KUKUTUX
Wild Word Friday!
I continue to feature Aleut and Athabascan words on Wild Word Friday to celebrate the May 28 release of my 6 Alaska novels in Ebook format by Open Road Integrated Media. (Find them at www.OpenRoadMedia.com)
Male and Female Common Eider Ducks
Today’s word KUKUTUX is from the Eastern dialect of the Aleut language. It means young eider duck, and linguists surmise that the word KUKUTUX is onomatopoeic, developed in imitation of one of the sounds the eider duck makes.
In both of my Alaskan trilogies, The Ivory Carver Trilogy and The Storyteller Trilogy, I use the KUKUTUX as a symbol of a woman’s desire to have children. Kukutux breast down is very soft and was used to pad the cradles the Aleut people used for their babies. The frames of these cradles were constructed of driftwood. Imagine a small hammock slung within four wooden sides and you have a pretty good idea of what those cradles looked like. Mothers hung their babies’ cradles from the rafters of the semi-subterranean, sod-roofed houses where they and their families lived.
Have you ever used some type of cradle? Does your family have a cradle or crib that has been passed down from generation to generation? Have you ever seen a KUKUTUX?
Blessings!
Sue
(Common Eider Duck photo by Andreas Trepte, www.photo-natur.de / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike)
I loved this, Sue! Thanks for posting.
We have the cradle my granddad made for my dad during the Depression. Several types of wood are used, along with various sizes of hardware, so it’s hard to stain or paint it and have it look perfect, but to me it’s as perfect as can be. It’s a testament to a loving father’s desire to provide a suitable bed for his baby when there wasn’t any material available for use besides scraps. My grandchildren use it now, so it has served siblings and cousins for four generations very well. Each family adds a special touch of homemade sheets or bumper pads, new varnish or a repaired mattress. We treasure it!
I love it.
Oh Karen, isn’t it amazing how time has changed things so much. Now we think we have to have a new bed for our new baby and a cradle and all kinds of gadgets. My children slept in the same bassinet that was given to my parents new for me, their firstborn, and we’ve been passing it down ever since. I know that most of the grandchildren in my father’s family used it and most of my siblings children. Everyone just put different colored bows on the skirt to make it match their stuff.
My mother said I slept in a dresser drawer till they got settled in the married quarters at Ole Miss. They later bought me a baby bed that I slept in till I was four!
My mother said I slept in a dresser drawer till they got settled in the married quarters at Ole Miss.