Marie Meade
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]
Biography
[edit]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
[edit]- Fienup-Riordan, Ann, ed. (2017). Qanemcit Amllertut Many Stories to Tell. Translated by Alice Rearden and Marie Meade. University of Alaska Press and Alaska Native Language Center. ISBN 9781602233362.
- Fienup-Riordan, Ann, ed. (2005). Yupiit Qanruyutait: Yup'ik Words of Wisdom. Translated by Alice Rearden and Marie Meade. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803269170.
- Fienup-Riordan, Ann, ed. (2005). Ciuliata Akluit / Things of Our Ancestors: Yup'ik Elders Explore the Jacobsen Collection at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin. Translated by Marie Meade. University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0295984711.
- Mather, Elsie P.; Meade, Marie; Miyaoka, Osahito (2002). "Survey of Yup'ik Grammar Revised". Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim (23). ISSN 1346-082X.
- Fienup-Riordan, Ann, ed. (1996). Agayuliyaraput: Kegginaqut, Kangiit-llu / Our Way of Making Prayer: Yup'ik Masks and the Stories They Tell. Translated by Marie Meade. Anchorage Museum of History and Art. ISBN 0295975091.
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Shacklett, Annette (2 April 2015). "Y-K Women Honored for Role in Shaping Alaska". The Tundra Drums. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
- ^ a b c "Marie Arnaq Meade (Yup'ik)". Alaska Native Studies. University of Alaska Anchorage. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
- ^ "Alaskan Native Healers". Door County Pulse. 17 April 2014. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
- ^ a b c 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.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Marie (Nick) Meade". Alaska Women's Hall of Fame. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
- ^ Fletcher, Amy (14 February 2013). "Revealed by Masks". Juneau Empire. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ "Marie Meade" (PDF). American Indian/Alaska Native Employees Association for NRCS. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
- ^ Griffiths, Melissa (26 March 2015). "Alaska Women's Hall of Fame inducts 2 from Juneau". Juneau Empire. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
External links
[edit]
- 1947 births
- Alaska Native women
- American non-fiction writers
- American women academics
- Living people
- Native American academics
- Native American women academics
- Native American dancers
- Native American linguists
- 21st-century Native American writers
- People from Bethel, Alaska
- University of Alaska Anchorage faculty
- University of Alaska Fairbanks alumni
- University of Alaska Fairbanks faculty
- Women in Alaska
- Yupik people
- American women non-fiction writers
- Dancers from Alaska
- 21st-century American women
- 20th-century Native American women
- 20th-century Native Americans
- 21st-century Native American women