DWELLERS OF THE TUNDRA: Life in an Alaskan Eskimo Village

by Aylette Jenness ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1970

From inside out for once, and addressed to the dichotomy that spells acculturation--""a higher standard of living and a lower sense of personal worth."" Makumiut where the Jennesses spent a year is a village of 150 people whose lives are polarized seasonally and socially. In ""Summer,"" Eskimo meets gussak white man as a community at the commercial salmon camps; in ""Winter,"" inhibiting winter, individuals are separately profiled. The women within four back-bending walls: housekeeping or neglecting ""according to temperament,"" child-bearing, nursing, and rearing, and Sears Roebuck cataloguing. ""The View from the School"": how the youngsters look at Dick and Jane, read about Maine and about potatoes they cannot imagine; ""they have the saving power to turn off much that is meaningless""; they emerge with one construct--""Gussaks make everything."" Those who've been out often take to whiskey with tales of bad English and mockery, madness; of boyfriends with money for earrings, of prostitutes with ""that disease,"" Invasion of privacy? stirringly, yes; but like the ubiquitous lens, selective and tasteful. In magazine format, cinemascopic documentary with an urgent message.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crowell-Collier

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION