Category: Artifact

The artifact that drew me in was a small ivory carving in the likeness of a whale. The figurine is from the Cape Prince of Wales area, which is the most western part of Alaska. This area was the home of a small Inupiat subset known as the “Kiŋigin”. The time of origin for the whale was not available at the museum, which left me curious.

Growing up, my father had a lot of small animal figurines from Native artists. He displayed these pieces proudly around the house, and I remember playing with them as a child. My favorite piece of the collection was a white whale that looked very similar to the figure displayed in the museum.

Not knowing the time period that each of these two whales were made, several questions came to mind. Did the figurine have a mechanical or functional purpose? Was is simply a piece of art, or a toy for a child? Were they originally sacred or have a symbolic nature? Or did the whale figurines come about as a means for the Natives to earn money from foreign traders? If anyone has any input, I would love to know.

Whale Figurines 11-A-3191 courtesy of Alaska State Museum – Juneau

http://museums.alaska.gov/asm/asmhome.html

The Giinaruaq Masks displayed in the Alaska State Library Archive Museum (SLAM) originate from the Sugpiaq/Alutiiq communities spanning the Southcentral and Western Maritime territories of Alaska, stretching from across the Alaska Peninsula, the Kodiak Archipelago, the outer Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound.

The Giinaruaq (Ginaruaq meaning a face that is not a face) were donated by Mrs. Alyce Anderson and were found in the Old Savonoski Site, a former Native village site that was buried by ash in the 1912 eruption of the Novarupta Volcano. The dates of the masks’ creation and finding are unknown.

I was initially drawn to these masks because of my personal interest in the symbolism behind masks of various cultures (during my time studying Classical antiquities in Greece, I had the opportunity to see various Mycenaean funerary masks), but I developed an insatiable curiosity when I read the following quote written on the display plaque:

There were spirit masks…once they were used they were put away and you were not to touch them or bother them.”

-Mary Jane Angasan Nielson,
Katmai descendant

The description continued to state that “after use, masks were often broken, burnt, or hidden away in caves. This was a way of removing the power of the mask.” Are these masks currently in use? What does it mean that they are put on display in a museum, visited by hundreds of people each day? Can a museum be sacred? The politics behind Museums is a topic that I want to touch on in my lesson plan, thus the presence of these masks in the SLAM posed some very challenging questions for me.

Furthermore, I am curious about the function of these masks, which was broadly described to be for ceremonies involving funerals, celebrations, pre-hunting rituals, etc… Do the functions determine the artistry of the Giinaruaq? How do the physical features of the masks connect with the spirituality and values within them? I hope that throughout the development of  my lesson plan, I will be able to explore these questions in depth.

{Giinaruaq mask, ||-A-1560} courtesy of Alaska State Museum – Juneau

As I was perusing through the many many links to the different cultures of Alaska in the Alaska State Museum, I was most struck by the masks. Besides photographs or paintings, they are the only faces in the whole museum, yet they stand to represent so much. The mask pictured below caught my attention in particular because I was intrigued by the asymmetrical placement of the eyes and eyebrows.

Giinaruaq courtesy of the Alaska State Museum– Juneau.

The mask was made by an Alutiiq native in Old Sovonoski of southcentral Alaska. The mask, or giinaruaq comes from an ancient tradition, and is at least a couple hundred years old. It has remnants of red paint on it and drilled holes in the sides most likely to allow the mask to be tied to a dancers face, which was typical for an Alutiiq ornamented mask. An Alutiiq who wore this mask would have been transformed into an embodied spirit during a ceremony celebrating hunting, or keeping away evil spirits. It is remarkable that this object has been recovered, because after a ceremony, most masks were were burned, destroyed or buried, as a way to take away the spiritual power of the mask. I wonder what kind of spirit this mask represented. From my background knowledge, I would guess this mask was a silly/trickster spirit, but I am using symbols and cues from modern masks (ie: clowns) to inform my gut reaction, and it could be completely inaccurate. I also am curious what kind of music or dance would accompany this mask in particular and why this mask survived other masks that were destroyed by tradition or by the natural disasters that affected that community afterwards.

Because I’m a little bit of a rebel, and because these objects clearly tied together in a lot of ways, I chose two artifacts: Tlingit raven rattles, or Yéil sheish óox (I apologize for not knowing how to pluralize–if anyone knows and would like to correct me, please leave a comment!).

courtesy of Alaska State Museum – Juneau (top: II-B-66, bottom: gift of the Rasmuson Foundation. 2009-30-1)

There are a lot of clear similarities between these objects–the most striking of which is the human figures on the back of the ravens with their tongues sticking out. On top of that, their tongues are being bitten! I hoped to be able to do some research into the mythology these rattles represented; unfortunately, according to the museum signs, “the original meaning of this composition is not recorded.”

And yet the rattles are so similar, despite the perhaps vast differences in their ages, that it’s clear the more contemporary rattle was inspired by the former. The faded colors on the left rattle, the wear on the paint and to the wood, suggest an age to the artifact which the museum didn’t specify–only that it was from Wrangell, Shtax’héen Kwáan, Tlingit.

Meanwhile the right hand rattle is vibrant and fresh, and reflects the fact that it was made by Archie Cavanaugh Jr. (Tlingit) in 2009. I do find it very interesting that Cavanaugh Jr chose to change the tongue-biting animal from a frog to a bird, though clearly not another raven as the beaks are so dissimilar.

Overall I feel like the rattles really called to me because they reflect each other so well, that the echoes of tradition can still be seen in contemporary artwork. And who doesn’t love a good mysterious tongue-biting!