Stories from Our Elders

My name is Virginia Aleck. I was born in Chignik Lagoon, living in Chignik Lake.

I remember a long time when we slid down to the lagoon, there used to be a little creek behind where we lived. And Grammy used to always tell me -- don't stay out late, that woman by the creek is going to get you.

I guess there was a story a long time ago that happened to a little girl, and she was my same age. And she was from Perryville, and they went over to Sunnyside, which is over towards Ivanof Bay, to go do some trapping and stuff. And when they were over there, they were walking on the beach. I guess she was walking on the beach with, I'm not sure who, but they lost her. She was lost for three days and three nights.

And when they picked her up, the story she told the people was that there was this big lady took her and wrapped her up in her hair and carried her, you know, where on the beach. But she said she was so scared she couldn't say anything, or she just wanted to sleep. Them guys in Ivanof Bay looked all over for her. They couldn't find her. They'd seen her footsteps on the sand. But they said they walked a little ways and they lost her footsteps from the beach.

They said there's a story about that woman with the long hair, sound like it happened before and took that little girl, and she was gone for three days and they thought she was gone for good. And she popped up the third day and she was really pale, and like she was dehydrated, her eyes were sunken. But she didn't remember much of anything.

That lady was the same age as I was that happened to. And they said it was that lady from the creek. And that's the same one they were trying to scare me with down at the lagoon.

She has a comb. I remember an elder man in the village here, he picked up that comb I guess and followed her, and he was lost like that too, in the alders down at the lagoon, until he finally found his way back home. But it's scary. He said it took him. He had been drinking, and then he went to the creek to drink water. There was water right by the place there.

He was an elder man. His name was Niko Diamond senior, and he wanted to drink water. That's where we all got our water from was that creek, good drinking water. He went there to drink water, and when he looked up like this, he's seen feet, a pair of feet down there and he looked up. He said there was this young lady, and she was holding this comb in her hair. And she kept on going like that to him with the comb.

He said, he got up and he said -- without even thinking -- he went with her and they kept walking and walking and walking. He said, in native, he said, [speaks native] -- what's the matter with me?

Then he said, he started praying and he sat down. And when he sat down, he looked up, there was that woman trying to do that to him again. He just prayed and he turned around. He didn't know where he was, but he walked out towards the beach and he finally found out where he was. He was way up inside the mountains.

He told me that himself. He was gone for a couple of days I think that time, yeah.