Marie Meade

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Marie (Nick) Arnaq Meade (born 1947) is a Yup'ik professor in the humanities and also a Yup'ik tradition bearer. Meade's Yup'ik name is Arnaq which means "woman." [1] She also works and travels with the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. [2] Meade is also part of the Nunamta Yup'ik Dance Group. [3] Meade has been documenting the cultural knowledge of Yup'ik elders, including the values, language and beliefs of the Yup'ik people for over twenty years. [1] She is currently an instructor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. [4]

Contents

Biography

Meade was born and raised in Nunapiciaq which is located between the Kuskokwim River and the Bering Sea. [1] It was a small village of about 300 people. [2] Her knowledge of the Yup'ik language and culture came from her father and mother, Upayuilnguq and Narullgiar, and her community. [5] Her parents were strict, and an arranged marriage was a distinct possibility for Meade, one which she was against. [5]

Meade attended the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. [5] In 1970, she was chosen by the community to teach the first bilingual program in the village of Nunapiciaq in conjunction with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. [2] She already spoke Yup'ik fluently, but had to learn to read and write in Yup'ik, which she learned at the Alaska Native Language Institute in Fairbanks. [5] She taught for a year and then moved on to work at the Yup'ik Language Workshop, where she was involved in creating curriculum for Yup'ik language instruction. [5]

Meade met her husband in Fairbanks where he was stationed with the United States Army. [5] They moved to Bethel, where Meade taught Yup'ik at the Kushokwim Community College. [5] She and her husband had two sons together, and it was while she was raising her children that she "discovered the positive energy of Yup'ik dance--much of which had been stamped out by missionaries in the 1960s." [5] She has three grown sons and many grandchildren. [4]

Meade was the replacement speaker at an international conference in Fairbanks taking place in 1990. The anthropologist, Ann Fienup-Riordan, was in attendance and the meeting started "two decades of partnership in the documentation of the Yup'ik culture, language and practices." [5]

Along with Fienup-Riordan, she has worked on cultural exhibits, identified Yup'ik artifacts in Berlin which were collected from Alaska in 1883 and worked on translations together. [5] Mead and Fienup-Riordan created the show, "Agayuliyaraput," a display of Yup'ik masks. [6] The exhibition opened in 1997 in Toksook Bay, and was shown in Anchorage, New York, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. [5] For the work on the Berlin artifacts in the Ethnologisches Museum, Meade translated conversations of Yup'ik elders and worked on a book, Ciuliamta Aklui, Things of Our Ancestors, which documents the art and the words of the Yup'ik elders. [7] Her transcription was described by Arctic as "absolutely excellent, as is the translation: it is literal enough to be helpful in understanding the Yup'ik but free enough to present the substance of the elders' speech without eclipsing their eloquence." [7]

Meade received the Governor's Award for Distinguished Humanities Educator in 2002. [8] Meade was inducted into the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame in 2015. [9] The Hall of Fame recognized her for "achievements in Yup'ik language and culture education." [4]

Publications

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yup'ik masks</span>

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Shacklett, Annette (2 April 2015). "Y-K Women Honored for Role in Shaping Alaska". The Tundra Drums. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 "Marie Arnaq Meade (Yup'ik)". Alaska Native Studies. University of Alaska Anchorage. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  3. ↑ "Alaskan Native Healers". Door County Pulse. 17 April 2014. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 Eaton, Daysha (18 March 2015). "Meade Inducted to Alaska Women's Hall of Fame". KYUK. Archived from the original on 4 June 2015. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Marie (Nick) Meade". Alaska Women's Hall of Fame. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  6. ↑ Fletcher, Amy (14 February 2013). "Revealed by Masks". Juneau Empire. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  7. 1 2 Jacobson, Steven A. (2006). "Ciuliamta Akluit, Things of Our Ancestors: Yup'ik Elders Explore the Jacobsen Collectin at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin". Arctic (Review). 59 (2): 226–227. doi: 10.14430/arctic346 .
  8. ↑ "Marie Meade" (PDF). American Indian/Alaska Native Employees Association for NRCS. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  9. ↑ Griffiths, Melissa (26 March 2015). "Alaska Women's Hall of Fame inducts 2 from Juneau". Juneau Empire. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
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