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Handle in the form of a weasel (?)
Eskimo, St. Lawrence Island, Punuk Period, ca. 1000. A.D.
Mineralized walrus ivory, 13.4cm x 1.9cm x 2.7cm.
Possibly depicting a weasel or ferret-like creature, this elegant animal form may have been used as a handle on a bucket or bag. The animal has a deeply incised design down the back that may represent its backbone. The deeply incised lines and rectangular geometric designs are typical of the Punuk Period in the Bering Strait, and may indicate the availability and use of iron. The iron would have been acquired through trade with Siberian Native groups, who in their turn had probably gotten it from what is now China.
The nucleus of what is now the Anchorage Museum of History and Art’s permanent collection was begun in 1955 with the founding of the Cook Inlet Historical Society. The Society received several large collections of Alaska Native artifacts from local collectors such as Marvin “Muktuk” Marston, Bob Reeve, and Arthur Eide. Over the years the Museum has added significant holdings of prehistoric material, primarily by gift, but occasionally by strategic purchase with funds provided by the Anchorage Museum Association or the Anchorage Municipal Acquisition Fund. Currently almost half of the Museum’s collections consist of prehistoric Alaska Native materials donated by public-spirited collectors.
1977.044.001 Anchorage Municipal Acquisition Fund purchase
Sea Mammal Gut Cape
Aleut/Unangan, possibly from the Pribiloff Islands, ca. 1880
Collected by William and Obediah Merrill, and given to the Pejebscot Historical Society, Brunswick, Maine, in 1889
Sea lion gut, human hair, bird feathers, silk embroidery thread
Aleut/Unangan and Alutiiq women have always been fine seamstresses, a trait necessary in the severe Alaska climate. One material used by Aleut/Unangan, Alutiiq and Eskimo coastal peoples to make water and wind resistant clothing was sea mammal intestine. Carefully cleaned and cut to form long bands, sea mammal gut was sewn into garments, particularly parkas worn by hunters to keep dry in their baidarkas (kayaks) when out hunting sea mammals or fishing. Gut garments appear stiff and fragile, but they are very resilient as well as light. When dampened they are very flexible. Some were decorated with bird feather tufts or with sea mammal fur sewn into the seams. Some women even sewed human hair into the seams.
Capes were not a traditional Aleut/Unangan clothing form. Aleut/Unangan women first saw woolen capes being worn by officers of the Russian, English, and American ships that ventured into their waters in the 18th and 19th centuries. Capes became associated with prestige, and Aleut/Unangan seamstresses copied the form of the woolen naval cape in the local material, gut.
Capes and gut parkas were sometimes given as gifts by the Aleut/Unangan to important visitors such as ship’s captains. This garment was collected by ship captain Obediah Merrill, who was in the North Pacific before 1889, the year this cape was given to the Pejepscot Historical Society of Brunswick, Maine.
The cape has been extensively conserved by Museum staff. Areas of loss have been replaced by fishskin sheets to strengthen the original material. More than one hundred years of grime were carefully removed with cotton swabs, and a special form was made on which to exhibit the piece. The cape originally had an impressive feather edging along the front opening.
Some conservation and stabilization of objects from the collection is done by Museum staff members. Complex restoration of objects and paintings that is beyond staff knowledge is handled by conservators outside Alaska.
1986.31.01 Gift of the Anchorage Museum Association
Pipe
Inupiat (?) Eskimo, Bering Sea coast or Seward Peninsula, late 19th century
Walrus ivory, soot or ink, 36.2cm x 7.7cm x 4.2cm.
During the 19th century, Eskimo carvers decorated a variety of walrus ivory and bone objects with incised pictographic images that depicted scenes of Eskimo life. In this detail from a decorated side of an Eskimo walrus ivory pipe, two whaling crews in umiaks (skin covered boats) are shown harpooning a bowhead whale. Crew members in the center of the boat are shown holding inflated sealskins overhead that are attached to the harpoon line. These were thrown into the water to be dragged by the whale, tiring it and also showing the whale’s course.
