The Chukchi a day in our lives

Its a hard life
When you live closer to Nature
The wild beasts have the option
And they try
To eat what comes in Nature
To eat within the seasons
They don’t have supermarkets
And can’t fly

Whale hunting we know
People around the world
Do not like the idea that we do this
But in this inhospitable place
We have been hurled
No trees at all grow here
So not one apple
Our basic food is whale meat
And we try
To share it nothing is wasted
Its our sustenance
Without it we know
Most of us would die

the IWC sets every year
Our quota
136 whales thats the price
We are the indigenous
We use harpoons and buoys
2 aluminium boats and spears
And its not one of our joys

Getting the boats to sea
Is hard for they are heavy
The sea is often rough
And what we do
Is stand up in the boat
When we sight anything
Toss our spear and make sure
It is true

Another may be thrown and perhaps another
The buoys show us our progress
And just where
We also have a rifle and will
Shoot them
We are sorry about all their despair

We share the spoils with the sea birds
And the wild bears, the wild dogs
And the coyote seem to come
And then each family has whatever they
Require
We also eat it raw
But we all eat some

We stew it up and eat plates of it
It does smell a bit
A sort of iodine smell
But theN We are
Forced to eat this protein
Because it can be very cold
The winds can blow
And our skin it just does scar

This year its been much warmer
No real blizzards yet we have felt
Minus 25 it can be thats when we are dealt
Quite a lot of punishment
When roofs can blow away
We really are a hardy bunch
And some of us do pay

The men who go out whaling
Are answerable of course
To the unpredictable weather
Squalls of tremendous force
And sometimes the whales they fight back
They are intelligent and strong
They do not give in easily
For the sea is where they belong

We get back racked up with agony
Our joints and backs on fire
It hard to put the gear away
Life can be really dire
But then to see our children
In the oil light glow
With some whale stew in their tummies
That is when we know

Its good we have these animals
To share along our shore
Its good we can take advantage
And never want for more

If the westerners banned whaling
For everyone we know
That we would perish one by one
And our children couldn’t grow
So we thank our gods and we thank the whales
For its probable that we
Catch the older ones their sacrifice
That each of us must be

Grateful for these natural gifts
And respect all of the sea
Creatures and wild animals
That live around and be
Needing us to share with them
What little we can find
Yes we are whale hunters
The chukchi, all of one mind