Uyqiĝaadax̂ Huya Ama

Aquilina D. Lestenkof’s dad, Reverend Michael D. Lestenkof, told her that when he was a boy, his father Dimitri would take him and his brothers, Innokenty and Theodore, to Ulam Kayaa on St. George Island. Now it is pronounced ‘Yulakaaya’. Michael D. Lestenkof said there was a little house up there. Father Michael told Aquilina that his dad would tell him and his brothers that they had to sing when they passed the house. That if they didn’t sing, there was an old lady in the house that would take them! So they would sing ‘Uyqiĝaadax̂ huya ama, Uyqiĝaadax̂ huya ama, Uyqiĝaadax̂ huya ama, Uyqiĝaadax̂ huya ama,’ as they, one-by-one, fearfully quickly walked passed the house. Father Michael would sing the song to the time of “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay” a vaudeville and music hall song, copyrighted by Henry J. Sayer. Mr. Sayer did not write the song but heard it perform in the 1880s by an African American singer, Mama Lou. In 2005, Elder Mary N. Bourdukofsky and Aquilina D. Lestenkof took Father Michael’s story and wrote a song. In 2008, Unaaĝim Ax̂asniikangin visited with it and brought it to the dance floor.