Molly Lee-Not Just a Pretty Face_ Dolls and Human Figurines in Alaska Native Cultures (2006)

Dolls and

Human

Figurines

in

Alaska

Native

Cultures

second

edition

NotJust

aPretty

Face

Edited by Molly Lee

Not Just a Pretty Face

Not Just a Pretty FaceDolls and Human Figurines in Alaska Native Cultures

Edited by

Molly C. Lee

University of Alaska PressFairbanks

with contributions by

Angela J. LinnChase HenselJames H. Barker

second edition

© 2006 University of Alaska Press

University of Alaska Press

PO Box 756240

Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-6240

www.uaf.edu/uapress

First edition published 1999 by the University of Alaska Museum.

This publication was printed on paper that meets the minimum requirements for ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Not just a pretty face : dolls and human fi gurines in Alaska native cultures / edited by Molly C. Lee ; with

contributions by Angela J. Linn, Chase Hensel.—2nd ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-889963-85-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-889963-85-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Eskimo dolls—Alaska—Exhibitions. 2. Inuit dolls—Alaska—Exhibitions. 3. Indian dolls—Alaska—

Exhibitions. 4. Figurines—Alaska—Exhibitions. 5. Small sculpture—Alaska—Exhibitions. 6. Dollmak-

ing— Alaska—Exhibitions. 7. University of Alaska Museum—Exhibitions. I. Lee, Molly. II. Linn, Angela J.

III. Hensel, Chase.

E99.E7N69 2006 2005032846

All studio photographs are by Barry J. McWayne unless otherwise noted.

All measurements of museum objects are in centimeters (cm), length x width x height.

Front cover image: Statue of Liberty doll by Rosalie Paniyak. Photographer James H. Barker.

Back cover images: (Right) walrus-ivory carving from the site of Nukleet on Norton Sound; UAM 0470-0014.

(Left) Tlingit shaman fi gure, ca. 1888. Courtesy Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka, cat. no. I.A.34.

Cover design: Dixon J. Jones, Rasmuson Library Graphics.

Printed in China

v

Contents

Preface vii

Intimates and Effi giesDolls and Human Figurines in Alaska Native Cultures 1

Angela J. Linn and Molly Lee

Playing for RealScholarly Perspectives on Alaska Native Play and Ritual 41

Angela J. Linn

Everything Old Is New AgainInterviewing Alaska Native Doll Makers 47

Chase Hensel

Rosalie PaniyakA Portrait 59

Angela J. Linn and James H. Barker

References 65

Index 69

1

2

3

4

vi

In a village on the lower Yukon lived a man

and his wife who had no children. After a long

time the woman spoke to her husband one day

and said, “I cannot understand why we have no

children; can you?” To which the husband replied

that he could not. She then told her husband to go

on the tundra to a solitary tree that grew there and

bring back a part of its trunk and make a doll from

it. . . . When he returned [the husband] sat down and

carved from the wood an image of a small boy, for

which his wife made a couple of suits of clothing

in which she dressed it. . . . The man then carved a

set of toy dishes. . . . [His wife] then deposited the

doll in the place of honor on the bench opposite

the entrance, with the toy dishes full of food and

water before it.

When the couple had gone to bed that night

and the room was very dark they heard several low

whistling sounds. The woman shook her husband

saying, “Do you hear that? It was the doll,” to

which he agreed. They got up at once, and making

a light, saw that the doll had eaten the food and

drank the water and they could see its eyes move.

The woman caught it up with delight and fondled

and played with it for a long time. After this the doll

lived for a very long time. When his foster parents

died he was taken by other people, and so lived for

many generations. Since his death, parents have

been accustomed to make dolls for their children

in imitation of the people who made the one of

which I have told.

Adapted from “The Origin of the Winds,” recorded by

Edward W. Nelson between 1877 and 1881 on the

lower Yukon.

vii

PrefaceMolly C. Lee

Not Just a Pretty Face was written to accompany an exhibition by the same name. It was based

on the research of Angela J. Linn, who carried out the project in partial fulfi llment of her master of arts thesis requirements. In the fi eld of Alaska Native art and material culture, there are numerous exhibition catalogs focusing on dolls. Such catalogs are gener-ally devoted to dolls that were playthings for children and usually examine those of a single Alaska Native culture. By contrast, Not Just a Pretty Face considers the entire range of uses of dolls and human fi gures. For some Native Alaskans, a human fi gure could stand in for community members absent during an impor-tant feast. Others employed miniature likenesses of humans to promote the fertility of a barren woman. In earlier times, human fi gures were used to infl ict harm on another person.

Not Just a Pretty Face surveys these and other uses

of dolls. The contributors make use of the ethno-

graphic literature on Alaska Native peoples as well as

the oral traditions gathered from a group of Alaska

Native advisors who worked on the exhibition. This

comprehensive survey of the human fi gure in Alaska

Native cultures unites, in a single source, ethnographic

literature, twentieth-century oral histories, and pho-

tographic documentation of the doll-making process.

The second edition includes a photo essay on Rosalie

Paniyak, a Cup’ik doll maker from Chevak who is

one of the most infl uential doll makers working in

Alaska today.

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of the team who advised us about the museum exhibit: Poldine Carlo, Martha Demientieff, Beckie Etukeok, Eva Heffl e, Chase Hensel, Christopher Koonooka, Vel-ma Koontz, Jonella Larson, Phyllis Morrow, Rebecca Petersen, and Glen Simpson. We also appreciate the doll makers who consented to be interviewed: Dora Buchea, Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy, Denise Hardesty, Eva Heffl e, Walton Irrigoo, Alice Johnnie, Caroline Kava Penayah, Ruth Koweluk, Iva and Ken Lisbourne, Rosalie Paniyak, Jackie Schoppert, and Lillian Tetpon. We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of museum staff who helped with the exhibit, specifi -cally Steve Bouta, Terry Dickey, and Wanda Chin, as well as the student assistants and volunteers whose hard work helped make the exhibit and catalog a success. Now as then, we remember their hard work with gratitude.

A young Aleut girl cradles a

doll at the Jesse Lee Memo-

rial Home, Unalaska, ca.

1889. Photographer unknown.

Sheldon Jackson Papers (RG 239-

14-27, #885), Presbyterian Historical

Society, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),

Philadelphia, PA.

viii

Siberian Yupik Inupiaq Aleut Tlingit Haida

Central Yup’ik Athabascan Alutiiq Tsimshian Eyak

Map 1.

This map shows the origin of many dolls and fi gurines in the

University of Alaska Museum collection and the home villages

of many doll makers. The Alaska Native language map (right)

shows the geographic distribution of Alaska’s indigenous peoples. Modifi ed from the map “Native Peoples and Languages of Alaska” (1980).

Courtesy Alaska Native Language Center.

1

Intimates and Effi giesDolls and Human Figurines in Alaska Native Cultures

Angela J. Linn and Molly C. Lee

For more than a thousand years, Alaska Native

people1 have fashioned human fi gurines out of stone,

bone, ivory, rodent claws, trade cloth, and many other

materials. Children played with such fi gurines—usu-

ally called dolls—but their other uses in both everyday

and ceremonial life are less well known. In the ancient

cultures of the Bering Strait region, palm-sized walrus

ivory carvings of women holding babies were used

to promote fertility. Along the lower Yukon River,

Yup’ik Eskimo and Athabascan shamans hung human

fi gurines made of driftwood in trees to foretell the

location of game. In the Aleutian Islands, an ancient

ivory hermaphrodite with tusks suggests the mediating

role that shamans played between male and female

spheres. Today, Alaska Native women have broken

with the past by creating innovative examples that

belie conventional “doll” aesthetics. Thus, the term

doll, the only common English language collective

word for human miniatures, is woefully inadequate

to convey the widespread uses of human fi gurines in

Alaska Native cultures.

The Human Figure in Alaska Native Cultures of the Past

Our understanding of the roles of human fi gurines in

prehistoric Alaskan cultures is incomplete, not only

because of the unequal distribution of archaeological

sites, but because of the uneven degree of preservation

of the artifacts themselves. For example, one-piece

dolls of ivory or wood found in an archaeological con-

text may once have been dressed in skin clothing that

rotted away in the ground. Also, while human fi gurines

have been recovered from most areas now inhabited

by Alaska Native groups, the relationship between the

The collection of dolls and human miniatures from

Alaska Native cultures at the University of Alaska Mu-

seum of the North2 includes several thousand fi gures

from Alaska’s prehistoric and early historic periods and

is one of the largest and most representative public col-

lections of historic and modern Alaska Native dolls in

existence. All six ethnic groups in Alaska—the Inupiaq

and Yup’ik Eskimos, the Aleuts and Alutiiqs, and the

Athabascan and Northwest Coast Indians—are repre-

sented in the collection, although the Central Yup’ik

and St. Lawrence Island Yupik collections of human

fi gures are largest.

This chapter3 describes the various purposes that

dolls and human fi gurines have served in Alaska

Native cultures past and present. We have drawn on a

wide variety of sources: published, archival, and oral

history.4 Some human fi gurines were used by religious

specialists such as shamans. While these practices were

sometimes feared, this information is included in the

hope that it will offer a more complete picture of life

in earlier times.

ancient and present-day cultures is not always clear.

Thus, even ethnographic analogy, the archaeologists’

court of last resort, is problematic here.

Bering Strait Region

By far the largest number and oldest examples of hu-

man fi gurines from prehistoric Alaska have been exca-

vated on and near St. Lawrence Island. Those from the

Okvik period (200 BC to AD 100; also called Old Bering

Sea I) are perhaps the best known. Female fi gurines

1

2

Map 2.

Important archaeological sites where dolls and human fi gurines

were excavated.

Intimates and Effi gies 3

Figure 1. Old Bering Sea Figurines

These two walrus ivory fi gurines were excavated on the Punuk

Islands, southeast of St. Lawrence Island. They are about 2000

years old and of unknown use. The “Okvik Madonna” (right)

holds a fi gure on her belly. It is probably a child or, perhaps,

a bear cub. Both fi gures are attributed to the Okvik culture as

determined by their decorative surfaces. Researchers are unsure

whether these are tattoo designs, represent clothing, or perhaps

are skeletal motifs like those found on Dorset culture fi gurines

of the Canadian arctic. The Dorset period was contemporane-

ous with Okvik. (Left) 17 cm, UA71-009-0001; (right) 18 cm,

UA4-1934-0607.

Figure 2. St. Lawrence Island Wooden Figures

Whether these fi gures are play dolls or human fi gurines is

unknown. Otto Geist mentions that similar ones were used as

house guardians on St. Lawrence Island, but elders from the

island have also suggested that they were toys for playing house.

St. Lawrence Island Yupik. From left to right: 2.3 x 1 x 0.7, 1-

1933-8426; 2.8 x 1.1 x 0.5, 1-1933-8416; 6.4 x 2.4 x 1.3, 1-1933-

8408; 7.5 x 3 x 1.5, 1-1933-8403; 4.5 x 2 x 1.2, 1-1933-8406; 2.3

x 1 x 0.5, 1-1933-8436; 1.4 x 0.6 x 0.4, 1-1933-8440.

ranging from three to 20 centimeters tall predominate

(Fig. 1). Stylistically, the heads are pointed ovals, and

facial features consist of curved eyebrows, straight

ridge-like noses, and small mouths (Ray 1961:14).

