Percy Jackson: Interview Outline: Section 2 Shooting a wolf when he was a teenager and the advice he got from the elders Tape Reference Number: H2002-09-14 Percy Jackson talks with Bill Schneider and Eileen Devinney in Kiana, Alaska on January 28, 2003.

Percy Jackson: Yeah, that -- one of the old men was living down here, between here and Noorvik, and the as soon as dog start barking, he went out. He didn't have no gun. He thought there was something there. And here, all of a sudden, that wolf attack him, that crazy wolf. He -- he finally get hold of him and hold him down for quite a while. I think he went -- before he -- before that wolf bite him, he hold him down. Then all of a sudden he wanted to get his knife and let go one of his hand, and that wolf come up and start to bite him. And after that, that wolf come up here. It was nighttime. While I was sleeping, my mom run inside the house and start talking. I heard her, and get up myself. I took my rifle in stormshed and load it up and went out. After that wolf bite two of our dogs already.

And I walked down toward our cache and stand there a while. And all of a sudden I start seeing that wolf running. And I aim at that wolf. When he get between them two dogs, I shot it. I thought it was a crazy dog. I didn't even go to it -- went back to bed. And in the morning, that old man get up and check on it. And he said, "that's a wolf, black wolf."

They told me to skin it. I put rubber gloves on and skin it. That old man told me, we could use that skin, just take the hide off. So that's what they did. Burned that head up. We use the skin. My cousin helped me that time when I skin it, my first cousin. She was up here. She used to live in Noorvik, but she come up here when, while her mother was sick, go help her. So we -- we just burned the -- the wolf skin. So we send the head out when they want it. I think that's all about that wolf.

Bill Schneider: For the -- for young people that might not know, could you explain what was wrong with that wolf?

Percy Jackson: He had rabies. Yeah, that wolf had rabies.

Bill Schneider: Had people had experience with animals with rabies before?

Percy Jackson: Uh-hum. They just throw --throw the head away and use the hide. That's what that old man let us do.

Bill Schneider: And then what about that person that had been bit by the wolf?

Percy Jackson: Oh, they took him to hospital, from down there. They didn't help much though. He died. He got kind of crazy and died from that rabies, I think. If he didn't let his hand go, he'd kill it right there, but he let his hand -- one side of his hands go. I think he was holding him here.

Bill Schneider: By the neck?

Percy Jackson: Uh-hum. Before he bite him.

Bill Schneider: Hmm.

Percy Jackson: And if them wolves attack you, if you got mittens, just go inside the wolf's mouth and you could kill it that way, too. That's what them old people used to tell me when I was young -- when I started going out.

Eileen Devinney: If you put your fist with your mitten inside their mouth?

Percy Jackson: Uh-hum. Right here.

Eileen Devinney: Wow.

Percy Jackson: And choke that wolf.

Eileen Devinney: Gee.

Bill Schneider: Hmm.

Percy Jackson: I -- they used to let me take -- told me to carry a short rope with something on the end and let it go around, and that wolf wouldn't go to me. That's what I used to tell these young kids about that, tell them to carry a short rope. And if the wolf start attacks them, tie something on the end and let it go around.

Eileen Devinney: And they must not like that motion of that --

Percy Jackson: I think they don't like that noise.

Eileen Devinney: Oh.

Percy Jackson: When it starts going around.

Bill Schneider: What's that called? That -- that thing that you make the motion with? In Inupiaq?

Percy Jackson: I don't know. I don't know what they call it. But if you had a little piece of wood on the end.

Bill Schneider: Yeah. Yeah.

Percy Jackson: It really make lots of noise.

Bill Schneider: But there's not a word for that in Inupiaq?

Percy Jackson: I don't know. I never heard about it. They used to tell me about those things.

Bill Schneider: I've heard that, too.

Percy Jackson: Carry a short rope and if a wolf starts to attack you, if you don't have anything, you just lay down on the ground and put your legs then up and down. And they wouldn't go after you. That's what them old people used to tell me. I heard one guy save himself in that way.

Eileen Devinney: Oh.

Percy Jackson: Just lay down and put his arms and legs up and down.

Bill Schneider: I wonder if that's a submissive, or -- or putting one's self more in a vulnerable position with the other animal.

Percy Jackson: I --

Bill Schneider: Sometimes dogs are like that, puppies, you know, they'll roll over on their back --

Percy Jackson: Uh-hum.

Bill Schneider: -- if a bigger dog…

Percy Jackson: Even when you put the dead caribous with legs up, them animals wouldn't touch that thing. Even ravens wouldn't touch it.

Bill Schneider: Oh. Hmm.

Percy Jackson: That's what I used to do when I was hunting, when I got little meat, caribou, just leave them that way. What I cut up just put them in the middle and put those on the sides. And the wolf wouldn't touch those.

Eileen Devinney: How long could you leave them out like that and not have them touched?

Percy Jackson: Long time.

Eileen Devinney: Hmm.

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