Contrary to popular belief, Eskimos exist, said Andrea Gusty, a Medill senior of Yup’ik Eskimo and Athabaskan ancestry, at the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston on Sunday.
“We’re not just in school books or history books,” said Gusty, of Aniak, Alaska. “A lot of people ask if I live in an igloo. I say ‘Yes,’ because our word for house is igloo.”
The 22-year-old is a voice for Native American issues at Northwestern. She is one of .5 percent of NU students who identify themselves as Native American, she said.
Gusty spoke to about 30 people about her lifestyle, customs and arctic survival skills. She recounted her culture shock coming to Evanston and her anger at Native Americans’ underrepresentation and misrepresentation.
Her people have a “semi-hunter-gatherers’ lifestyle,” Gusty said. She grew up catching salmon in the summer, hunting caribou and moose in the winter and picking berries from the tundra in the fall.
Her tribe uses every part of each animal killed, she said, including the meat and bones.
“I got my first gun at six,” she said. “We’ve been raised to be careful with rifles because they’re such a big part of our culture.”
Gusty said she caught two beavers in one hole the first time she went beaver trapping — a sign of good luck, according to her elders. But Gusty didn’t eat her catch because, in her culture, it is considered selfish to eat your own game. Gusty would bring berries and moose meat to friends at school.
If a family doesn’t catch a moose one winter, another family helps them.
“The village is a big extended family. You’re not going to let your neighbors go hungry,” she said. “To see homeless people on the streets in Evanston is still very tough for me.”
Gusty passed around traditional clothing, some of which she made herself. She made gloves of fur with intricate beadwork. Her Mulahiuk, or hat, was made of caribou, moose and beaver fur, as were her grass-lined boots, or Mukluk.
“The grass inside of the skin is warmer than anything made commercially,” she said. “We don’t use synthetic stuff. That won’t keep you warm in 50 below zero.”
She explained that a group of elders runs her village and receives government grants that they distribute to the community.
The villagers and other Alaskans, she said, also receive about $1,000 yearly from the state government from interest in a fund for oil drilling.
Gusty said she wants this kind of contribution to continue.
“A lot of people say our land is being developed, but it helps us,” she said. “It overshadows the environmental impact. If there was drilling in Anwar, it would only affect one mile around. It would be a tiny pin prick and mean more money for Alaskans.”
Gusty said she wants her tradition to continue. Without many Native Americans represented in the news and government, the state has overlooked their tradition.
“We used to fish all summer — 12 hours a day, ” Gusty said. “Now we can only fish two days a week. The government has decided that commercial fishing is more important than our tradition. It’s a result of not enough elders being elected to government. A lot of minorities have this problem.”
Kehua Lum, a Native American from Aiea, Hawaii, said Gusty dispelled myths about “a lifestyle that is real and not just found in textbooks.”
“There are universal themes, but there are themes that seem to take precedence in native culture — the spirituality and the love for land, the responsibility toward community,” said Lum, 44, of Chicago, who brought her daughter to hear Gusty speak.
Reach Rebecca Huval at [email protected].