Genitalia are often exaggerated. If arms or legs are

present, they are generally either nubs or long and bent

at the joints. Most Okvik fi gurines are engraved with

diagonally oriented, deeply etched parallel lines; these

may represent clothing, tattoos, or may be skeletal

referents (Fair 1982).

The purpose of the Okvik fi gurines is uncertain.

They were possibly made as children’s toys, but their

full breasts, distended abdomens, and pronounced

genitalia suggest that they were used in fertility ceremo-

nies (Rainey 1941:521). This is further suggested by

their putatively skeletal motifs, which are generally as-

sociated with shamans (Taylor and Swinton 1967:33).

Headless dolls, as well as detached doll heads, are

frequently found in Okvik sites, which also suggests

this association. The relationship of Okvik people to

present-day residents of the same area is a matter of

conjecture, but early twentieth-century St. Lawrence

Islanders are reported to have broken dolls on the death

of shamans or children (Ray 1977:10).

Human fi gurines are also found in Old Bering Sea

II5 sites from the same area. Dating from AD 100 to

300, these are usually more accurately depicted than

the earlier Okvik examples. Changes in facial features

include broad, fl at noses and slit-like eyes (Wardwell

1986:65–79). Punuk sites from the nearby Punuk

Islands (AD 500 to 1200) yield fi gurines whose body

style is similar to those of the Old Bering Sea cultures

(Wardwell 1986:96–97), but the heads are broader

and rounder (Giddings 1964:88). Round-headed dolls

are also found in the early historical period from St.

Lawrence Island and Alaska.

Thule Period (AD 900 to 1700)

Thule human fi gurines, unlike the preceding styles

from the coast of Siberia and St. Lawrence Island,

are found across the North American Arctic from the

Bering Strait to Greenland. Thule sites are the earliest to

4 Chapter 1

Figure 3. Nukleet Figures

Eighteen whole and fragmentary human fi gurines and related

objects of wood or bark were found at the Nukleet site on Norton

Sound. Reprinted from Giddings (1964, plate 32).

which present-day Eskimo populations can reliably be

traced. Examples from the Thule sites, such as Nukleet,

on Norton Sound, are abundant (Giddings 1964:89)

(Fig. 3). Their purpose is unknown (Bandi 1969:154),

although ethnographic analogy with the Eskimos of

the historic period suggests that the fi gurines were used

as charms, amulets, or children’s playthings.

To summarize, the existence of miniature human

fi gurines in the prehistoric Bering Strait suggests that

they played an important, if undetermined, role in

these cultures. The more widely spread and later Thule

fi nds from across the Arctic yield plentiful numbers of

human sculptures, suggesting that they were also im-

portant to the more recent arrivals in Alaska. Further-

more, Thule fi gurines from Alaska to Greenland show

more stylistic similarity with each other than they do

with those from the more localized Bering Strait cul-

tures that preceded them (Giddings 1964:91).

Intimates and Effi gies 5

Figure 4a (front) and b (back). Ivory Carving

The function of this object is unknown. It is made from walrus

ivory, has a hole drilled into the top of the head, and has a small

human form carved on the back. There is no information to

indicate whether it was excavated at Nukleet on Norton Sound

or was a twentieth-century piece collected during the dig. 10 x

2.5 x 2, 0470-0014.

Human Figurines in Aleut and Alutiiq Prehistory

Human fi gurines of wood and ivory have also been

excavated in the Aleutian Islands, on the Alaska and

Kenai peninsulas, and Kodiak Island. Because the

Aleutian archaeological record is less complete than

that of Bering Strait and St. Lawrence Island, these

fi gurines are less well known. Laughlin and Marsh

(1951) excavated the earliest known Aleutian human-

oid from Chaluka Mound on Umnak Island, the oldest

reported site in this vicinity.6 The fi gurine, which is

at least three thousand years old, was made of ivory

and is about twelve inches tall, with a thick trunk and

neck, straight-hanging arms, and some kind of hat on

the back of its head. The fi gurine had hung by a string

inside the house where it was found; apparently, the

head of the household prayed to it before going to sea

(Laughlin and Marsh 1951:82). The fi gurine has no

ethnographic parallel (Laughlin and Marsh 1951:75

ff; Ray 1981:24). One of the most common types of

artifacts at Chaluka were “images of deities” of bone

and ivory (Laughlin 1963:77–79).

Two important human fi gurines were found on

Amaknak Island. One known as the “Jowly Man” has

arched eyebrows, a mouth represented by a slash, and

a chin incised with lines that may be either a tattoo or

a beard (beards were worn by Aleut shamans) (Black

1982:8). From this same site is a female fi gurine made

of walrus ivory, wearing a tall, ritual hat and missing

what appear to have been articulated arms (Black

1982:8–10). Waldemar Jochelson excavated amulets

and charms in human form on Umnak Island in the

eastern Aleutians. He reports that the rudely carved

fi gurines of stone, volcanic tufa, and slate were used

in divination (Jochelson 1925:95, fi g. 79ab). Jochelson

found crudely executed carvings of human faces on

bone weapon fragments on Umnak as well. Evidently,

these were intended as guardians of the weapons, and

their presence was thought to increase the accuracy of

the hunter’s aim (Jochelson 1925:95) (Fig. 5).

William H. Dall, who excavated in the Aleutians in

the 1870s, also found a number of small-sized human

effi gies made of wood and painted red. Some were

found in association with wooden cylinders, which

Figure 5. Aleut Harpoon Head

This harpoon type was used in warfare and hunting. Made of

bone, they are carved with human faces. The faces may represent

helping spirits, who guarded the weapons and helped them in

striking animals. Reprinted from Jochelson (1925, fi g. 83).

6

Figure 6. Miniature Ivory Carvings

It is nearly impossible to determine the functions of many

archaeological pieces. This large group of miniature fi gures

could have been used for any number of purposes. Some re-

searchers have suggested that they were charms to be worn to

promote fertility (many of the fi gures seem to be female and

have distended bellies and pronounced breasts). Others think

they may have been toys. They also could have had ceremonial

uses, or perhaps they illustrated now-forgotten stories. Many

of the fi gures have interesting “topknots” that resemble those

worn by Greenlandic Eskimo women. Some have hoods that

look like the hoods on Canadian Inuit parkas (amautiks). Most

of these fi gures date to the Thule period, which, in Alaska, lasted

from approximately AD 900–1700. 1-1933-8330; 1-1926-0802;

UA74-066-0011; 1-1935-8435; UA84-052-0006; 0198-1872;

1-1933-8338; 1-1933-8332; 1-1933-8331; 1-1933-8345; 1-1933-

8339; 1-1933-8333; 1-1935-8772; 1-1935-8771; 1-1933-9240;

1-1933-9241; 1-1935-8770; UA79-053-0097; UA69-037-0010;

UA66-002-0090; 1-1935-4986; 1-1935-4772; 1-1935-4983;

1-1935-4017.

Figure 7. Prehistoric Ivory Carvings

The ivory fi gure on the far left, collected near Nome,

may be a charm or amulet. A small hole pierces the

hollow where the clavicles would meet. This depres-

sion is known as the spirit access point, the place

where a spirit would enter the object and endow the

wearer with its protection. The fi gure would also be

ritually fed through this hole. The second object,

also of unknown purpose, was excavated at the

Nukleet site on Norton Sound. It was made between

AD 900 and 1700. The two headless fi gures may have

belonged to a St. Lawrence Island shaman. The heads

of a shamans’ fi gurines were broken off after his or

her death. Both of these pieces are made of ivory and

are from excavations on St. Lawrence Island. 9 x 3,

UA76-277-0001; 15 x 3.5, UA67-080-0567; 12.5 x 7,

1-1931-0307; 6.5 x 2, 0223-2551.

Intimates and Effi gies 7

Figure 8. Alutiiq Kayak Model

Like many kayak models, this example with three cockpits was

collected as a souvenir of Alaska. However, there also is a long-

standing Aleut and Alutiiq cultural tradition of using miniature

suggested to him that they might have been part of

a shaman’s rattle (Dall 1878:30). He also mentioned

another roughly made fi gurine found in a cave near a

mummy. The small humanoid had been deposited in

a basket along with other artifacts. It lacked arms and

legs and was covered with a sticky, resin-like substance,

suggesting that it may once have been inserted into

something such as a model baidarka of the type com-

monly found in collections of Aleutian material from

the early historic period (Dall 1878:24).

William H. Dall and Alphonse Pinart found broken

parts of life-sized effi gies in a number of locations

across the Aleutians—for example, in association

with masks and other cultural and human remains

on Unga Island. Their broken condition may indicate

that these fi gurines were used in religious ceremonies

(Dall 1878:30; Lantis 1947:19). At the time that Dall

was in the Aleutians, his informants remembered that

fi gurines had been used in earlier times during reli-

gious festivities held in December on several Aleutian

Islands. Made of wood or grass-stuffed skin, the fi gu-

rines were carried from island to island in ceremonies

that appear to have been confi ned to one gender or the

other. During such festivities a spirit was thought to

inhabit the life-sized effi gies, and anyone who looked

directly at them was sure to die. Thus, participants wore

large masks. To reduce eye contact with the effi gies, eye

holes were cut in the nostrils of the masks enabling

participants to look down, but not directly ahead or

upward (Dall 1878:4–5).

Confi rming Dall’s information and bridging the

gap between the prehistoric and historic periods, in-

formants of Father Ivan Veniaminov—fi rst Christian

missionary in Alaska, who was in the Aleutians from

1825 to 1834—told him that in earlier times winter

festivities had included reenactments of legendary feats

of bravery. Two puppet-like fi gurines “of size” made out

of grass, splendidly dressed and “operated from within

by a man” were used in the reenactments. One, with

a terrifying face and long beard, represented a giant,

and the other, an even larger puppet, was the offspring

of the devil. The performances also included actors,

who feared and obeyed these larger-than-life fi gurines

(Veniaminov 1984:199). Finally, a hermaphroditic

fi gurine with tusks and breasts but lacking articulated

genitals was found on Unalaska Island in the early

1900s by Nikolai Bolshanin (Black 1982:7). The fi gurine

may represent the “Walrus Man,” who is not otherwise

reported in the Aleutians but is known in the historic

period throughout the Inupiaq area (Kaplan and Bars-

ness 1986:154, fi g. 146).

There have been numerous fi nds of small wood,

ivory, and bone anthropomorphic fi gurines in the Alu-

tiiq region of Kodiak Island, northeast of the Aleutian

boat models in ceremonial contexts. Collected around 1877;

62.2 cm, UA0823-0001.

8 Chapter 1

Islands. At the Karluk and Monashka Bay sites dating

from about AD 1500 to 1750, archaeologists found

forty-one carvings of three different types: those with

detailed heads and bodies, those with heads and tor-

sos but only facial detail, and miniature kayak men.

The head and body carvings, which have exaggerated

sexual organs, have been interpreted as fertility dolls

(Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988:13, fi g. 165). The head-

and-torso carvings resemble the fi gurines that Kaj

Birket-Smith described as shaman’s helpers (Birket-

Smith 1953:126–128).

