Bratva Mother

Visitors & Baby names

It is now September and getting chilly at night in Alaska. The leaves are turning colors and soon the river will be too unstable to be on for a time. Carol has finally settled in the camp with her team of dogs. She has gotten along well with all of them. They are protective of her. A few weeks ago, while waiting for supplies, a bear wandered into camp. It startled Carol, she startled the bear because it was just wandering around until the dogs started to bark. She ran for the rifle on the porch to shoot a few rounds into the air.

Her tribe is against women able to carry a child, to touch a bear. Once a woman is done carrying children, then she can hunt, touch and eat bears. Carol isn’t sure why, however she suspects superstition. Before science came along, people believed bears to be mean and aggressive creatures. Her people believe you take on the things you let into your body. Say you love fish, you’ll love to be in the water. Say you like game meat, you’ll want to be in the woods a lot. A child in the womb will take in what the mother takes in. He/she will take the attributes of the things their mother eats. They didn’t want the mean spirit of the bear to be in future generations.

Carol doesn’t believe that is true, however she will honor this tradition. So, she will scare the bear off and not kill it unless she has to. She turned back to the bear to see the dogs were backing it to the tree line. This freaked Carol a lot, she loves the dogs and they are putting themselves in harm's way with the bear that is starting to get aggravated. However, there are eight of them and one of the bear. The dogs were in a half circle keeping the bear going from side to side or forward. It could only go backwards. One will dash forward and bite a leg, it will try to swipe him, only to get nipped from a different angle. It finally stood on its hind legs and roared, this is when Carol shot close to it, twice. The sound of the rifle and hearing the tree behind it shatter, it shook its great big head, landed heavily on all fours then ran back into the woods.

She called the dogs back, checked each one for injury and gave each dog love. She was shaking, but very proud of her team. Too much excitement, she decided to wait for the boat bringing supplies in the cabin. She brought all the dogs inside, too shaken to keep them outside. She fed them good food, a little bit of dog food, fish and she took some berries from the cold space and put them in the dog's food as well. She wasn’t worried about any of them getting rabies from the bear. It was acting normal, wasn’t swaying, slobbering or foaming at the mouth. It wasn’t attacking just to attack, it was protecting itself. So, she believed the dog’s were safe from rabies.

On one trip up to check on her, a villager brought her a rocking chair. It wasn’t fancy or expensive. It was handmade and well loved. He even brought cushions to make sitting in it easier. However, she loved it. It was her favorite piece in the cabin besides the wood stove. She decided to help calm herself down, she will spend time in it, crocheting. She learned to crochet from her grandma Sesi, but hasn’t done it in years. It took a few tries to remember it all. Soon she was crocheting up a storm. She made a baby blanket for her little one, some baby booties, mitts and a couple hats. All of it took a few weeks. Now she is a quarter way on a bigger blanket for herself.

It has been a little over a month since she arrived at the camp. She has been sending letters to Ray, the doctor, and her brothers. She won't lie, it has gotten lonely in the camp with the occasional visitor. But it has been well and truly worth it. She has dotted down a few ideas and points about the natural medicinal farms, crocheted handmade items for the baby and gotten ready for the long cold winter. She is listening to the village women and her doctor. They all told her to listen to her body. It will tell her when she needs to rest, get up and move, eat and when something is a little much. The only thing she has to remember is she can't get too excited or have high emotions too often. That is covered by the dogs. They know when she is feeling blue and help her feel better. They know when she is tired and nudge her to the chair.

She has to remember no raw meat or runny eggs for her. Her body doesn't have the immune system to fight off infection right now, because the baby is taking up a lot of her body's resources and energy. So most days after the chores are done, she sits in her rocker humming a song and crocheting. It sucks that a good portion of her diet had to change to make sure she stayed healthy. However, her baby was worth it. While she sat and worked on her projects, she thought about gender and names. She wants to honor her people by picking a name of a loved one who died. However it cannot be the exact same name. Example, if someone died who was named Richard, she’ll name the baby Rick.

She was puzzled over names the most. Going through a list of people who shaped her and is no longer here, then finding a suitable name that was similar but not. She absentmindedly crocheted her blanket and thought of names. One was slowly forming. If she had a boy Francis Stevie Kàltsa; named after her own father, baby's paternal uncle and her new name. Yes Grandma Jenn told her about her two sons. How she lost her youngest and feared for her husband. She never met Jenn’s husband, he died before they met. However from the little she heard of him, she’ll pass naming her baby after him, he didn’t earn it.

