Lisl's Bits and Bobs: Great Land History: The Legend of the Sleeping Lady

Happy Alaska Day!!

Great Land History: The Legend of the Sleeping Lady

October 18 is set aside each year to celebrate in the Great Land the transfer of Alaska from Russian to American governorship. When the date falls on a Sunday the official celebration is the following Monday. If the 18^th is a Saturday, as is the case this year, Friday does double duty in celebrating both the end of the work week and raising of the American flag over Alaska for the first time on October 18, 1867, in Sitka. It is marked by parades, dances, costume balls, memorial services and other festivities to commemorate the anniversary.

People will also be talking about and re-visiting in various ways all things Alaskan. In the case of Anchorage one subject frequently on the residents’ radar is the Sleeping Lady, who rests within sight of their shores, a little over 30 miles across Cook Inlet.

Sacred to the local Dena’ina people, Dghelishla, little mountain, also bears an English name, Mount Susitna, from the nearby river with the same name, Tanaina for sandy. To the Dena’ina, she is connected to the mighty peak Dghelay, big mountain, known to Alaskans as Denali, Athabaskan for The Great One.

 No one can say for sure how or when the legend of Sleeping Lady started, and elder and storyteller Shem Pete did not perceive it to be part of his people’s traditional legends. What is known is that about five million years ago, melting glaciers crushed solid rock, eventually forming a mountain over 4,300 feet high and 13 miles long. The resulting sculpture strongly resembles a woman in repose, her long hair streaming behind her as she lay in slumber. 

It has been speculated that prospectors seeing Susitna as a woman brought her story to life, but whatever the case, as Ann Dixon writes, it continues to be told far and wide, including amongst Athabascans in the Tyonek area today. Dixon sets the story down in her children's picture book, The Sleeping Lady.

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In a warmer time than it is in Alaska today, when woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers peacefully shared the land with fruit trees and the gentle people of what today is known as the Cook Inlet area, a boy and a girl were in love and planned to marry.

The day before Nekatla and Susitna were to wed, a stranger burst into their village, wildly warning about warriors from the north who left a trail of destruction: murdered kinsman, plundered lands, houses set to fire.

The villagers gathered and spoke of many ideas, but it was Nekatla’s plan that was eventually adopted. Wanting to preserve the peaceful ways his people had enjoyed for so long, his proposal entailed meeting up with the frightful warriors, bearing gifts instead of weapons, and persuading them to live in peace. The villagers agreed and all the men prepared for departure on the morrow.

The next morning, rather than being unified in marriage, Nekatla and Susitna bade each other a sad farewell, with promises nonetheless:

“We will be married as soon as I return.”

“I will wait for you at this very spot.”

And so Susitna waited at the same spot she promised Nekatla she would, a hill upon which the pair had previously spent many happy hours. With the baskets she had collected, Susitna gathered fruit until the day became spent. When the daylight marked the second morning since Nekatla’s departure she wove more baskets. On the third day, certain her beloved would return at any moment, she sewed, keeping an eye for his arrival.

Susitna waited, though each day seemed longer than the last, and in this way many days and nights passed, alas, still with no Nekatla in sight. Weary of her tasks, her imagination feeding possibilities regarding the men of her village, Susitna lay down to sleep, but only for a moment. 

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"Nekatla was brave."

This was reported from a boy who had escaped what became a slaughter, initiated with a spear thrown by one of the northern warriors. The Inlet men had tried to defend themselves, but the fearsome attackers set upon them, unrelenting until all were perished, even some of their own. 

Wakening Susitna to tell her of the horrible news did not bear thinking about, and so the women of the village wove soft grasses and wildflower blossoms into a blanket and gently laid it over their sleeping sister. 

That night all warmth and joy left the village. As the air grew colder and colder, Susitna settled more deeply into sleep. 

All around her, the fruit trees froze and died, falling like the men in battle. 

The tears of the villagers gathered into clouds, and, in the chill air, returned to earth as Alaska’s first snowfall.

And so the time went.

Days, weeks, months, years, hundreds at first, then thousands, passed. Warmth eventually returned to the land but only for a brief period each year. New animals and even people, though not giants like the Inlet people, came to settle the land.

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The Lady slumbers beneath the aurora borealis

And now here, too, are we, and we see what the settlers saw, and now has passed to us. In our snowy country called Alaska there lay a watershed, near which rests a mountain called Susitna, but that we know is really the slumbering form of a woman dreaming of, waiting for, her beloved. The seasons come, they go, and still she waits. We call her the Sleeping Lady or, simply, the Lady. 