The kayak men, found at all levels of the site, may

have been connected to a whale cult. In 1871, Al-

phonse Pinart explored a cave on Kodiak Island that

contained a small lake on which a miniature carving

of a whale and a tiny man in a kayak fl oated. It is not

widely known if the miniature kayak models, popular

as souvenirs since the ninteenth century (Fig. 8) existed

before European contact. If so, they probably had a

ceremonial use connected with whale hunting (Donta

1993:293–295, 302–305). In her Cook Inlet and Prince

William Sound excavations, Frederica de Laguna traced

the development of Alutiiq culture from about 700 BC

to the present. In three culture periods—Kachemak Bay

I, II, and III—she uncovered a few human heads skill-

fully rendered in ivory. These and other fi nds suggest

an affi liation with the Karluk fi nds on Kodiak Island

(Collins et al. 1973:14).

Athabascan and Northwest Coast Figurines

in the Prehistoric Period

In the Alaskan Interior, human fi gurines appear to be

absent in the archaeological assemblages, which con-

sist mainly of microblades and other stone tool types.

Here again, the relationship between the prehistoric

residents of this area and the present-day Athabascan

Indian culture is uncertain, although descendants of

late prehistoric inhabitants have been able to recon-

Historic Period

The literature of the early historic7 period is witness

to the fascination that miniature human replicas

held for foreign visitors (Phillips 1999:72–102). Early

travelers—such as Lt. Lavrentii Zagoskin and Edward

W. Nelson in the Central Yup’ik and Bering Strait

Inupiaq areas, John Murdoch around Barrow, Father

Ivan Veniaminov in the Aleutians, and the Krause

brothers along the northern Northwest Coast—all

struct some aspects of the past by ethnographic and

linguistic analogy (Clark 1981:128–129). An early his-

toric period grave site on Yukon Island in Cook Inlet,

an area now inhabited by the Tanaina Athabascans,

yielded an ivory bust that had been buried along with

splitting adzes and a slate knife. According to Tanaina

informants in this region, grave goods consisted of

objects that were either the most prized possessions

of the deceased or those that were feared by his or her

descendants. These same informants thought that

the bust might be part of a shaman’s puppet, which

would have represented the shaman’s guardian spirit

(de Laguna 1934:114 and pl. 52).

Evidence of human fi gurines in Northwest Coast

cultures of the prehistoric era is sketchy. In the

Yakutat Bay excavations, de Laguna recovered two

fi gurines. One is a broken, charred bone carving of

a man’s torso with a round face, large eyes, and a

large mouth. The second, a charred wooden fi gurine

of unspecifi ed gender, is armless and nude, and the

face is without features. The fi gurines’ broken state

suggests that they may have been shamans’ fi gurines

(de Laguna et al. 1964:172). Southeast of the Alaska-

Canada border, bone pins with human heads have

been recovered from sites dating between AD 500 and

1000. In the same area, anthropomorphic slate mirrors

with well-defi ned heads and bodies and abstract legs

and arms have been excavated dating from between

AD 1000 and historic contact. At the same site, bone

pins with crude human faces were found, and these

may have been used as fasteners for cedar bark capes

(MacDonald 1983:103, 109). Finally, a human fi gurine

carved of stone was found in a midden at Metlakatla

in 1879, the only one of its type known for this area

(MacDonald 1983:118–119). An early historic site on

Admiralty Island yielded slate plaques incised with an-

thropomorphic designs, which an informant hesitantly

identifi ed as “scratchers” or amulets for pubescent girls

(de Laguna 1956:204–205).

mention dolls and fi gurines (Krause 1955; Michael

1967:229; Murdoch 1892:380–381; Nelson 1899:343;

Veniaminov 1984:vii). These reports are uneven, but

they suggest that in the early contact period Alaska

Native groups used human fi gurines in three general

ways: (1) miniatures were attached to the body or

clothing of children and adults as charms or amulets,

(2) larger fi gurines were made either for use in more

9

Figure 9. Standing Inupiaq Figure

This fi gure was found by the chief engineer of a ship on the

beach at Nome during the gold rush of 1900. Whether it was a

shaman’s doll or intended for a child is unknown. Children’s

dolls were often armless to facilitate the changing of clothes. The

dark burnt surface could suggest that it was used in ceremonies.

Wooden objects were often burnt after their ritual power was

used up. 19 x 5 x 3, UA94-009-0033.

Figure 10. Yup’ik Play Dolls

Young girls in southwestern Alaska played with rag dolls just like

girls everywhere. Once trade cloth was obtainable, a girl only

had to wrap a bundle of cloth and dress it to have an instant

playmate. This selection shows the integration of other trade

materials and the dress style of the early 1920s. Left to right,

Top row: (1) wooden head piece, 5 x 2 x 2, UA64-021-0871; (2)

ivory-headed doll, 7.5 x 4 x 1, UA64-021-0094; (3) rag doll, 5.5

x 5 x 1, UA64-021-0868. Bottom row: (4) rag doll, 16 x 7.5 x 2,

UA64-021-0872; (5) rag doll, 9.5 x 4 x 2, UA64-021-0192A; (6)

rag doll, 8.5 x 3.5 x 1.5, UA64-021-0192B; (7) rock-faced doll, 23

x 10.5 x 5, UA64-064-0079; (8) rag doll, 11 x 9 x 2, UA64-021-

0869; (9) wooden-headed doll, 13.5 x 8 x 1.5, UA64-021-0189;

(10) rag doll, 10.5 x 8 x 2, UA94-001-0091.

12 3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

10 Chapter 1

Figure 11. Doll Clothing and Sewing Tools

Represented here are some of the miniature replicas of clothing

worn by adults early in the twentieth century. There is also

an Inupiaq sewing kit and housewife, which women used for

storing sewing implements. Women used these tools for mak-

ing the Yup’ik miniature gut parka and loon-skin parka, the

St. Lawrence Island doll boots, and the Athabascan beaded

mittens. Clockwise from top left: gut parka UA68-018-0009;

loon-skin parka 0900-0086; housewife UA70-053-0046; sew-

ing kit UA80-022-0055; mittens UA86-010-0005AB; boots

1084-0009AB.

formalized ritual and ceremony, or (3) children’s

playthings.

Play Dolls in Alaska Native Cultures

The information about play dolls within Alaska Native

cultures is sporadic. As is so often the case in early

museum collections, it is diffi cult to distinguish dolls

made for play from those made for ritual. According

to Ray, there are some general principles that help in

making the distinction: “In the nineteenth century,”

she says, “dolls that had removable clothing, or that

had a hard torso and legs of skin or cloth, were usu-

ally made as playthings, and the unclothed fi gurines

of wood or ivory were usually amulets or shamans’

dolls” (1981:71).8 According to Ray, the soft-bodied

doll with a skin body stuffed with fur or other mate-

rials was invented during the Nome gold rush of the

1890s and soon became the norm throughout Alaska

Native cultures.

It is possible to distinguish Central Yup’ik human

fi gurines from Inupiaq examples on the basis of facial

features. Yup’ik fi gurines have a distinct brow line,

shaped like two crescents joined at the center by the nose,

whereas Inupiaq fi gurines lack this brow line and have

more pronounced noses and tiny eyes that look as though

they had been poked in by the tip of a pencil or pen. The

mouths of Yup’ik fi gurines mirror the crescent shape of

the brows, whereas the Inupiaq dolls have small, straight

mouths. Overall, the features of the Inupiaq examples are

more crudely carved (Nelson 1899:344) (Fig. 9).

Play Dolls of the Historic Period

Central Yup’ik Play Dolls

Play dolls from the Central Yup’ik area were made of

wood, bone, or ivory and measured from one to twelve

inches in height or more (Fienup-Riordan 2003:40–

47). Male and female dolls were often distinguished

Intimates and Effi gies 11

anatomically and can be told apart by the addition of

ivory labrets for males and chin tattooing for females.

The construction of the Central Yup’ik play dolls

that Nelson collected from villages between St. Michael

and the lower Kuskokwim River is fairly consistent.9

Most had round wooden, ivory or bone heads, ovoid-

shaped eyes and mouths, short necks, solid torsos,

and arms that were formed but not separated from the

body (Fig. 10). They also lacked legs (Nelson 1899:343;

Ray 1981:99–102, 169, 171). The faces of female dolls

were frequently tattooed. Other decoration, including

hairdressings and nose- and earrings, was represented

by hair and beads placed in the correct positions. Some

even had bracelets and bead necklaces. The male dolls

had labrets made from beads or bead pieces.

Girls often had a number of play dolls of different

sizes and several changes of clothes (Fig. 11). The latter

were patterned after adult wear and included boots,

mittens, and parkas made of lemming or mouse skin.

Sometimes the dolls were provided with miniature

household furnishings such as bedding and grass mats.

Girls appear to have been solicitous of their small

companions, lavishing attention on them as though

they were alive (Nelson 1899:343–344).

The centrality of play dolls in the lives of Central

Yup’ik girls is evident from the role they assumed as

the markers of seasons and life cycles. In the winter,

dolls could not be taken outside for play unless they

were covered up.10 If dolls were taken outside before

the return of the geese, it was believed that summer

would not come. (See Fienup-Riordan 2005:284 for a

story illustrating the severity of the punishment for

doing so.) The strictness of this prohibition can be

inferred from the consequences that were thought to

result from breaking the taboo: a story from Yukon

River villages tells of a winter that did not turn into

spring because one little girl had secretly played with

her dolls—outside and uncovered—before the geese

returned (Akaran 1975).

Dolls also mediated the transition between child-

hood and adulthood in the Central Yup’ik region.

According to the Moravian missionary John Kilbuck,

a girl’s fi rst menstruation was referred to as “putting

away the dolls.” She was confi ned for a period of time,

during which her movements were restricted, and she

was forbidden to engage in either childhood or adult

activities. At the end of this isolation, she distributed

her dolls to younger girls (Fienup-Riordan 1991:60).

St. Lawrence Island Yupik Play Dolls

St. Lawrence Island dolls of the early historic period

were simple images of wood, without clothing or facial

details, and often lacking arms. Nelson criticized the

workmanship of the St. Lawrence Island dolls, fi nding

them “rudely made.” He felt that their makers displayed

“little skill or artistic ability,” which he attributed to

“their general lack of culture in this direction compared

with the people of the adjacent American coast” (Nel-

son 1899:342). Whether he was referring to playthings

or fi gurines used in other contexts is unknown. One

type of play doll from this area is the so-called yoke

doll, which may be simple but is by no means crude.

Young girls were given the lower jaw of a walrus to

dress or simply anthropomorphize by the addition of

a happy face. Set on a girl’s shoulders and peeking out

from beneath her parka hood, this jawbone was trans-

formed into a baby in the normal carrying position

(Figs. 12, 13). Earlier, such yoke dolls were sometimes

carved from driftwood (Fig. 14, far left).

Inupiaq Play Dolls

In the vicinity of Point Barrow, play dolls appear to

have been less common than farther southwest around

Bering Strait. John Murdoch, who was at Point Barrow

from 1881 to 1883, collected several human fi gurines

but none that were used for play. “[Dolls] do not appear

to be popular with the little girls,” he wrote, and “I do

not recollect ever seeing a child playing with a doll”

Figure 12. A Yoke Doll From a Walrus Mandible

Young girls on St. Lawrence Island “dressed” a walrus jaw bone

in scraps of cloth and placed the bone on the back of the neck

to imitate their mothers who carried their babies this same way.

