Transcript: Reverend Dr. Michael James Oleksa, Ph.D.
Traditional concepts of time
- [Oleksa:]
- Most rural people, not just Native Alaskan people, see time moving in terms of tide and dawn and dusk and season— macro units of time rather than hours and minutes, which they view as something invented by those city folk because they have appointments to keep. Rural people are much more leisurely about time, and also I think much more flexible. They have plans that can be easily upset by bad weather, for example. It makes people very reluctant, especially elders, to make commitments. There’s two factors there. Traditional people believe the spoken word has power and has to be used carefully, and a verbal commitment is the same for them as a signed contract. So rather than say something that might be false, they’ll want to qualify their answers. That includes even making appointments at the hospital, because they can’t say for sure they’re going to be around next Wednesday at three o’clock. “So if the weather is good, and my snow machine is running, and no one else has an emergency, I might be able to come next Wednesday at three o’clock.”