Humor
Written by: Katie Tunuchuk, CITC Reading Teacher, Scenic Park Elementary School
Humor, what does it mean? Why is it a Yup’ik value? As I was thinking of what to write for this piece, the one thing that kept popping into my head were my “uicung” (male to female cousin) and my “ilung” (female to female cousin) from another village. In other words, my teasing cousins. When I first met them, I was told by my dad and other relatives that I was supposed to tease them.
I didn’t know these two people very well and I didn’t feel comfortable enough to tease them. The teasing was very light in the beginning and didn’t happen all the time. As we got to know each other better, the teasing became more intense and happened more often.
When you have a teasing cousin, it is your job to tease that person as much as possible. There are some valuable things you can learn from teasing and being teased: self-control so you don’t go overboard in your teasing, patience so you don’t get angry when you are being teased, and endurance (if you can dish it, you need to be able to take it too). Another important aspect to teasing is the ties that strengthen the bonds between the cousins. Today, I have a close relationship with my two cousins and we continue to tease each other as much as possible.
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