Here, Velma Koontz of Savoonga demonstrates the technique.

12 Chapter 1

Figure 13. A Young Mother Carries Her Baby, Ca. 1926.

The infant wears a unisuit, a garment unique to St. Lawrence

Island. As a child, the mother may have played with a yoke

doll that was carried in this same way. John Brooks Collection, acc.

no. 68-32-1151, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Department, Rasmuson

Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Athabascan Play Dolls

Among the Tanaina, little girls played with carved

wooden dolls, dressing them in doll clothes and

blankets made of arctic ground squirrel (Osgood

1937:124). Like the nearby Yupiit, Deg Hit’an (Ingalik)

girls were subject to prohibitions involving play dolls.11

Wooden examples of the kinds found elsewhere were

uncommon because the Deg Hit’an feared them, be-

lieving that when the dolls were put away for the night,

evil spirits could enter them (Osgood 1940:390–391).

Thus, little girls were sometimes forbidden to take their

dolls to bed. These superstitions could be overcome,

however, by summoning a shaman to banish any evil

spirits lurking nearby (Osgood 1940:390–391).

Instead, Deg Hit’an girls had dolls made out of ma-

terials such as a rabbit skin rolled and tied to resemble

the human fi gure. Mothers made primitive dolls from

pieces of moss or bundled grass. During an advisory

committee meeting for the doll exhibit at the University

of Alaska Museum in 1999, Poldine Carlo, who grew

up in Nulato, said that girls used to pull up grass by

the roots, bundle it, and let the roots hang down

like hair, which they sometimes washed. Other girls

made dolls for themselves out of tanned-skin cutouts

sewn into human forms and stuffed with rabbit skin.

Sometimes the faces were marked, and clothing mod-

eled after real prototypes was added along with beads

for nose- and earrings. Family members made doll-

sized furniture and birch bark food baskets (Osgood

1940:390–391).

Aleut and Alutiiq Play Dolls

Early in the historic period the Alutiiq populations

of Prince William Sound made wide use of dolls and

human fi gurines: whether for ritual or play or both

is unknown. According to Captain James Cook, who

explored the sound in 1784, “[There were] a good

many little images, four or fi ve inches long, either of

wood or stuffed, which were covered with a bit of fur

and ornamented with pieces of small quill feathers,

in imitation of their shelly [dentalia] beads, with hair

fi xed on their heads. Whether these might be mere toys

or held in some veneration we could not determine”

(quoted in de Laguna 1956:223).

Northwest Coast Play Dolls

Among the northern Tlingit of Dry Bay and Yaku-

tat, mothers made play dolls for their daughters, or

obtained them already made from the Interior. The

dolls had round stone heads, made either of beach

(Murdoch 1892:380). This is puzzling given the con-

siderable number of dolls that Nelson collected from

the Bering Strait Inupiaq at about the same time. The

most common type of ivory play doll in the Nelson col-

lection has its arms hanging down at its sides (Nelson

1899:344). Unlike Murdoch, Nelson saw the dolls in

use. He described one endearing incident in which two

little girls on Sledge Island “placed their dolls standing

in a semicircle before us upon the fl oor, while they sat

quietly behind as though permitting their dolls to take

a look at the strangers” (Nelson 1899:345).

Intimates and Effi gies 13

stone (de Laguna 1960:107) or from a powdery white

marble obtained from the Interior, purportedly from

a mountain near the headwaters of the Alsek River

in Canada. The marble was easy to carve when fresh

but hardened rapidly. The bodies were made of rags.

Girls also had small wooden food dishes for their

dolls, which were sometimes carved out of a species

of fungus (Fomitopsis pinicola). One informant told

de Laguna that little girls rocked the dolls to sleep as

their mothers rocked babies and that her own father

had made a toy canoe for her dolls, which she played

with in a small, fenced-in wading pool on the Situk

River (de Laguna 1972:515).

Like the Central Yupiit, the Northwest Coast

Indians marked the boundary between childhood

and adulthood by the ceremonial renunciation of

play dolls. After a girl’s fi rst menstruation, when she

emerged from her requisite period of isolation, the

girl’s family held a feast at which she gave away her

dolls. In accordance with the Northwest Coast Indi-

ans’ emphasis on kinship and social relations, the

recipients of the castoff dolls were rigidly proscribed.

Only prepubescent female cousins on the girl ’s

father’s side could receive them. The distribution was

organized by the girl’s mother (de Laguna 1972:520).

The latest date for the collection of the stone-headed

Figure 14. Playing as Learning

This photo illustrates many of the ways that play helps children

to learn adult behavior. Girls learned mothering and sewing

skills by using the yoke doll, the baby dolls, a birchbark baby

carrier, and beaded baby belt. Boys learned hunting and kaya-

king skills by playing with the miniature bow and arrow and

the kayak model with its attached hunting implements. These

miniatures were made with as much detail and precision as were

their full-sized counterparts. Left to right, back row: yoke doll,

St. Lawrence Island Yupik, 29 x 21, 1-1927-0496; baby doll, St.

Lawrence Island Yupik, maker: Miriam Kilowiyi, 31 cm, UA66-

023-0002; baby doll, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, 20 cm, UA64-

021-0194; baby carrier, Athabascan, 41 x 26, UA95-017-0015.

Front row: model kayak, Yup’ik, 39.4 cm, UA70-028-0001AH;

miniature bow and arrow, Canadian Inuit, 65.4 (bow), 40.6

(arrow), UA68-052-0008AB; baby belt, Athabascan, maker:

JoAnn Beaver, 4.1 x 38.1, UA90-007-0011.

14 Chapter 1

amulet had a specifi c purpose (Ray 1977:17), people

often wore many of them. Eskimos attached charms and

amulets to their clothing or strung them on thongs worn

around the neck or wrist (Fig. 16).13 One early visitor to

the Mackenzie Delta reported that the women’s parkas

“were frequently ornamented with festoons of carved

ivory pendants” (Colecleugh 1876:8). The Danish sea

captain Adrian Jacobsen, who collected in the Yup’ik area

between 1881 and 1883, also remarked on the prevalence

of charms and amulets in the village of Tununak, not-

ing: “An unusual sight is the young girls, many of whom

attach wooden fi gurines to their fur hoods” (Jacobsen

1977:176). According to Edward M. Weyer, on Little

Diomede and St. Lawrence islands, men sported enough

charms and amulets to warrant the wearing of amulet

straps, which were worn bandolier style, diagonally over

the chest and one shoulder (Weyer 1932:316).

Figure 16.

Amulets and charms were worn by Alaska Natives to promote

health and to ward off evil spirits. Often, so many were worn

that special belts were made to accommodate them. This young

girl is wearing a single charm around her neck while aboard

the Revenue Marine Steamer Corwin in 1884. Reproduced from

Healy (1889:13).

Figure 15. Tlingit Doll

Tlingit girls played with dolls that had soft bodies and heads

carved from a soapstone-like marble. This doll wears clothing

made of leather and has a head that was probably carved by the

child’s father out of marble or other white stone. It was collected

by George Emmons at Klukwan, ca. 1885. Courtesy of the Burke

Museum of Natural History and Culture, cat. no. 1526.

dolls appears to have been about 1885, when George

T. Emmons collected one (Fig. 15). Their disappear-

ance apparently coincided with the importation of

china and wax dolls, which soon replaced them (de

Laguna 1972:515).

Human Figurines in Ritual and Ceremony

Charms and Amulets

Many of the small wood or ivory human fi gurines

of Alaska Native origin found today in museums,

antique shops, or private collections probably started

out as personal charms or amulets. Rarely exceeding

three to four inches in length, charms and amulets

have been reported from the Northwest Coast and the

Aleutians, although Yup’ik and Inupiaq Eskimos appear

to have made the greatest use of them. Because each

Intimates and Effi gies 15

Figure 17. Possible House Guardians

Otto Geist reported seeing human fi gurines on St. Lawrence

Island that were used as house guardians, to discourage the

entrance of evil spirits. This practice was also documented by

Karl H. Merck in 1791 on the Seward Peninsula. Many of the

Native people of Siberia also use anthropomorphic guard-

ians to protect their homes, and these fi gures were fed with

the best food the family could afford to show their respect for

the fi gure’s spirit and to nourish it for continued protection.

The gouges around the mouths of these fi gures suggest that

they were ritually fed in the past. The objects here are from St.

Lawrence Island. During the historic period, the islanders have

maintained close connections with their Siberian relatives.15 x

4, 1-1929-NN; 18 x 7, 1-1935-7700; 6.4 x 3, 1-1935-8779; 15 x 3,

1-1935-8513; 15 x 4.3, 1-1935-2185; 15 x 3.6, 1-1926-1048.

Larger Human Figurines in Ritual and Ceremony

In addition to charms and amulets, Alaska Native groups

made larger human fi gurines for ritual purposes and as

play dolls for children. Without documentation, there

are no absolutes for distinguishing a ceremonial fi gu-

rine from a play doll. However, as already mentioned

above, Dorothy Jean Ray observed that the material out

of which the fi gurine is made is a strong indication of

its purpose. Her research suggests that fi gurines made

of wood were intended for ritual purposes (Fig. 17) and

those made of ivory were usually children’s playthings

(Ray 1977:10). This distinction serves as a good general

rule, although there are many exceptions.

In the case of excavations of historic period sites,

another indicator in some localities is whether the

doll’s head is attached to its body. Dolls with severed

heads seem to have served ritual or ceremonial pur-

poses. On St. Lawrence Island, where many headless

bodies—and bodiless heads—have been recovered, the

heads were broken off the dolls of children who died

(Ray 1977:10). In the Inupiaq village of Shishmaref,

however, the heads of both children’s and shamans’

fi gurines were broken off at death (Jones 1982:4). No

explanation for this practice is given. In the case of

children, if the doll was a symbolic representation of

its personhood, breaking off the head may have been

thought to release the fi gurine’s—and therefore the

child’s—spirit from its body so that it would be free

to travel to the spirit world; in the case of a shamanic

fi gurine, the ritual “killing” may have neutralized the

fi gurine’s potential for evil (Fig. 18).

St. Lawrence Island and Central Yup’ik Figurines

Larger wood or ivory fi gurines were used for a variety

of shamanic purposes in most Alaska Native cultures.

On St. Lawrence Island, fi gurines of a different type

were used to cure infertility. According to Otto William

Geist, rather than carving a single fi gurine of a child

as was common in the Central Yup’ik area, shamans

carved mother-and-child fi gurines for this purpose

(Geist n.d.). The lifelike wooden sculptures of a par-

ent and child carved by the great St. Lawrence Island

16

Figure 18. Ivory and Clay Heads

On St. Lawrence Island, the heads of shamans’ dolls were often

broken off upon his or her death. This practice also was common

when children died. The reason for this practice is not known,

but some think it was a way to prevent the helping spirit that

had inhabited the doll from returning and working evil. Left to

right: ivory head from Hillside site, 7.8 x 1.7 x 1.2, 0223-2551;

ivory head with tattooing, 4 x 3 x 3, 1-1926-0819; ivory head

from Kukulik site, 6.4 x 4 x 3.4, 1-1931-0961; clay head from

Camp Collier, 4.6 x 3.4 x 3, 1-1926-0818.

