The Qulliq Burns On....

Oral history and storytelling enables the past, present, future, and mythical realms to exist simultaneously alongside light-cultivator Ningiuq, providing her the lessons and strength and wisdom she needs to carry her grandson Maniq through each and every moment of their existence

Faces are topological atlases mapping tundra

Infinitely boundless trackless isolated snowsplendant glacially-suncupped sastrugied panoramas magnify climatic extremity and timelessness and cosmic uncertainty

The Sun's caravel of light disconcernedly aureates their earth, our earth, in titian gold

A watery womb of emerald sunlight shimmers under the water, winking endlessly back onto itself

The point of a needle needles out of the fabric of existence an entire population of Inuit (except for Ningiuq and Maniq), a devastating history reduced to an exclamation point, its intensity viscerally experienced in sweeping panoramas of empty snowscapes

A woman lights the quilliq and a woman keeps the fire burning and another woman hundreds of years later turned on a camera light and keeps the fire burning

A raven flew over a beach. Suddenly a bowhead whale surfaced and swallowed it whole. Inside the whale it was very dark. Like a cave. In the distance the raven saw the flickering light of an oil lamp.

A girl was trying desperately to keep the light from dying.

The raven heard the girl's voice: "You must be faithful to me. Promise never to touch this light."

The raven promised, "I'll never touch it."

But when the girl returned to her work the raven forgot his promise and touched the lamp, and when the light went out, the girl fell over, dead. The raven realized his terrible mistake. The girl had taken possession of the raven's soul and when the light went out, so did the raven's heart.

I just had a dream. It was a beautiful dream. Of little children. I was pregnant. One was a human being, the other looked like a bear club. I loved them both. But I loved one more than the other, I don't know why. I took a harpoon and pierced the cub on its back. It died right away. The human child shrank until it vanished. And went back into my womb. I understand my dream. I really wanted to bear a child myself, but I adopted one. It felt like he was my own. I love him very much.

I have heard that they haven't always been ptarmigans. There was an old woman and her grandson who were all alone, maybe like us. When the grandson went to bed he asked his grandmother to tell a story. "Grandmother, please tell me a story." "I don't have any stories, get comfortable and go to sleep." But the child insisted and started to cry, "Grandmother tell me a story."

Finally, the grandmother started to tell: "Story, Story....Bay lemmings....having no fur....arms folded in.... start falling....feels ticklish."

The grandson was so startled, he shouted "teeook!" and flew off.

He turned into a snow bunting and flew away right out the air hole.

The grandmother looked all around and said, "Grandson, where did you go?" Again and again, "Where are you?"

Then she cried so much, and she wiped her eyes so much, that her eyes turned red, but she couldn't find him. Finally, she put her needles in her boots.

Then she took her oil lamp wick and hung it around her neck. That's the collar filled with seeds around the ptarmigan's neck.

And then she went, "Ap-ap-ap-ap-ap!" And flew off to join her grandson. He was so startled he turned into a snow bunting.

She went flying right out after him. Too bad! But it must have been all right as long as they were together
again. That the end of that story.

We are meat, we are spirit
We have blood and we have grace
We have a will and we have muscle
A soul and a face
Why must we die

We have eyes and intuition
A DNA code and a name
Some tend to logic, some superstition
We have an aura and a frame
Why must we die

We are human, we are angel
We have feet and wish for wings
We are carbon, we are ether
We are saints, we are kings
Why must we die
Why must we die

We are men of constant sorrow
We’ll have trouble all our days
We never found our Eldorado
Where we were born

We are meat, we are spirit
We have blood and we have grace
We have a will and we have muscle
A soul and a face
Why must we die
Why must we die

We are men of constant sorrow
We’ll have trouble all our days
We never found our Eldorado
Where we were born

We are men of constant sorrow
We’ll have trouble all our days…