In the winter when we look across the Inlet, she can be seen beneath a thick, snowy quilt. In summer she rests beneath the flowered blanket laid upon her form so long ago by her people, unable to bring grief to the girl so in love. 

Now our people say that Nekatla shall one day return. War will cease to ravage the land, peace once more shall reign, and on that day, Susitna shall awake and be re-united with her beloved. 
 

Sunday Wrap Up: Week Ending March 30, 2014

This week at The Review we've done a spot of travelling--through time and across the globe, to get a bit of insight into a variety of circumstances, the sorts that birth new ideas or shape the people we become, direct us toward what kinds of stories we wish to hear or tell, read or write. While not all these circumstances are cheery, one positive outcome is that they all--real or fictionalised--continue to be told and will go on being passed down to future generations as long as humans exist, for people like nothing better than to hear a story. These events are so important because not only do they affect those who took part, but also all who follow. 

Starting in present-day Linda Root takes us for a visit to Wales with a historical fiction author who discusses a variety of perspectives and angles as to how she writes, what she thinks about and so on. We go on a guided tour, as it were, of the author's works and how they came to be. Next, Lisl takes us across the pond as well as a continent, up a gulf and into a magical, huge land once the scene of a devastating earthquake. Still within living memory, this week marks the 50th anniversary of the shakedown, and across Alaska and the world people remember that day, a few of these precious memories picked out by Lisl for us to have the privilege to share. And to round out our epic sweep, Stuart makes the return trip with us back to the UK--Edinburgh in particular, for a spot of scare and history into the bargain. Told a tale of tyranny, we then are brought back to today as our final narrator brings us to one of the spots in which some individuals also met their end. 

Journey with us again or for the first time, as The Review wraps up a week of adventure.

"We are honored to have with us today a writer whose creative energies seem boundless, Judith Arnopp, who is just as comfortable weaving portions of two ninth century epic poems into her fine novel Songs of Heledd as she is invading Henry VIII's death watch to listen in while the ghost of Queen Anne Boleyn intimidates him with her whispers. Join me as we explore Judith's past endeavors, share her present successes and glimpse a bit of what her future offers." So says Linda as she introduces us to an epic interview with Judith Arnopp, who adds: "Although I love all periods of history, I am not drawn to any particular era but rather to particular characters. I am interested in what made them tick, how they might have felt, their motivations. If a situation or historical personage sticks their head up and waves at me, I read around them and see if and how I can take it further." You can do the same with Linda's fabulous interview, and continue the journey with Judith--bring your chocolate and coffee!

Hopping on our transport, we go west with Lisl, to the Ring of Fire in which sits Alaska, an absolutely massive country that--many people are unaware--experiences earthquakes several times a day! Alaskans tend to be used to the smaller earthquakes (many of which are ignored), as they usually result in some rattling and conversations starters. "When the shaking started on March 27, 1964, people generally responded in the same way. It was a Friday, Good Friday in fact; schools were closed and businesses wrapped up early for the holiday. The weather had warmed up to 28 degrees (-2 C) and the afternoon and early evening proceeded like any other.

Unbeknownst to Alaskans, however, the Pacific plate pushing under the North American, 100 miles east of the largest city, Anchorage, had been grinding away and was about to subduct. They were to know soon enough, however, as the rattling continued and the ground began to move beneath them. Surface waves motioned and gaping fissures in the ground split downtown Anchorage apart."

The largest in U.S. history, this earthquake led to the creation of the National Earthquake Information and Alaska Tsunami Warning centers. Read some details of this event and individual recollections as Lisl pauses for Remembrance Week as part of her Great Land History series.

The mother of history series here at The Review, Stuart's histories of Scotland, and particularly his beloved Edinburgh, have always enthralled us. This week Stuart lands us at Greyfriars Kirk, scene of some unsettling history between Sir George Mackenzie and the Covenanters, a persecuted religious group whose members were jailed, tortured and executed for their beliefs. In the spot we visit today are said to be nightly hauntings: "Sir George Mackenzie, the man whose unquiet spirit is said to be the source of the paranormal activity, was born in Dundee in 1636. He was born into a life of privilege, being the grandson of the first Lord Mackenzie of Kintail and attended universities in Aberdeen, St Andrews and Bourges in France. He was elected to the Faculty of Advocates in 1659, and spoke in defense at the trial of Archibald Campbell, the Earl of Argyll, in 1661. He acted as justice-depute from 1661 to 1663, a post that involved him in overseeing the extensive witch trials which afflicted Scotland with a form of mass hysteria at the time."

To see how it all ended, click here, but bring your tissues!

Oh the places you'll go! Last weekend was a wrap up encompassing unusual exploration. No worries if you missed it, just click to catch up!