Taki’s aakaga and aapaga planned to name her after her aanaruaga, whose name was Asiavik.
Asiavik is the Iñuit word for the Alpine blueberry, a hearty berry that grows over the Arctic tundra and provides food from the time of its harvest til deep winter, where they can be frozen and preserved for good use.
Asiavik was beautiful, helpful and always there when you needed her, like the berry for which she was named.
The week before Taki was born, Asiavik died.
A strong, healthy heart has two billion heartbeats to give to the world.
The heartbeats Asiavik gave made the world a more beautiful, ingenious, wonderful and courageous place.
In the Iñuit way, when people die, their names are given to the next babies born into their families.
In this way, the loved ones can live again among the people.
Their beauty, ingenuity and wonder can grow in the new person.
Yes, Taki was to be named Asiavik.
Her parents changed their minds, however, when she whistled the song of the bowhead whale from her aapaga’s memory.
“Her name is Taklaingiq,” they announced as they introduced her to Point Hope.
“What!?” asked the people as they whispered among themselves.
“How could they not name her after her aanaruaga?
Why would they not welcome Asiavik back among the people?”
No one asked these questions out loud, though.
The Iñuit people are polite and thoughtful and do not question the motives of others.
They wondered silently.
What might become of the baby?
Would she be broken because her parents broke the old ways of the Iñuit?
Her parents never answered the unspoken questions or addressed the concerns of the village.
They simply let her name stand as it was.
Taklaingiq.
In the ancient, sacred language of the Iñuit people, it meant “one who must not be mentioned.” In the ancient, sacred language, it was the word for the bowhead whale.
That is what she would become.
Like the bowhead whale.
Life for the people.
Life for the world.
They would call her Taki.
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