Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Natives want special fishing and hunting

the last potlatch I attended I was indeed given a rifle, and beaded gloves and a bead choker. I was a pallbearer for my wife's grandmother, by their customs blood relatives are not to touch or handle the deceased. Also by custom, they use NO machinery to dig their graves nor is a blood relative supposed to help in the grave digging.


soooo, me and a couple of Indian boys half my age, hand dug grandma's little grave in the cemetery. 5.5 feet till we hit permafrost.

when the grave is filled in, the funeral party takes turns with the shovels putting dirt over the deceased.

here's a pic of my little guy taking his turn covering his beloved great grandma

they purchase new shovels and pulaskis for the event and those are then gifted, I also received the pulaski we used to chop roots and keep the sides of the grave even.

That would be an inside joke, of sorts. A cultural thing, as the .30-30 is or has been the big game rifle of choice for Athabaskans for about the last century.

A (white) friend tells a truely hilarious story, with himself as butt, where he was conned into shooting over a dozen caribou with his "big rifle" (a 300 Win Mag) in early winter when he, as Teacher in a one-room, grade 1-8 school, was the lone white man in a remote village several decades ago.

I've related it before, but in short, the Chief organized the whole village of 300 or so into turning out for a caribou hunt on the willow-clad river bank as the migration started coming thru. Closed down the school by pulling all the kids out so they could help pack meat("big kid, big piece of meat- little kid,little piece of meat") with this vital need. So as not to lose an official day of school, Gaylen suggested he go along and conduct an autopsy on a caribou, as a "field lesson" for the kids. The chief agreed, "Good Idea, Teacher."

As an "after-thought" as the last bundled up kid left the school, the Chief invited Gaylen to bring his "big gun", along. ("Maybe you shoot caribou too."), then, out on the river-side hunt site, offered Gaylen "first shot" - about 15 times as he pointed out which 'bou he wanted shot as a big herd streamed through, with Gaylen firing and reloading as fast as he could.

All the village men were down there on the edge of the willows clutching their .30-30s, the women and kids back in the willows out of the wind and sight, with fires and hot tea, waiting to help butcher and pack meat. But no one else had fired a shot.

Turned out (with later discrete investigation) Gaylen had the only ammunition in town.

Years later, Gaylen had a random encounter with the Chief in Anchorage, where the Chief admitted "That was pretty good, huh?" and "Hell, no, kids big damned pain, but I knew if I left you even one kid, you wouldn't come hunt!"

Sounds like the Chief proved out the old saying..�Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill�.

That's funny. I like the appreciation of the .30-30. What bullet weight is the most popular in those parts? I once brought ammo out for some guys in western alaska, their rounds of choice were .17 HMR for seals and .22-250 for caribou and wolves.

Thanks for the pic and info 2legit.

2legit,

thanks for sharing. I have only lived in KY and PA. But, have visited maybe half of the states. Always intrigued by the differences in cultures and customs across various geographic locations. Even tho we all nominally live in the same "country"...

Warren