What do you do with all that seal meat? Even with a single share, I had an abundant load. 
However, Henry as captain of the boat had a lot more than one could it into a bag or two. He was contributing quite a bit of it to the community whale feast, but needed to store it in the meantime. This provided the perfect opportunity to visit and contribute to the siġḷuaq, or ice cellar.
However, Henry as captain of the boat had a lot more than one could it into a bag or two. He was contributing quite a bit of it to the community whale feast, but needed to store it in the meantime. This provided the perfect opportunity to visit and contribute to the siġḷuaq, or ice cellar. A note on the word, siġḷuaq. Phonetically, it's "si-ryuk
. It was a new word for me and I'd never seen it spelled. The field trip to the cellar left a big impression on me, and I remembered the word for it even two weeks later. I was able to get the correct spelling from an Iñupiaq colleague. When I'm trying to look up words, I use the online Iñupiaq Dictionary at http://www.alaskool.org/language/dictionaries/inupiaq/dictionary.htm. The trick here is finding the correct English words to use to look up an Inupiaq word. When I typed in ice cellar, I got "piitchuq" (nothing). I needed to put in cold storage, or underground cache to get the correct word. There are different dialects as well, and some words are not the same in the dictionary as those in use in Barrow, but it sure helps to infuse my Iñupiaq vocabulary.
In Barrow, I notice most siġḷuaq are right next door or quite near the person's home, but Henry's is here at the old village site, alongside many others in this area (Henry's house is in the new village site about 5 miles away). Don't forget,
Henry lived here at
the old village site as a little boy. The siglaq is his family's siglaq from that time. Once you've got one of these, I'm thinking you wouldn't just go out and craft another one if you move across town. Just think about it. This is basically a cave carved out of perma frost. Seriously, how long did that take to dig out? And hundreds of years ago, just what did they use to accomplish this, I mean besides the sweat and muscles, what tools did they have to dig with?
We each had a chance to go down and check it out, so we got to see how it's set up with different shelves for storing the whale meat and the seal meat. Storing the meat for a long period gives it a distinctive flavor. Meat that is stored in the ice cellar taking on this characteristic is called quaq.
. It was a new word for me and I'd never seen it spelled. The field trip to the cellar left a big impression on me, and I remembered the word for it even two weeks later. I was able to get the correct spelling from an Iñupiaq colleague. When I'm trying to look up words, I use the online Iñupiaq Dictionary at http://www.alaskool.org/language/dictionaries/inupiaq/dictionary.htm. The trick here is finding the correct English words to use to look up an Inupiaq word. When I typed in ice cellar, I got "piitchuq" (nothing). I needed to put in cold storage, or underground cache to get the correct word. There are different dialects as well, and some words are not the same in the dictionary as those in use in Barrow, but it sure helps to infuse my Iñupiaq vocabulary.
In Barrow, I notice most siġḷuaq are right next door or quite near the person's home, but Henry's is here at the old village site, alongside many others in this area (Henry's house is in the new village site about 5 miles away). Don't forget, Henry lived here at
the old village site as a little boy. The siglaq is his family's siglaq from that time. Once you've got one of these, I'm thinking you wouldn't just go out and craft another one if you move across town. Just think about it. This is basically a cave carved out of perma frost. Seriously, how long did that take to dig out? And hundreds of years ago, just what did they use to accomplish this, I mean besides the sweat and muscles, what tools did they have to dig with?We each had a chance to go down and check it out, so we got to see how it's set up with different shelves for storing the whale meat and the seal meat. Storing the meat for a long period gives it a distinctive flavor. Meat that is stored in the ice cellar taking on this characteristic is called quaq.
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