This pipe represents materials made by Alaska Natives to sell to non-Natives. It was never smoked. Eskimos usually made their pipes of wood with brass or pewter bowls rather than of ivory that could be easily damaged by changes in temperature and humidity. In the 19th century and through much of the 20th, items such as these pipes, animal carvings in ivory or wood, billikins (good luck symbols based on oriental Buddha figures), cribbage boards, and baskets were considered curios by the purchasers, who were Euro-American missionaries, miners, government agents, and tourists. Some of these items were made prior to the Gold Rush of 1896, but most were made afterward. The Aleut/Unangan, Athabascans, and Northwest Coast Indians also made items for this trade, such as baskets, beaded bags, and model totem poles. These items are now seen as works of art in their own right, and are an important part of the Museum’s collection.
1982.048.007 Gift of Elizabeth Cole Butler
Child’s parka
Tatiana Golikova, Koriak, Russian Far East (eastern Siberia), 1974-1994
Reindeer fur, alder dye, 73cm x 84.5cm x 1.5cm.
This heavily decorated child’s parka was made of reindeer fur with exotic fur trim. The garment is worn fur side-in, for warmth. Reindeer or caribou hairs are hollow, which holds air and which makes garments made of these furs very good insulators. Reindeer or caribou fur garments are light and often warmer than those insulated with bird down.
Tatiana Golikova, the Koriak Native of eastern Siberia who made this garment, said that the reindeer skin on the outside of the parka was dyed red partly to imitate fire, and laughingly called this her Kulianka, or fire parka. The deep reddish brown color of the skin was made with a dye from alder bark, readily available in the Arctic on both sides of the Bering Strait.
This parka is one piece from a small but growing collection of Siberian Native artifacts that the Museum has acquired since the end of the Cold War. These have been purchased from members of Siberian Native traditional dancing and singing groups or from Siberian students attending Alaskan colleges. The Museum has been careful to acquire as much documentation about these objects as possible, including who made them, and what stories or legends are represented in the designs. The Museum also has small collections of Canadian Arctic and Greenlandic materials that it also plans to expand.
1994.58.01 Joint purchase, the Anchorage Museum Association and the Anchorage Municipal Acquisition Fund
Speaker’s Staff Top
Tlingit, possibly collected at Sitka, ca. 1880
Wood, pigment, 54.3cm x 11.4cm x 6cm.
This carefully detailed carving that appears to represent a dogfish (shark) and a raven, was probably part of a Tlingit speaker’s staff that would have been about five feet long. Chiefs or their representatives would hold the staff as a mark of rank during the formal speeches usually given at ceremonies.
Family history states that this staff top was collected by Charles Sterrett of Port Townsend, Washington, between 1885-1887, when he was in Sitka working as a surveyor. Whether the piece was traditionally used, or whether it was a piece that was made for trade is not known.
The Museum has a small but very fine collection of Northwest Coast artifacts, most of them representing the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes that lived in Alaska or the adjoining regions of British Columbia. Northwest Coast societies were very hierarchical and highly organized. Northwest Coast Indian societies became wealthy from the rich resources of the area, particularly fish, and their important position as middlemen in the fur trade. This wealth was expressed in the increased creation of decorated items during the 19th century, as well as the creation of pieces such as argillite items made specifically to sell as curios to non-Natives.
Many ceremonial objects were communally owned by clan members and were not considered private property. House or clan leaders controlled the use of these objects. Under certain circumstances, communal property that has been collected by museums can now be claimed by Indian groups under the so-called Repatriation Act, a federal law that recognizes Indian ownership of these items.
1975.045.001 Gift of the Anchorage Museum Association
Plowman’s Dance Cap or Helmet
Senufu People, Ivory Coast, West Africa, early 20th century
Wood, tinned metal, encrustation, string, 31cm x 20cm x 21.5cm.
