 Harold Napoleon is a Yup'ik Eskimo who wrote his book to try to make sense of the profound sadness of his people, and to understand how he came to cause the death of his own son as a result of alcohol abuse.In the book, Harold suggests that his people were suffering from a kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of the "Great Death" in which his culture and people were nearly wiped out by disease and other traumatic experiences resulting from contact with European settlers.He further suggests that denial, nallunguarluku, literally ‘pretending it didn’t happen,’ has become something of a cultural trait, one manifestation of which is difficulty in talking about painful circumstances...which can lead to alienation, anger, and self-destructive behavior that some people seek to numb with alcohol" (Napoleon, viii).