Thursday, July 17, 2003

WEIO
Tonight I attended the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics. It was awesome! The opening ceremonies, although a bit humorous when the elders carrying the flags turned the wrong way, were really neat with many different drumming groups filing out with extraordinary regalia. Cute little native kids running all over making me smile so much. And I was appreciative to have Lolly, the Yup'ik teacher in UBC, sitting next to me explaining a ton of stuff to me. She's always fun to hang out with. :o)
Blanket Toss
My favorite part of the night was definitely the Women's Preliminary Blanket Toss. They invited people from the audience to help pull. I really wanted to, but in the end backed down because my arm is still in pain with a huge disgusting scab, but many of our male students went to participate. The (Nalakatuk) blanket toss is traditionally a Inupiaq sport/game, but now it is a competition between other native communities as well. It was very impressive to see the women (some as young as 7 and some in their 40's) be tossed into the air about 30 feet--a couple of them touched the ceiling inside the hockey area! After many practice pulls with the 35 or so people surrounding the leather (made of about seven bearded seal pelts), the competitor would be motioned over and hoisted up onto the giant leather trampoline. Then the pullers would start their rhythm and the competitor would start to bounce slowly up and down with the blanket as she moved her arms to the movement. It was beautiful to see. Whenever the head puller (maybe there is a different title for him?) thinks that the pullers and the competitor is ready he then counts out 1-2-3 in Yup'ik and as the pullers make a giant pull, the girls are launched up into the air. The person being tossed only goes as high as the pullers determine, so it is important to have a strong and cooperative community holding onto the leather--they really have to work together. The competitors are graded on height, form, and landing.
It looked like so much fun! I really wish I could give it a try!

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