This cap or helmet was worn as a mark of achievement by the group’s champion cultivator, the young man who finished plowing his allotted section before the other young men. The champion wore this cap when he danced at the end of the competition.
The female figure on the cap symbolized beauty, fertility and productivity. The antelope signified strength and speed. The Senufu were and are an agricultural people, and the annual plowing was one of a number of significant events during the agricultural year.
The Museum has small but important non-Northern holdings, including tribal African artifacts, pre-Columbian materials from Central and South America, Oceanic tribal carvings from the Pacific Ocean islands, Central Asian textiles, and Indian material from the continental United States. These pieces are frequently used by the Museum’s education department in their children’s exhibits, or are used in small exhibits that focus on selected parts of the collection.
1996.66.01 Gift of Mark Groudine and Cynthia Putnam
St. Lawrence Island Style Doll
Floyd and Amelia Kingeekuk, Sr., Savoonga, St. Lawrence Island, ca. 1980
Winter tanned sea mammal intestine, walrus ivory, seal fur, alder dye, 33.2cm x 13.3cm x11.5cm.
Dolls or figurines go back several thousand years in Eskimo culture. In the past, dolls were either a girl’s plaything, or they served a spiritual purpose. Few dolls were made to sell out of the culture until the late 1930s, when Ethel Washington of Kotzebue began making soft bodied doll families (mother, father, child) with carefully carved wooden faces and intricate traditional Eskimo clothing. Doll making accelerated after World War II as more non-Natives moved into Alaska and as more tourists came to see the visual wonders of the state, and to acquire as a memento of their visit a doll, a basket, or an ivory carving.
Dolls made on St. Lawrence are often known for their winter tanned sea mammal gut parkas, which are white. Usually women make the entire doll, including the face, which is most often made of skin. Floyd Kingeekuk, a prominent ivory carver, makes the very detailed faces and hands for his wife Amelia’s dolls.
The Museum has a large collection of Eskimo items that have been made for sale outside the culture. These include dolls, ivory carvings and baskets. Although the Museum has made strategic purchases over the years, most of the pieces were acquired as gifts from generous supporters.
1996.60.01 Joint purchase, the Anchorage Museum Association and the Anchorage Municipal Acquisition Fund purchase
Aleut Style Hunting Hat, Nuniaq
Jacob Simeonoff, Alutiiq, Old Harbor, Kodiak 1992
Spruce, pigment, walrus ivory, glass beads, plastic whiskers, commercial feathers, 25cm x 80cm x 25cm.
During the 19th century Aleut/Unangan hunters made elaborate bentwood hunting hats of one piece of spruce wood, carefully thinned and then steamed and bent into a conical hat, the ends sewn together across the back of the head. Often these hats were elaborately painted and then decorated with ivory side bars and a small talisman, a sitting human figure. In addition, sea lion whiskers were attached to the back of the hat where they trailed beyond the hunter.
The earliest drawings of Aleut/Unangan do not show these hats. Rather, they show hunters wearing visors with whisker decoration. However, the full helmet appears by 1815 when Russian naval expedition artist Louis Choris visited Alaska and portrayed them being worn by hunters in their kayaks.
Jacob Simeonoff grew up on Kodiak Island and has been fascinated with the Aleut/Unangan and Alutiiq cultures of his region. He has been in the forefront of those who have re-developed the skill of bending spruce to make hunting hats. Knowledge of how to make many traditional Aleut/Unangan and Alutiiq crafts nearly died out in the 20th century. A few elders remained to teach young women how to make baskets. The first hand knowledge of making hunting hats had virtually disappeared, but was slowly revived by elders such as Andrew Gronholdt and young artists such as Jacob Simeonoff. The Museum has small collections of contemporary Aleutiiq and Aleut/Unangan material, mostly baskets, and tries to obtain fine examples of such work as they appear.
1992.60.01 Joint purchase, the Anchorage Museum Association and the Anchorage Municipal Acquisition Fund
