.
Those people ran here and there, carrying things, bringing presents.
The old man said, "Guests have come. Why are we sitting here? We should invite them in. They're probably hungry."
"Yes, guests," said the woman, and she ran back to the yaranga and cooked up the best foods they had. Fresh reindeer, tasty bullion.
The old man invited the people in. They came to the yaranga and sat by the fire, and the woman fed them all. She put out the wooden dishes and cut the meat. They all ate and talked and laughed happily. The old people understood nothing the strangers were saying.
But the old woman took care of everybody. She pulled out the best skins so they could lie down. Everybody lay down on soft skins. They stayed one night, they stayed two.
The good weather came. It was calm and clear. The oldest of them spoke in his own incomprehensible language. "Good weather," he said.
The old man realized that they were going to leave. And he understood they said, "You have taken good care of us. You are our relatives, our parents."
"They say they are our relatives, our children. Where can these children have come from?" The old man did not understand.
The guests gathered everything together down on the shore, got into their boats, and sailed away.
As they were leaving, they said to the old man, "Don't you remember how you sent us over onto the other shore? So there would be life there, people there? We have back come to your. We'll come every year and bring you food and clothes. Because you are our relatives."
The old man thought, "Where can these relatives have come from? We've never been over there, or heard anything about it"
The people sailed away.
Suddenly the old man remembered, "Ahh! I sent those wood chips over there so there would be people on the other side. How could I have forgotten? Why didn't I tell them , when you get there, just don't forget your own language! Speak Chukchi language. How can I have forgotten?"
"We left in a high wind," they called back. "There was no time to talk. It took us a long time to get there. But birds came to us, gulls, loons. They talked and we understood them. And we began to speak the language of the sea birds. And now we can't talk to you."
"Oh, why did I forget to say?"
Those people came back every year and brought presents. They brought clothing, short jackets, short pants, short boots. All their clothes were short because they were made from wood chips!
And that's my story!