Figure 19. Nemayaq Wooden Carvings

Nemayaq, the carver of these wooden fi gures, was a great artist

and legendary culture hero on St. Lawrence Island in the early

twentieth century. He was probably born in Siberia and im-

migrated to the island later. Nemayaq’s descendants remember

that some of the carvings had pet names. Front center: 10 cm,

1-1927-NN; 9.5 cm, UA94-001-0138; Back from left to right: 14

cm, 1-1927-0492; 14 cm, 1-1927-0491; 15 cm, 0199-1927; 9 cm,

1-1927-0490; 11 cm, UA74-066-0005.

Intimates and Effi gies 17

Figure 20. Yup’ik Wooden Figures

This group includes fi gures from three different Yup’ik regions.

Such fi gures were used as amulets, appendages to masks, and

were inserted into kayak models. The objects illustrated here

may have been used in any of these ways. Left to right, top row:

Old Togiak partial fi gures, 12.1 x 3.1 x 2.3, UA65-011-1144;

8 x 1.6 x 1.3, UA65-011-1608; 9 x 2.6 x 1.9, UA65-011-1172; 9.1

x 1.9 x 1.7, UA65-011-1638; Nunivak Island fi gure, 10.1 x 3.4 x

2.2, 1-1927-0394. Bottom row: Old Togiak full fi gure, 6.3 x 1.5

x 1.1, UA65-011-1606; Hooper Bay fi gures, 4.6 x 2 x 1.1, 1-1950-

0187; 3.3 x 1.1 x 0.9, 1-1950-0198.

artist and culture hero Nemayaq may have been cre-

ated for this purpose (Fair 1982:52; Geist and Rainey

1936:34)14 (Fig. 19).

In the Central Yup’ik area a fi gurine could be carved

to stand in for someone absent from a settlement during

an important ritual (Michael 1967:288–289). In the

same area, shamans, like those on St. Lawrence Island,

prescribed the carving of fi gurines as a cure for infer-

tility. The husband of the infertile pair was instructed

to carve the fi gurine and to perform secret rites with

it. Afterward, his wife was instructed to sleep with the

fi gurine under her pillow (Ray 1961:17).15 In the men’s

house, human fi gurines, sometimes wrapped in an

eider duck skin, hung from a centrally placed circular

framework that could be raised and lowered (ellanguaq)

(Fienup-Riordan 1996:126; Michael 1967:129; Nelson

1899:382–383, 494). It should be remembered that,

because of the animistic nature of Eskimo religion,

people believed that fi gurines used in ritual contexts

actually lived (Fair 1999). Along the upper Kuskokwim,

for example, so absolute was this belief that such fi gu-

rines were thought to walk, talk, and wear out their

clothes (Fienup-Riordan 1996:131).

Among the Central Yupiit and neighboring Deg

Hit’an Athabascans, whose territory abutted the Yupiit

on the upper Yukon River, human fi gurines were used

in a number of contexts (Fig. 20), the most important

of which were the mid-winter doll festivities and as

grave markers.

In the Central Yup’ik area people erected wooden

memorials to the dead that often included human

effi gies (Fienup-Riordan 1996:98, 2003:41).16 Accord-

ing to Nelson, full-body fi gurines were erected at Big

Lake (between the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers) “in

honor of people whose bodies were lost” (1899:318).

In Crow Village, abandoned in the nineteenth century,

18 Chapter 1

Oswalt and VanStone found a memorial pole with a

bird at the top and a life-sized carving of a young girl

at its base. The pole had been erected by a community

leader in memory of his daughter, who died during

childhood. The neck of the carving was encircled by

a bead necklace, and its face was grease-stained from

ritual feedings (Oswalt and VanStone 1967:92). Little

specifi c information about the context of these mark-

ers is recorded, and there are confl icting opinions as

to whether they represented specifi c or generalized

portraits of the deceased (Ray 1981:37–38; 1982).

The best-documented ritual use of human fi gurines

among the Central Yupiit is the so-called doll festival.

In early spring, many communities held ceremonies,

during which they consecrated a human fi gurine in

the men’s house. For that next year, the consecrated

human fi gurine was used to divine the presence of

game. According to Nelson, the festival was held in

settlements along the lower Yukon, as far inland as the

largely Athabascan settlement of Anvik, and according

to William J. Fisher, it was held on the Alaska Peninsu-

la and on Kodiak Island (Donta 1993:188–189; Osgood

1940:423–425). A wooden doll or human fi gurine17

was placed in the community house18 where it was the

focus of a ceremony. Afterward, the shaman wrapped

the doll in birch bark and hung it, along with some

masks, in a tree at a secret location. There it served as a

kind of oracle, and it was fed and consulted throughout

the year to foretell the availability of game. The next

spring the fi gurine was removed and returned to the

ceremonial house, and its birch bark coverings were

removed. If caribou were to be abundant, the shaman

would fi nd caribou hair in the fi gurine’s birch bark

wrap; if the salmon were to return in large numbers,

fi sh scales would be found in the folds instead. In some

places, the disclosure of human hair was thought to

foretell the death of community members. Each year, a

new doll replaced the old, which was brought in from

its secret tree, consulted, and disposed of (Fienup-

Riordan 1991:188–189; Nelson 1899:494).19

Athabascan Figurines. The Deg Hit’an Athabas-

cans—who lived upriver from the Yupiit, frequently

intermarried with them and appear to have bor-

rowed many Yup’ik cultural adaptations (de Laguna

1973:133)—held a similar doll festival. Thanks to the

Deg Hit’an informants of anthropologist Cornelius

Osgood, who worked among them in the late 1930s, we

have a detailed picture of the Deg Hit’an version of the

ceremony, the outlines of which may be roughly similar

to the one sketched out by Nelson fi fty years earlier.

According to Osgood, the dolls used in the Deg

Hit’an festival varied in height from eight to twelve

inches. Their heads were of realistically carved spruce

wood, painted red, and their bodies were of bundled

grass or caribou hair (which was considered inferior

to grass). Unlike the Yup’ik ceremony, which appears

to have used a single doll, the Deg Hit’an festival used

a male and female pair. The male doll was distin-

guished by a pair of labrets and the miniature drum

and drumsticks he held; the female doll had chin

tattoos; both were clothed in everyday dress (Osgood

1940:423–425).

As among the Central Yupiit, the purpose of the

Deg Hit’an dolls and doll ceremony was to foretell the

availability of game. For the ceremony, which was prob-

ably held in the fall, the dolls were wrapped in wood

shavings and birch bark and brought into the men’s

house, where they were unwrapped and examined

for the presence of certain omens (possibly caribou

hair or fi sh scales as among the Central Yupiit). They

were then tied to a vertical supporting rod, which was

pegged into a table. During the ceremony the shaman

who had commissioned the dolls persuaded them to

speak, which they did in low whistles. At the end of the

performance the dolls were rewrapped and returned

to a hiding place in a spruce tree outside the village,

known only to the shaman. If anyone accidentally

stumbled upon them, the person quickly retreated for

fear of being struck blind (Osgood 1940:423–425).20

In addition to the Deg Hit’an, several other Athabas-

can groups also used human fi gurines in their rituals.

Among the Tanaina Athabascans, for instance, the so-

called “devil doll” was employed as a means of removing

the evil spirit from an affl icted person (Fig. 21). Devil

dolls were carved by shamans and were sometimes

clothed in complete suits of caribou skin. To remove

the evil spirit, the sick person was brought into the

darkened ceremonial house, where the shaman danced

to the beat of a drum, holding the doll close to him. The

performance sometimes lasted several evenings, the

climax occurring when the exhausted shaman thrust

the doll at the patient and sank to the ground. Then

the doll disappeared and the patient arose, weak but in

better health (Osgood 1937:179).

Inupiaq Figurines. Early travelers reported a wide

variety of ritual uses for human fi gurines among the

Inupiaq Eskimos of the Arctic coast. In 1791, Karl H.

Merck observed at Cape Rodney on the Seward Pen-

insula that the local Inupiaq Eskimos hung small fi gu-

rines inside the house near a lamp or in summer, near

Intimates and Effi gies 19

the smoke-hole of a tent;21 he also observed the same

kind of small human fi gurines tied on stakes near the

house (Ray 1977:17). The University Museum, Univer-

sity of Pennsylvania collection includes a jointed ivory

fi gurine collected on King Island. The fi gurine, which is

engraved with drawings of whales’ fl ukes and caribou,

may have been a shaman’s puppet and possibly repre-

sents a wolf-man, another example of the permeability

of the spiritual and human realms and of the ability

of humans and animals to transform into one another

(Kaplan and Barsness 1986:154, fi g. 146).

Three examples of human fi gurines used for ritual

purposes have been recovered from caves on Sledge

Island, near Cape Rodney. This example (Figs. 22a,

22b), found by Dave Walluk in 1956, may have been

found guarding the entryway to a cave that contained

a large number of objects considered to be a whaler’s

ritual paraphernalia.

Figure 21. Male Figurine

This Tanaina Athabascan doll was collected by Russian scientist

I. G. Voznesenskiy on the Kenai Peninsula in 1841. Its purpose

is unknown, but the elaborate decoration suggests that it was

not a child’s toy and might have been a so-called devil doll.

Collection of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera),

St. Petersburg, Russia no. 2667-15; 35 cm.

Figures 22a (top) and 22b (bottom). Sledge Island Float

This wooden carving represents both a human when standing

(top) and a whale when laid down (bottom). The Inupiat be-

lieved the spirit of the whale was female. Found on Sledge Island,

this fi gure was probably part of a whaling kit that contained

fl oats, harpoon heads, a charm kit, and other objects required

for a successful whale hunt. The eyes are made of quartz crystal,

a material believed to have magical powers. 11.5 x 10.5 x 33.5,

UA90-001-0031.

20 Chapter 1

Figure 23. Flying Puguqs

These two fl ying puguqs were carved in Point Hope by Agaveksina

in 1940. They represent two shamans, one from Alaska, the

other from Siberia, who met while in fl ight over the Bering Sea.

Traditionally, a puguq was carved and hung in the ceremonial

house to represent the actions of legendary ancestors. These

replicas were carved for archaeologist Froelich Rainey. Left:

Inupiaq shaman, 20 cm, 1-1940-0144. Right: Siberian shaman,

34.3 cm, 1-1940-0143.

place as part of the fall whaling ceremonies. It featured

a model skin boat complete with a whaling crew that

could be animated to paddle the boat. One example

was deposited at the University of Alaska Museum by

Froelich Rainey, who commissioned it in 1940 (Figs.

24a, 24b). This cleverly constructed mechanical toy was

brought out at the end of one of the fi nal rituals held in

conjunction with the fall sitting ceremony, which has

been described by both Rainey (1947:250) and Knud

Rasmussen (1927:332).24

The third major fi gurine appearing in the annual

ceremonial cycle at Point Hope was a nearly life-sized

puppet, which was the focus of one of nine dances held

on New Year’s Eve.25 The UAM example is about three

feet tall and is clothed in a traditional Point Hope-style

beaver and sealskin suit26 (Fig. 25). The fi gurine, which

was operated by strings of cotton twine, danced in time

with the drumming and appeared to sing along with

the human singers, its mouth opening and closing

along with theirs. A ball (possibly made of sealskin)

was dangled in front of the fi gurine, which tried fruit-

lessly to snatch it with its mouth, only succeeding at the

end of the performance (Tundra Times 1964:1).

