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Lucy Napoka

Lucy Napoka

Lucy Napoka was Yup'ik from Tuluksak, Alaska. She was born in 1926 to Lilly and Henry Liskey. She grew up living a traditional subsistence lifestyle based upon hunting, trapping, fishing and berrypicking where her family moved around seasonal camps and she learned traditional knowledge of the land, places, and trails. Lucy married Peter Napoka at the Moravian Church in Bethel, Alaska, and together they raised a family based on the subsistence lifestyle and following the same Yup'ik traditions they had learned growing up. In particular, Lucy had learned a lot about traditional medicinal use of plants. To earn money to help support their family, Peter worked as a dogteam mail carrier before airplanes brought mail to Kuskokwim River villages, and Lucy was the postmistress at Tuluksak for five or six years. Lucy passed away in 2009.

Biographical information provided by Freda Alexie of the Yupiit School District.
Date of Birth:
Jan 25, 1926
Date of Death:
Oct 16, 2009
Lucy Napoka appears in the following new Jukebox projects:
Interview Title Abstract Archive #: Oral History Project Date of Interview
Lucy Napoka

Lucy Napoka was interviewed on September 24, 2004 by William Schneider, Freda Alexie, and Louann Rank in Tuluksak, Alaska. Marla Statscewich and Kristy Peter were also present during the interview. Lucy Napoka speaks in Yup'ik and Freda Alexie translates into English. In this interivew, Lucy talks about growing up in a traditional subsistence lifestyle where they moved between seasonal camps and went hunting, trapping, fishing and berry picking, and when using story knives to tell stories was a favorite childhood activitiy. She also talks about marrying Peter Napoka and the life they had together traveling in the area by dog team while he delivered mail and they hunted and trapped. At the end of the interview, Lucy discusses the traditional use of plants for medicine and treating illness.

 2004-07-14 Tuluksak Sep 24, 2004