Yugtun Egmilta – A Showing of Uksuum Cauyai: Drums of Winter
By Colin Arthur Warren
On a Friday in early February, I entered the Brooks Building and entered a large communal room where people gathered, did beadwork, and set out food and beverages. I found a comfy seat beside a young person playing a somber and beautiful song on the ukulele. We were all there for a screening of the classic ethnographic documentary Uksuum Cauyai: Drums of Winter, directed by Sarah Elder and Professor Emeritus Leonard Kamerling. As the ukulele player finished, they introduced themselves as Parker, and they told me that the song was an original, recently written, called “Cara Blue Eyes.”
As it turned out, Parker, who also goes by her St. Lawrence Yupik name, Ellakegtaar, is the vice-president of Yugtun Egmilta, or Yup’ik Language Club, which was started just last year and was the group putting on the film-viewing. A recent transfer student from the University of Wisconsin, Ellakegtaar finds deep satisfaction in their ability to connect with their Yup’ik heritage through the language club, learning Iñu-Yupiaq dance, getting traditional tattoos, and the general warm welcome they have received from the Indigenous community here on campus and beyond. Most of all, they love how it connects them to their grandpa, a St. Lawrence Yupik. They also noted that other university systems, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota, recently started offering free tuition to Indigenous peoples and hopes the University of Alaska will follow suit.
As the din of friendly chatter rose to a peak, the gathering was brought to order by the president of Yugtun Egmilta, Nalugalria Usugan-Weddington. He encouraged us to grab some moose stew and one of many beverages offered before he started the film.
Uksuum Cauyai: Drums of Winter was made in 1988 when Professor Kamerling was a graduate student here at UAF. The film follows Yup'ik villagers in Emmonak preparing and gathering for a traditional dance and potlatch ceremony. As they interview villagers, there is a sense that a generational gap is putting their traditions at risk. The younger generation, especially the men, seemed less interested in carrying on the dances. The film’s quiet moments capturing the drummers and the dancers' preparation speak volumes. And as they show more and more of the actual ceremonial music and dance, it becomes deeply moving. The viewer can feel the weight and pull of each slight movement and beat produced. Like witnessing a boulder slipping off a precipice. This importance is starkly contrasted by interspersed read-aloud letters from Christian missionaries over the last century that speak in painful and demeaning terms as they communicate back to the lower 48 about the Yup’ik culture that they’re interacting with. Even with sparse excerpts of letters, one quickly understands that the missionaries sought to alter and change the Yup’ik people by ridding them of their own culture. The power of the dance ceremony and potlatch prevails in the narrative as their communal properties vibrate out of the film. The utter importance of sharing as part of the Yup’ik culture is also well-emphasized in the film. The viewer is doubtlessly left with a slight sadness, though, for what the future might hold for the Yup’ik culture.
Yugtun Egmilta is in existence to strengthen that culture. Usugan-Weddington emphasized that the group is trying to increase Indigenous language and cultural practice, especially for Yugtun, Cugtun, and other Iñuit-Yup’ik-Unangan languages and cultures. He told me that the club has fluent speakers and newbies and encourages a space for everyone to learn and speak to them. They do this by playing games, helping with Yup’ik homework, creating more learning materials, and hosting events like they did that evening with the film. They also hope to make a zine in the near future. The club meets in the Brooks Building every Wednesday from 5-7 PM.
Visit the club at https://www.uaf.edu/linguistics/current-students-and-alumni/student-language-clubs.php
See Ellakegtaar playing “Cara Blue Eyes” at https://www.instagram.com/eslakegtaar/