May Edith Hume, Ch’e’a mą (1928 – 2020)
May Hume was born in Tagish country, at Scotty Island, to parents Kitty Smith and Chief Billy Smith. She was taught by her mother and was rich in the Tlingit language, culture and traditions. She had her own trapline at the age of eleven and became a strong believer in natural medicines. She was fluent in Tlingit, Southern Tutchone and Kaska, learned while she was growing up, hunting and trapping. Her sister-in-law, Annie Smith, taught her to speak English.1)
May married five times, shared her life with Dick Craft, Stan Thompson and Dave Hume, and had eight children. When son Richard was a child, May spent seven years at the Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton and there she learned to read. She loved to travel and moved to Vancouver for a while after Dave Hume passed, but she kept a little bag of Yukon earth with her when she was travelled. May was always a classy dresser and but she stayed with her late son Raymond because he liked to be out on the land, hunting at Wheaton River and in the mountains. She was known for her love of bingo and her knock-out homebrew that flowed freely during Rendezvous celebrations. She was story-teller of her life history, a medicine maker, and a knowledge holder of the land and all it offered.2)