John Murdoch returned from the three villages

around Point Barrow at the end of the nineteenth cen-

tury to deposit at the Smithsonian Institution a number

In 1912, William VanValin found two nearly identi-

cal fi gurines under strikingly similar circumstances.

In this case, most of the paraphernalia were collected

along with the fi gurine and eventually deposited at

the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania

(Kaplan, Jordan, and Sheehan 1984:16–23). These

fi gurines, and presumably the UAM fi gurine as well,

apparently doubled as fl oats that could be attached to

a dead or dying whale so that it would not sink before

reaching shore. When performing this function, the

fi gurines would roll over with their whale-like backs

exposed (Fig. 22b). The quartz crystal22 of which the

fi gurines’ eyes were made was thought to have magical

properties that helped the whalers locate their prey and

compelled the prey to come within striking distance

(Kaplan and Barsness 1986:142, fi g. 120). All three

fi gurines appear to be female, and Kaplan, Jordan and

Sheehan point out that the powerful taboos governing

female behavior during whaling season refl ect their

strong symbolic associations with whales (Kaplan,

Jordan, and Sheehan 1984:19, Fig. 120; Zumwalt 1987).

The date of the fi gurine at the University of Alaska Mu-

seum is unknown, but the examples in Philadelphia

have been dated by associated objects to the fi rst half

of the nineteenth century, and it is likely that the one

at the University of Alaska Museum is about the same

age (Kaplan, Jordan, and Sheehan 1984:19).

Farther north, in the village of Point Hope, numer-

ous types of human fi gurines, especially puppets,23

were used in rituals and entertainments held in the

ceremonial houses and were connected to whaling.

Before the turn of the century, the most important part

of the fall whaling rituals was the four-to fi ve-day “sit-

ting,” during which the men who wanted to be great

hunters carved small fi gurines, many of which were

human in shape. Carved out of driftwood, these small

fi gurines (puguqs) were hung by thongs of sea mam-

mal hide from the rafters of the men’s house during

the sitting ceremony and were burned at its conclu-

sion. The fi gurines commemorated legendary feats of

ancestors. In the winter of 1940, a Point Hope man

named Agaveksina carved two human fi gurines—one

representing his uncle, who had been a shaman, and

the second a shaman the uncle had met while on a

spirit journey over Siberia. One fi gurine was carved

with a leg drawn up because the Siberian shaman had

fl own in this curious manner. Replicas of the original

puguqs were carved for archaeologist Froelich Rainey,

and both are now deposited at the University of Alaska

museum (Rainey 1947:248–249) (Fig. 23).

Another Point Hope ceremony, the great thanksgiv-

ing feast dedicated to the souls of dead whales, took

21

Figures 24a (below) and 24b (detail). Point Hope Umiak

Model with Breathing Tube

Umiak models like these were used during ceremonies in Point

Hope. On the back of the whaling captain is a seal intestine tube

that was infl ated during the ceremony to give the impression of

breathing. 84 x 26, 1-1940-0134.

Figure 25. Point Hope Marionette

This marionette was the main character of a dance held during the New Year’s celebrations in Point Hope. The dance is called Choyaqluqa in Inupiaq. UA64-013-0001.

22 Chapter 1

of miniature dolls and human fi gurines, most of ivory

but a few of wood, bone, or soapstone. The purposes

of these are unknown, although Murdoch’s observa-

tions about the absence of play dolls suggests a ritual

context (1892:380). Four of these fi gurines warrant

mention. There are several full-body representations

of humans made of driftwood with the usual nubs

for arms; Murdoch illustrated a male and female pair

(Murdoch 1892, fi g. 388). Another fi gurine, made of

a fragment from an old soapstone lamp (Murdoch

1892, fi g. 391), probably represents Walrus Man. The

Eskimo belief system included a mythological past

during which animals and humans could transform at

will, and the theme of a walrus–man transformation

was widely expressed in the folklore and legends of

northern Alaska (Kaplan and Barsness 1986:117, 154).

Murdoch also collected several ingeniously engineered

puppets, one of which paddles a kayak (Murdoch

1892:380–381, 395).

Aleut Figurines. The most outstanding examples of

historic period ritual fi gurines from the Aleutians

are small likenesses of human beings carved from

ivory and attached to hunting hats as charms (Black

1991). Usually about an inch tall, the fi gurines were

generally represented in a seated position with their

hands resting on their knees (Fig. 26). The bodies are

schematic, but the heads are carved in great detail.27

Acting as guardians of the weapons, these fi gurines

also helped the hunter to aim accurately (Black 1991).

Such fi gurines were considered idealized portraits of

the wearer of the hat, and were thought to assist the

Figure 26. Aleut Visor

Aleut leaders wore visors for hunting and ceremonial occasions.

The fi gurines adorning the hats depicted an idealized view of

the hunter to please his prey. Sometimes entire hunting scenes

were depicted on the hats. Eighteenth-century observers noted

that similar fi gures were found near barabaras (underground

houses) as protection against evil spirits. Few old hats still have

their original carvings. This contemporary visor was made by

Gertrude Svarney, 1990. UA90-022-0001.

Intimates and Effi gies 23

Figure 27. Tlingit Shaman Figure

This wooden carving holds sticks in each hand with deer dew

claws attached. This fi gure was identifi ed by Elaine Ramos as

belonging to her uncle, a shaman. Ramos’ father remembered

seeing the fi gure dance at a contest between two shamans, ca.

1888. From the TeiKweidee clan of Yakutat. 63.75 cm. Courtesy

Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka, cat. no. I.A.34.

wearer by presenting the best possible depiction of

him to prey animals—to show his respect for them

and thereby convince them to offer themselves to

him. This may relate to the earlier practice of carving

human faces on bone weapons, reported by Walde-

mar Jochelson (1925:95). According to S. V. Ivanov,

Aleut hats of the eighteenth century had such ivory

miniatures, which were used in more elaborate scenes

illustrating a number of themes: hunters pursuing land

animals with arrows, throwing spears and harpoons,

sitting in boats wearing wooden hats and armed with

spears, and hunting sea mammals and mythical ani-

mals (Black 1991).

Also from the Aleutians is an unusual collection of

fi fty miniature ivory carvings in the National Museum

of Finland. The fi gurines are engaged in a number of

activities; some, such as a drummer, are recognizable,

but others are not. Whether the fi gurines were made

for a ritual purpose or for sale is unknown (Varjola

1990:198–199).

Northwest Coast Figurines. Among the Tlingit

Indians of the northern Northwest Coast, human

fi gurines were a fulcrum of ceremonial life and social

practice. The creation of moieties, for example, was

traced back to a mythological ancestor’s relations with

a crest animal. Thus, a complete list of the depictions

of these and other culture heroes in Northwest Coast

Indian art and ritual would require a whole essay in

itself. We will limit ourselves here to mentioning a

few shamanic uses and concentrate on the play dolls

used by children.

A fi gurine called a yake, or spirit guard, was placed

at the head of a shaman’s grave to ward off evil spirits

(Johnson 1973:18) (Fig. 27). Some shamans’ dolls were

painted red, which symbolized the power to restore

the dead to life. They are believed to have previously

stood on seal-like bases because they were thought

not to walk, but to glide through the air as easily as a

seal through water (de Laguna 1960:229). These fi gu-

rines were thought to be so powerful that only those

who had converted to Christianity dared approach

them on pain of death. Tlingit shamans also had

small wooden carvings of yake that they attached to

headdresses and costumes. When the shaman began a

healing séance, he called the spirits into their images,

thus transforming art into a potent supernatural force

(Jonaitis 1986:110–115).

Shamans often used charms in human form for

curing illness and dispelling evil. These small carv-

ings of ivory or bone depicted supernatural beings

who could help the shaman in his responsibilities.

Sometimes the shaman would leave a charm with his

patient as a healing amulet (Jonaitis 1986:97). As with

the closely related Eyak Indians of the Copper River

Delta, Northwest Coast Indian shamans’ dolls were

tangible representations of shamanic dreams or spirit

visitations. Usually clad in a miniature dance apron

and blanket and often embellished with real human

hair for a more lifelike appearance, Eyak shamans’

dolls could be used to ward off evil spirits, witches,

or another shaman intending bodily harm (Johnson

1973:9–10, 18).

Among the Eyak, Kaj Birket-Smith recorded detailed

information on human fi gurines, which seem to have

occupied a prominent position in Eyak shamanic

contexts (Birket-Smith and de Laguna 1938). When

a young man undertook the spirit quest required to

become a shaman, he made a doll from the skin of the

fi rst animal to appear to him in a vision, an example

of the widespread belief among Alaska Natives of the

24 Chapter 1

interchangeability of human and animal forms and

spirits. The doll was stuffed with grass and embodied

his most powerful helping spirit (Birket-Smith and de

Laguna 1938:209).28

Shamans made wooden dolls for other purposes.

Evidently such dolls were thought to be capable of

magical fl ight and could be dispatched on journeys of

as much as a thousand miles to do a shaman’s bidding.

These dolls could be handled by women without any

ill effects. For example, the aunt of one shaman found

such a fi gurine in his bedding and, perhaps out of fear,

threw it on the fl oor. The shaman rebuked her, but the

power of the fi gurine was not diminished (Birket-Smith

and de Laguna 1938:210). A human fi gurine appears

Figure 28.

This portrait illustrates the blending of Christianity and indig-

enous belief. The infant wears a Catholic medal (perhaps a St.

Christopher medal) on its cap, just as the child’s ancestors may

have worn other amulets and charms. This medal may have been

attached to protect the child from harmful spirits or infl uences.

Alaskan Sheperd Collection, acc. no. 88-117-80N, Archives, Alaska and Polar

Regions Department, Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

in the Eyak legend of a shaman who made his daugh-

ter come back to life by implanting a wooden doll in

her, later born as her human child (Birket-Smith and

de Laguna 1938:226). Only one instance of a ritually

used human fi gurine has been reported for the Prince

William Sound Alutiiq more recently. According to an

informant of de Laguna’s, a powerful shaman from the

south shore of the Kenai Peninsula made a wooden

doll for his childless wife, and through his powers, he

made the doll walk. The shaman’s wife dressed the doll

in pearls, beads, and sea otter skins and fondled and

suckled it until she died. She was buried with the doll

(de Laguna 1956:221).

Modern Dolls and Doll Makers, 1950 to 1990

The onset of the modern period of doll making can be

correlated with several profound changes in the Alaska

Native way of life. After 1890, Christian missionar-

ies turned their attention to Alaska as one of the few

remaining colonial outposts for saving heathen souls

(Fig. 28). Whether gentle or harsh, the end result of

conversion was the suppression29 of indigenous belief

systems and with it, the making of the human fi gurines

that brought these religions to life.

Christian missionaries were central not only to the

abandonment of “idolatry” but also of Native-made

play dolls. Most of the missionary schools across Alaska

were founded as part of the churches’ efforts to con-

vert Alaska Natives to Christianity. In the classroom,

children were exposed to Western imagery both sacred

and secular and perhaps also to actual Western play

dolls. As trading posts and stores sprang up in rural

Alaska to service the fur trade, play dolls30 of Western

manufacture gradually became available (Fig. 29). In

many areas, children continued to play with cloth

dolls. However, by the 1920s and 1930s, Western-made

dolls were growning in desirability and Natives were

occasionally replicating bisque-faced dolls out of ivory

in the Central Yup’ik and St. Lawrence Island Yupik

areas (see Fig. 41).

