An Alaska Native Perspective on Climate Change
The following shares an Alaska Native perspective on traditional science-based culture and the life of the /upik as it relates to the historic life-way juxtaposed with the current challenges of climate-related health threats. As stated by "rupnik et al. (2009), “Long ago our beliefs and our way of life werent seen as separate things. But nowadays, they look at those two as separate.” This perspective was shared with us by Angutekaraq Estelle Thomson, a Native -illage of 'aimiut Traditional Council Member, Tribal evelopment lead, and /upik Tribal octor Traditional Healer
by low salmon returns, thinning ice, permafrost thaw, coastal and riverine erosion, and more effects of climate change. These are things Elders have long since warned us about. For decades, /upik Elders have foretold a time of hardship. /upik 'eople, like many of the worlds Indigenous 'eoples, have long been applied scientists. To be an Indigenous 'erson, who is living a traditional life-way, is to be observant, adaptive, and innovative, and to rely on traditional teachings to help guide us in our lives and how we take care of our families. “/upiit augkut qaqimallruyaaqelliniut ciuqliput. Ca cuqingas- terluni. Ca nallunritesterluni. Tamaa-i tamakut cuqingailriit cat nalluvkenaki, callrit-llu nalluvkenaki. Scientist-aullrulliniameng augkut ciuliaput.” Translated to English “Our /upik ancestors apparently were complete with everything needed to keep the culture alive. They had experts who could measure and understand happenings in their daily lives. Our ancestors apparently were scientists” (Fie- nup-Riordan, 2007). Science in all our cultures meant we understood and lived with, not tried to mold, the environment around us. That in part was accepting where our spiritual practice stood in relation to how we developed our technology. We as Indigenous 'eoples didnt have textbooks. We have oral history. Our Elders are our teachers. If we no longer have our Elders with their traditional knowledge, we no longer have that information. We teach by showing, we learn by watching and doing. Just as there is nu- ance in our traditional languages, there is nuance in traditional education, with the rules for our behavior, our cultural values, and the code by which we live. In many models of traditional life-way, it is said that society begins in unity and co-activity. /upik Elders believe that reci- procity is the way, and keeping the rules will allow us to keep our humanity. With the drastic changes in the Arctic climate in recent years, we have no teachings to rely on.
At the very center of our cultures was our connection to The Creator-God, The ivine. Ellam /ua (the 'erson of our Universe). We situated everything around our belief systemOour family life, how we organiJed and governed our communities, our traditional life-way, all activities of living. Relationships with self, relationships with our Creator, with family and your partner, with our community, with the land, the water, the plants, and the animals. That prima- ry relationship with our Creator was at the heart of everything. It made us whole. We based our code of conduct in the human and natural worlds on that relationship. We understood that the natural order of things in our Universe was based on that relationship. We had /uyaraq, which was a basic code of conduct. /uyaraq is a word that breaks down into two concepts “per- son” and a “way of doing or being.” /uyaraq is “the way of the real human being.” Our lives as human beings were always thought to be a moral act between responsibility and respect. The rules and prohibitions that subscribed to our behavior, our thoughts, and our intentions constantly reinforced that our life was a spiritual practice. Every choice (good or bad) was reward- ed with an equal consequence. After contact with Western so- ciety and time, a key piece of who we were and what we knew about ourselves as being “Real 'eople, Real Human Beings” was lost, which is that awareness that every aspect of our life had spiritual connection. We had consequences for not recogniJing and cultivating those connections. For the /upik harvest disruptions accomplished by means of a natural disaster were not perceived as arbitrary or externally imposed events. On the contrary, they were the result of an in- fraction in the elaborate code of interaction between humans and the natural environment. High water and freeJing weather, along with the hardships and famine that attended them, were caused by human misdeed, not arbitrary chance (Fienup-Riordan, 198). For years now, the /upik people in Southwest Alaska have been among some of the hardest hit Indigenous cultures of Alaska
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December 2023 • Journal of Environmental Health
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