| Summary: | On verso of image: Klikiktarek. Sinrock Mary. The Reindeer Queen Filed in Native Alaska--F In the winter of 1900 a group of miners of the Nome gold rush saw a solitary Eskimo woman driving a herd of reindeer across the tundra and followed her. The men desperately wanted the reindeer for food and to use as pack animals to haul supplies and equipment. The woman, known as Sinrock Mary, was a large, imposing figure with curly hair and a traditional Inupiat tattoo on her chin. She refused to stop for the miners. Again and again the men called her names, trying to intimidate her. They shot at the herd to scatter the animals. They offered Mary liquor and some even proposed marriage in order to take control of her herd. Sinrock Mary held her ground. She had worked too hard to own and keep her herd and no man – white or otherwise – was going to take it from her. Called Changunak, Mary, was the daughter of a Russian trader and Inupiat Eskimo mother. She had grown up in the relatively cosmopolitan coastal village of St. Michael, a trading post on the Bering Sea, where foreign ships docked almost daily. Mary could speak several languages – Inupiaq, Russian and English. Her mother taught her skin tanning and sewing, how to preserve edible plants, and how to share in the Eskimo way. In 1889 Mary married Charlie Antisarlook, an Inupiat, and the couple moved to Cape Nome. After years of assisting with government reindeer herds, Mary and her husband became the first Alaska Natives granted their own reindeer. They moved with their herd to Sinrock, a settlement near Cape Nome. After Charlie died of a measles epidemic in 1900, Mary fought and won the right to own half the couple's 500 reindeer. By that time, news of the riches of the newly discovered Cape Nome mining district brought 20,000 stampeders to the beaches of Nome. It was a spot where, a year earlier, there had been only a seasonal fishing camp. Because all the supplies had to be brought in from Outside, prices were high. During the winters especially, any kind of fresh food was at a premium. Sinrock Mary sold reindeer meat to the Army station, stores at St. Michael and to miners working in the area. Her herd made her the richest Native woman in the North, and her fame grew. The Inupiat Eskimos of the Seward Peninsula suffered greatly with the arrival of the stampeders. Susceptible to diseases such as influenza and mumps brought by white miners, entire families and even whole villages fell sick and died. Because life as a Native woman, and a single one at that, was so difficult in Nome, Sinrock Mary moved her herd to Unalakleet in 1901 to get away from the gold miners. The following year she married Andrew Andrewuk, an Inupiat, who took no active interest in the herd. Sinrock Mary continued to tend her reindeer herd for many years. She trained Inupiat men as herders. And she stalwartly maintained her right to own her herd, even though it was asserted that as a Native and a woman, she could not own property. She adopted several children, many of whom grew up to be reindeer herders with their own herds. Among the Inupiat, Mary was known for her generous spirit and for sharing her wealth in the Eskimo way. Mary died ca. 1950. [Source: Jodi Velez-Newell's Eskimo Heritage Page, excerpt from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, http://www.award-graphics.com/newell/eskimo/; e-mail correspondence with Jodi Velez-Newell, Mary's great-great-granddaughter]
|
|---|