On the other hand, from the mid-1800s onward,

Native-made dolls were a popular souvenir item to

trade with Euroamerican visitors. In the Aleut and

Alutiiq areas, with the exception of basketry, artists

abandoned traditional arts,31 including kayak models,

by the early nineteenth century. The Aleuts and Alu-

tiiqs apparently never made souvenir dolls for outsid-

ers, probably because of the early disruption of their

traditional culture through disease and decimation

(Ray 1981:56–57) brought by Russian exploration

and occupation. But in the Yup’ik and Inupiaq areas

where change was slower, the creation of dolls for the

tourist market was fueled by the growing presence of

non-Native teachers, nurses, and government employ-

ees. Because of Westerners’ lack of familiarity with

Alaska Native cultures, these dolls had to be dressed

in identifi ably Eskimo or Indian clothing. This in turn

reduced stylistic variation of Alaska Native dolls (Ray

Intimates and Effi gies 25

Figure 29.

King Island, ca. 1940. This little girl, who has her large western

doll beside her, accepts a malted milk tablet from her mother.

Alaskan Sheperd Collection, acc. no. 88-117-98N, Archives, Alaska and Polar

Regions Department, Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

1977:39). For example, the cloth play dolls common to

most Alaska Native groups during the early historic pe-

riod were not widely reproduced for sale, undoubtedly

because they were not recognized as “Alaska Native”

in comparison to those clothed in fur or sea mammal

intestine parkas.

These changes were gradual and occurred at different

dates throughout Alaska, depending upon the isolation

of the group. However, it is probably safe to say that

most or all Alaska Native cultures, including the types

of dolls they make, were affected by the end of World

War II. We will use 1950 as a reliable starting date of the

modern period of Native Alaska doll making.

During the modern period the main producers of

souvenir dolls were the Inupiaq, Central Yup’ik, and

St. Lawrence Island Yupik Eskimos. According to Susan

Fair (1982:55–71), there are fi ve main types of dolls of

the modern period, and these can be classifi ed accord-

ing to their stylistic differences.

Inupiaq

From the Inupiaq villages of Shishmaref and Brevig

Mission came dolls made of reindeer or caribou ant-

ler (Fig. 30, far right), which served as a cheaper and

more available substitute for the ivory used earlier,

which had become expensive and more diffi cult to

obtain. Universally referred to as “horn dolls,” the

antler dolls originated after World War II. Dressed in

traditional fur clothing, the dolls were fi rst intended

as children’s play things, and it was only later that

they were sold as souvenirs. The reindeer antler used

to make horn dolls is dried for several months before

use. The shape with the outline of arms engraved

26 Chapter 1

Figure 30. Collaboration and Innovation

The increase in doll collecting and the reduction in raw mate-

rials have created an innovative and collaborative movement

amongst the Alaska Native men and women. Left to right: coiled

grass doll, Cup’ik, maker: Viva Wesley Smith, 20 x 22 x 12.5,

UA94-009-0016AC; St. Lawrence Island woman, St. Lawrence

Island Yupik, makers: Floyd and Amelia Kingeekuk, 32 x 20.5 x

5.5, UA86-003-0013; dipnetter, Cup’ik, maker: Clothilda Stone,

22.5 cm, UA97-021-0001; Yup’ik man in fur parka, maker:

Margaret (Penni) Abraham with Jeff Lyons, UA90-003-0007;

caribou-jaw sled and doll, Inupiaq, maker: Elizabeth Driggs, 61

x 12.7 (fully extended) UA81-003-0129AE; horn doll, Inupiaq,

9 x 3 x 3, UA71-057-0005; horn doll, Inupiaq, 17 x 8 x 5, UA67-

098-0211; horn doll, Inupiaq, maker: Delbert Eningowuk, 18 x

7.5 x 4, UA88-007-0004AB.

into the horn is reminiscent of nineteenth-century

dolls from northwestern Alaska (Jones 1982:29). In

the late 1960s, horn doll production slowed because

of the large amounts of antler exported from Seward

Peninsula villages to Japan for use as an aphrodisiac

(Ray 1977:50).32 Whale bone dolls were also made in

Shishmaref. These simple, columnar-style dolls had

facial features painted on with black paint, but they

are otherwise unelaborated.

In Kotzebue, Ethel Washington (Agnauglugaq)

(1889–1967) popularized33 portrait-style dolls with

realistically carved wooden faces and accurately de-

tailed skin clothing. Her style was widely copied by

other Kotzebue doll makers (Fig. 31) and she was also

the fi rst doll maker whose name became known to

non-Native customers.

Ethel Washington began making her wooden-head,

soft-bodied dolls in the 1930s, when tourists fi rst came

to Kotzebue on Wien Airlines day trips. None of her

dolls from this early date can be identifi ed, and it was

not until the death of her husband, George, in 1951,

that her doll-making career began in earnest (Hedrick

and Hedrick 1983:1–6).

Washington made the dolls herself, including the

strikingly realistic heads. She whittled them with a Boy

Scout knife out of wood collected on the Kobuk River

and then fi nished them with a single-edge razor blade.

It is unusual that she worked the wood herself,34 since

woodworking was considered the province of men in

traditional times, even as late as mid-century. Birch

was especially desirable because it is soft when freshly

cut and later hardens without cracking (Hedrick and

Hedrick 1983:6–8). The open mouths of the fi gurines

almost always revealed teeth. The hair of Washington’s

dolls was either human hair, from wigs, or wolverine

fur. The bodies were cut out from patterns and made

out of caribou skin.

The c lothing and accessor ies accompanying

Washington’s dolls were especially remarkable. Tiny

parkas and boots were cut out from patterns and

Intimates and Effi gies 27

sewn with minute stitches. The dolls always carried

Washington’s trademark accessories, usually a Kobuk

River–style birchbark basket and a wooden berry

scoop for women, a bow and arrows and a sheathed

ivory knife for men. The boots of the early dolls were

dyed with alder dye and had genuine bearded seal bot-

toms. These complex and beautifully rendered dolls

required about three days each to make (Hedrick and

Hedrick 1983:9).

Ethel Washington’s success inspired other Kotzebue

women doll makers, among them Lena Sours, Rosa

Francis, Emma Black Lincoln, and Minnie Norton

(Hedrick and Hedrick 1983:10). In the next generation

of younger doll makers, the dolls of Dolly Spencer and

Eva Heffl e are especially noteworthy.

Dolly Mendenhall Spencer (1930–2005) (Fig. 32),

who learned skin sewing and sinew twisting from

classes taught by Lena Sours, was born near Kotze-

bue but presently lives in Homer. She made her fi rst

doll when she was in the sixth grade. Her exquisitely

articulated dolls are larger, more elaborately dressed,

and accompanied by a wider variety of imaginative

accessories. Furthermore, Spencer’s dolls go beyond

the generic portraits of Ethel Washington, often specifi -

cally portraying members of her family, her commu-

nity, or other people whom she admires. For instance,

one doll in the UAM collection portrays Marvin R.

“Muktuk” Marston, founder of the Alaska Territorial

Guard and widely beloved throughout rural Alaska.

Spencer, who also carves her heads out of birch like

other Kotzebue doll makers, prefers to use Alaskan

materials for other doll parts, but she sometimes uses

imported items such as coyote fur in order to achieve

the desired effect (Fosdick 1984).

If Ethel Washington was the fi rst Alaskan doll maker

with name recognition, Dolly Spencer was the fi rst to

achieve international acclaim. In 1996, the National

Endowment for the Arts voted Spencer their highest

honor, a National Heritage Fellowship, for her contribu-

tions to Alaska Native dolls and doll making.

Figure 31. Kotzebue Dolls

Ethel Washington and Lena Sours started Kotzebue-style

wooden-faced dolls. Both were accomplished seamstresses,

and both produced wonderfully life-like dolls. Left to right:

man in hunting gear, Inupiaq, maker: Ethel Washington, 29 x

14 x 6.5, UA83-003-0003; mother and baby, Inupiaq, maker:

Ethel Washington, 28 x 14 x 6, UA84-022-0002B; family of

three, Inupiaq, maker: Lena Sours, (max) 33 x 22 x 6, UA85-

003-0044AC.

28 Chapter 1

Figure 32. Dolly Spencer Dolls

Dolly Spencer followed in the tradition of Kotzebue doll mak-

ers by producing life-like wooden-faced dolls. She became

especially well-known for her extreme attention to detail and

her realistic portraits of people she knows and admires. Left to

right: Inupiaq woman, 38 x 18 x 10, UA81-003-0180; Muktuk

Marston, 37 x 19 x 8, UA82-003-0048AC; Ida Mendenhall-Mills,

33 x 12 x 11, UA82-003-0065.

Eva Heffl e is one of a handful of doll makers around

Alaska to popularize the so-called “activity dolls.”

Mounted on a board or another stiff surface, activity

dolls are at the center of a miniature diorama, usually

demonstrating a typical traditional activity of village

life. First appearing in the 1950s, they respond to

non-Native buyers’ nostalgic preference for tradition,

whether it is a doll’s clothing style or the activity.

Heffl e, who was among the earliest artists to make

activity dolls, did not begin making dolls until she was

an adult and had moved from Kotzebue to Fairbanks.

She has made at least thirty types of activity scenes,

with dolls represented making clothing and preparing

food (Figs. 33, 34).

Heffl e’s activity dolls carry the Kotzebue emphasis

on traditional accessories to its greatest elaboration.

Heffl e, who continues to live near Fairbanks, uses

Alaska Native materials such as sea mammal intestine,

fi sh skin, caribou hide, and birch bark that has been

sent to her by relatives still engaged in subsistence

activities in the Kotzebue area (Smith 1998).

Artists in several mainland villages around Bering

Strait continue to make dolls for sale. On the Seward Pen-

insula, especially from the village of Wales, artists make

ivory-faced, soft-body dolls of a mother and child.

St. Lawrence Island Yupik

The St. Lawrence Island Yupik villages of Gambell

and Savoonga became doll making centers recently.

Characteristics of most modern St. Lawrence Island

dolls are their predominantly red (based on earlier

uses of alder dye) and white (bleached sealskin) colors

and the decorative use of beads for earrings and

braid embellishments. Floyd and Amelia Kingeekuk

of Savoonga originated a doll type with realistically

carved walrus ivory heads and hands and dressed in

detailed skin clothing, which was probably inspired by

29

Figure 33. Eva Heffl e Dolls

Doll maker Eva Heffl e has created activity dolls for many years.

She also makes entire dioramas that incorporate many individu-

al activities and combines them to show a slice of life. Here she

Figure 34. Activity Dolls

Inupiaq Eva Heffl e started making dolls after she had moved away

from Kotzebue, partly as a way to learn about her own culture and

partly as a way to make money. Sold for only a few cents when she

fi rst began, now they are found in museums and private collec-

tions all over the world. The wooden heads she uses follow in the

tradition of her home of Kotzebue. Left to right: man making fi sh

trap, 13.5 x 16 x 12, UA81-003-0139; man with drill bow, 16 x 10

x 12.5, UA84-022-0004; seal hunter, 20 x 11 x 13, UA81-003-0105;

woman with basket and spoon, 20 x 13 x 10, UA81-003-0102;

woman crimping mukluks, 12 x 12 x 12, UA81-003-095.

has re-created a hide-covered tent scene with fi ve separate dolls,

each involved in its own activites, including making clothing

and preparing food. 31 x 47 x 43, UA81-003-0145.