If the baby was a girl, Rose Enni Kàltsa. A name that honors all three women she called grandma. Hopefully her baby will not feel obligated to live up to these long lost loved ones. Little one, you are your own person. You are loved and named after loved ones you never got to meet. Don”t think of shoes you have to fill, but the people you honor by being you.

She had a little pouch in her abdomen area. It wasn’t big, but you could tell it was there. She was showing signs of her pregnancy finally.

As she was rocking and thinking of her baby, the dogs sat up looking to the door. She stopped rocking and listened. For a second, she heard nothing. However the slow thrum of a boat engine was climbing in noise. Her guests were finally here. She put her project aside and got out of her rocker. She opened the door with the rifle in hand, looking around to make sure the bear went away. She went to the river to see which villager came to check on her.

The visitors seem to be her brother Junior and one of his coworkers from the mine. What surprised her was the hoof sticking out of the canvas at the top of the boat. Someone was able to get a moose during hunting season. Looks like they were sharing with her. Moose meat was good, gamey and not much fat. Most of a moose’s fat is between the skin and the meat. When you cut it up, you can add as much or little fat as you want to hamburger or anything else they cut.

When they anchored the little boat, she walked up to them and the moose. “Who was able to get a moose? Didn't the hunting season recently start?”

Junior replied with a cheeky grin. “Your big brother here was able to shoot it the second day! It is just me, so I am sharing the kill. You need good healthy meals. Nothing more healthier than fresh meat.”

Carol was excited to know that she will have fresh meat and enjoy native foods she hasn’t had sense leaving the state. Again, how did she survive so long away from home and everything here?

Junior was busy taking the heavy jacket off, but stopped all movement when he registered there was a rifle in her hand. He looked at her quizzically waiting for an explanation. Carol looked at his face and the rifle that is still in her hand. She shrugged and said, “I had an encounter with a bear on property about an hour ago. The dogs and I scared it off. But I will carry this for a few more days.”

This statement made both men look up to the tree line and scan it. Her brother rushed to her to make sure she was safe. He took the rifle and made sure there were bullets. “I was going to put a tarp over the unfinished cabin and hang the meat up so you can cut it how you want. But I think we can go ahead and cut it all before the bear comes back from the smell of food. What meat do you want? Hamberger? Stew meat? How about we cut a little bit of everything and you can eat what sounds good.”

He started ushering her back into the cabin to her rocker. He hasn’t let her lift a finger when he comes to check on her. He is happy to do the heavy lifting for her. After all, she is carrying the next generation.

This made Carol a little annoyed they were babying her and she was gearing up to say so when Rick spoke up. “Sesi, this isn’t about treating you like a child. You know bear habits. He will come back looking for food. What if he gets into the unfinished cabin for your moose meat? You shouldn’t be stressing about wild animals getting food and your people don't believe in women handling bears. Let us cut the meat up real quick and put it in your underground cold storage for our piece of mind?”

Well what is Carol supposed to say to that? It isn’t about not caring for herself, it is about minimizing the bear not finding food and not coming back. If it finds food, it will remember where it got food from for the next year and will come looking for more. It is no secret her people have that small belief about bears and women touching any part of it. She relented and allowed the both of them to start cutting while she sat in her chair working on the blanket.

They all chatted and caught up on what was going on in the mine and the village, they learned everything she was doing preparing for winter and her baby. They were men who didn’t appreciate crochet things, but liked the idea of handmade stuff for the baby. Carol even shared her idea about the baby’s name. Which made Junior tear up a bit. He was named after their father after all. So now he was torn about wanting a boy along with a girl. He hugged her and said, “You did well choosing your baby’s name. Boy or girl, you are honoring the native way. They are named similar but not the same thing as our long lost loved ones. I do not like the idea of THEIR family being honored though.”

Carol laughed. “Junior, how many men die in the family? Not many and he died shortly after highschool. He didn’t get a chance to really live. It isn’t his fault that his brother and his descendants were a**holes. Besides grandma Jenn was good to me. The only one who was good to me."