Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival

They forget that we, too, have earned the right to live! So I say if we are going to die, my friend, let us die trying, not sitting.

Now, because we have spent so many years convincing the younger people that we are helpless, they believe that we are no longer of use to this world.

Within each individual on this large and complicated world there lives an astounding potential for greatness.

The body needs food, but the mind needs people

Both learned that from hardship, a side of people emerged that they had not known. The People had thought themselves to be strong, yet they had been weak. And the two old ones whom they thought to be the most helpless and useless had proven themselves to be strong.

This story told me that there is no limit to one’s ability—certainly not age—to accomplish in life what one must. Within each individual on this large and complicated world there lives an astounding potential of greatness. Yet it is rare that these hidden gifts are brought to life unless by the chance of fate.

there is no limit to one’s ability—certainly not age—to accomplish in life what one must. Within each individual on this large and complicated world there lives an astounding potential of greatness.

As they fell into an exhausted sleep, each woman felt more at home because of her new knowledge of the other and because each had survived hard times before.

mine. Stories are gifts given by an elder to a younger person. Unfortunately, this gift is not given, nor received, as often today because many of our youth are occupied by television and the fast pace of modern-day living. Maybe tomorrow a few of today’s generation who were sensitive enough to have listened to their elders’ wisdom will have the traditional word-of-mouth stories living within their memory. Perhaps

As he spoke, Daagoo realized that in these two women, whom he once thought of as helpless and weak, he had rediscovered the inner strength that had deserted him the winter before. Now, somehow, he knew that he never would believe himself to be old and weak again. Never!

Finding the women alive would give The People a second chance and that, perhaps, was what he hoped for most.

All the chief knew for sure was that in hard times The People should hold together, and last winter they had not done so. They had inflicted an injustice on themselves and the two old women, and he knew that The People had suffered silently since that day.

Two old women. They complain, never satisfied. We talk of no food, and of how good it was in our days when it really was no better. We think that we are so old. Now, because we have spent so many years convincing the younger people that we are helpless, they believe that we are no longer of use to this world.

We have learned much during our long lives. Yet there we were in our old age, thinking that we had done our share in life. So we stopped, just like that. No more working like we used to, even though our bodies are still healthy enough to do a little more than we expect of ourselves.

the migrating bands in these times preserved hot coals in hardened mooseskin sacks or birchbark containers filled with ash in which the embers pulsated, ready to spark the next campfire.

Her friend had seen eighty summers, she, seventy-five.

They think that we are too old and useless. They forget that we, too, have earned the right to live! So I say if we are going to die, my friend, let us die trying, not sitting.

In those days, leaving the old behind in times of starvation was not an unknown act, although in this band it was happening for the first time.

These nomads were The People of the arctic region of Alaska, always on the move in search of food. Where the caribou and other migrating animals roamed, The People followed.

Stories are gifts given by an elder to a younger person. Unfortunately, this gift is not given, nor received, as often today because many of our youth are occupied by television and the fast pace of modern-day living.

My grandmother and all those other elders from the past kept themselves busy until they could no longer move or until they died.

strange young girl,’ he said in a loud voice that I knew was meant