30 Chapter 1

Figure 35. St. Lawrence Island Dolls

The doll makers on St. Lawrence Island are known for intricate

detail and expert reproduction of historic clothing styles. Here

several artists’ works are represented. Left to right: woman in

decorated parka, maker: Josephine Ungott, 35.5 cm, UA81-003-

0052; seated infant, maker: Miriam Kilowiyi, 28 cm, UA66-023-

0002; woman in decorated parka, maker: Ellie Kululhon, 40.5

cm, UA81-003-0025; woman in decorated parka, maker: Floyd

and Amelia Kingeekuk, 30 cm, UA86-003-0013.

the prehistoric Old Bering Sea ivory fi gurines dug up

on the island. Their dolls usually are single fi gures such

as hunters or women wearing traditional St. Lawrence

Island parkas (Fig. 35).

Miriam Kilowiyi of Savoonga is known for her

soft-bodied St. Lawrence Island baby dolls. They have

bleached sealskin faces with features stitched in em-

broidery thread and are dressed in the typical all-in-

one combination suits with moss diapers, bib-like fur

collars, and caps with bead decorations.

Pansy Omwari of Gambell (her mother, Hazel was

also a doll maker) makes soft-bodied dolls, mainly

women dressed in St. Lawrence Island combination

suits wearing traditional mukluks. Her dolls also have

sealskin faces with stitched-on features.

Collectors of Alaska Native dolls often vie for the

meticulously rendered dolls of Helen Carius, who

died in 1998. In her later years, Carius had begun

making activity dolls illustrating typical St. Lawrence

Island occupations such as bird-egg collecting and seal

fl ensing (Fig. 36).

Central Yup’ik

A relatively limited number of women in southwestern

Alaska make coiled grass dolls, a spinoff of the coiled

grass basketry practiced widely throughout the Yukon-

Kuskokwim Delta. Viva Wesley Smith from Mekoryuk

is one of these doll makers.

One Central Yup’ik village where modern doll mak-

ing innovations developed is the village of Eek. Two

styles are associated with Eek: the oval-faced dolls

with wooden heads, probably originating with Stella

Cleveland in the 1940s (Fair 1982:47; Jones 1982:15);35

and the leather or skin-faced dolls, sometimes referred

to as “old people dolls,” which originated in the 1970s

with Eek resident Grace White. Possibly related to the

shrunken apple-faced dolls of mainstream American

31

Figure 36. Woman Preparing a Seal

Helen Slwooko Carius was from Savoonga, on St.

Lawrence Island. She was known for her delicate

stitching, especially on the sealskin faces of her dolls.

Carius duplicated the traditional tattoo patterns with

black thread, rather than simply drawing the design

onto the surface. She used Native materials like seal-

skin, sea mammal intestine, wolf, beaver, and other

skins to make her dolls. 14 cm, UA99-004-0001.

Figure 37. Paniyak Family Creations

Three generations of Paniyak doll makers are represented in this

photo. A special style of hide-covered faced dolls developed from

this Chevak family, and they have become extremely popular

with Alaskans because of their humorous way of depicting real

life. Left to right: dancer, Cup’ik, maker: Janice Paniyak, 24 x

14 x 12, UA98-012-0001; woman eating akutaq, Cup’ik, maker:

Ursula Paniyak, 23 x 13 x 22, UA97-018-0001AB; woman with

basket, Cup’ik, maker: Ursula Paniyak, 21.9 x 9.4 x 7.9, UA98-

001-0004; male doll, Cup’ik, maker: Rosalie Paniyak, 26 x 11 x

6.5, UA83-003-0011; honeybucket doll, Cup’ik, maker: Rosalie

Paniyak, 19 x 11.5 x 15.5, UA97-022-0001.

32

Figure 39. Chevak Dolls

Perhaps inspired by the success of local doll maker Rosalie

Paniyak, other women in Chevak make dolls with sealskin

faces, doing interesting activities and dressed in creative

outfi ts. This group of dolls were made by six different doll

makers. From left to right: doll carrying bucket, maker Natalia

Nayamin, 29 x 12.5 x 6.5, UA98-025-0006; dipnetter, maker

Betty Fermoyle, 32 x 17.5 x 18, UA98-025-0005; male doll,

maker Rosalie Paniyak, 64 x 50 x 30, UA98-025-0003; woman

fi shing, maker Rosalie Paniyak, 24 x 11 x 11, UA98-025-0002;

honeybucket doll, maker Rosalie Paniyak, courtesy of Pamela

Stern; woman with grass, maker Monica Friday, 37 x 12.5 x 13.5,

UA98-025-0008; fetching water, maker Rosalie Paniyak, 25 x

10.5 x 11.5, UA98-025-0001; woman with pipe, maker Anna

Martins, 43 x 16.5 x 18, UA98-025-0007; fi shskin doll, maker

Rose Kanrilak, 36 x 10 x 8.5, UA98-025-0004.

Figure 38. Statue of Liberty

This doll was made by Rosalie Paniyak. It clearly represents

the Statue of Liberty, down to the correct positioning of her

feet under the long robe (which looks very similar to a long

kuspuk). The Native people of Alaska have been in contact with

Westerners since as early as the eighteenth century. They have

adapted and become an active part of Western society while

also preserving their own sense of identity. Rosalie has taken

her uniquely Cup’ik doll style and recreated one of the most

important American symbols in that style. 55 x 22 x 16, UA2001-008-0003. Photo by James H. Barker.

Intimates and Effi gies 33

culture in that decade, old-people dolls break with

tradition in depicting people as they are rather than

an idealized picture of Alaska Native villagers.

Both wooden-faced and old people dolls have been

widely reproduced in other Central Yup’ik villages

(Schuldberg 1996). Undoubtedly the most famous

maker of dolls deriving from the old-people style is

Rosalie Paniyak of Chevak. Paniyak’s dolls are humor-

ous caricatures of village people engaged in ordinary

experiences such as heading for the steam bath, bas-

ketmaking, fi shing and using the ubiquitous “honey

bucket” (Fig. 37). In the 1980s Paniyak created a Statue

of Liberty doll, which expresses the feeling of connec-

tions between Yup’ik/Cup’ik people and the wider

world (Fig. 38). Rosalie usually includes a handwritten

comment on her dolls, apparently at the suggestion

of folklorist Susan W. Fair. Paniyak’s daughter Ursula

and grand-daughter Janice also have become excellent

doll makers.

Since the popularization of Paniyak ’s innova-

tions, a number of doll makers, many from Chevak

and Hooper Bay, have experimented with different

aesthetics. Helen and Natalia Smith of Hooper Bay

produced a number of bird-people dolls made from

loon skins (Fig. 40). Another innovator is Rosalie

Paniyak’s sister, Clothilda Stone of Hooper Bay (see

Fig. 30). Stone creates imaginative “devil” dolls out of

dried pike skin and other local fi sh. Her dolls include

a traditional implement such as a fi sh net ingeniously

whittled and knotted by her husband, Henry. In a pat-

tern reminiscent of Kotzebue a few years earlier with

the doll making of Ethel Washington, other Chevak

women have started creating dolls based on Paniyak’s

“anti-aesthetic” (Fig. 39).

Figure 40. Restricted Materials

Federal regulations intended to help manage populations and

over-harvesting of certain animals have hurt the art industry,

especially doll making. Most artists attempt to accurately re-

produce the clothing styles of their parents and grandparents,

which becomes increasingly diffi cult with the passage of these

laws. These dolls are made from materials that are restricted

under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) of 1972

and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) of 1918. Under these

federal regulations, the sale of the pieces would be restricted,

thus limiting the market for accurate and imaginative works

of art. Dancers and drummers, Inupiaq, 17 x 25 x 14.5, UA92-

006-0007; doll with basket, Yup’ik, maker: Natalia Smith, 30.5

x 17 x 10, UA96-002-0001; doll with grass cup, Yup’ik, maker:

Louise Toll, 26 x 12 x 4, UA71-057-0009.

34 Chapter 1

Contemporary Period, 1990–Present

Recent economic, political, and demographic trends

have all helped to shape the present-day social biog-

raphy of Alaska Native doll making (Fig. 41). Among

the many factors are new legislation affecting access

to traditionally harvested birds and animals, grow-

ing rural poverty, urban migration, and the need for

mass production.

Legislation such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act

of 1918 (and its many, more recent amendments) has

limited Alaska Native peoples’ access to traditionally

harvested birds and animals by making it illegal to sell

dolls made with feathers such as loon or eider (see Fig.

39). This is unfortunate for artists in the Yup’ik region.

Alaska Natives in rural locations usually live a sub-

sistence life based on hunting and fi shing, but today

this way of life depends on imported commodities

such as snowmachines, four-wheelers, fi shing boats,

guns, and ammunition. Like all conveniences, these

cost money. When there are shortfalls in subsistence

harvest, this seriously affects bush communities, where

wage-labor jobs are scarce. The current migration of

rural residents into Alaska’s urban centers is largely

because of these economic factors.

The relationship of doll making to subsistence activi-

ties is critical and circular. On one hand, Alaska Natives

have long depended on the sale of art to supplement their

Figure 41. New Audiences and Materials

As missionaries and gold rushers began to make their way into

the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta of Alaska, new materials, designs,

and audiences became available. Dolls and human fi gurines,

once made for children or ceremony, now were created mainly

for tourists. The dolls pictured here were made for all these audi-

ences. The trio depicting a dance scene was made for an outsider

to represent a traditional Yup’ik dance celebration. The large

doll in the gut parka is either from St. Lawrence, Nunivak, or

Nelson Island. It is most likely modeled on a German bisque-

faced doll brought into the region by a missionary’s child. The

two dolls on the right were made and used by children or adults.

From left to right: drummer, 14 cm, 0477-0001; female dancer,

20 cm, 0477-0003, male dancer, 16.5 cm, 0477-0002; female

doll, Central or St. Lawrence Island Yup’ik, 33 cm, UA64-021-

0896; play doll, Yup’ik, 19 cm, UA64-021-0870; doll, Yup’ik,

14 cm, 1084-0010F.

Intimates and Effi gies 35

Figure 42. Western Dolls in Native Dress

Often, when Western goods entered villages across Alaska,

they were altered to fi t the local aesthetic. Many Western-made

dolls were-dressed in local clothing styles, as seen here by the

mets^”eghe hoolaane and qaspeq in this photograph. Miss Koyukuk

doll, Athabascan, 33 cm, UA90-007-0002AB; sparkle beach

Barbie (kuspuk), Inupiaq, maker: Hilda Ashcraft, 30 x 10 x 9,

UA96-008-0001.

incomes in lean economic times. Yet with the number

of subsistence hunters dwindling, the raw materials on

which successful doll making depends become more

diffi cult—and expensive—to obtain. Alaska Native doll

making will undoubtedly continue, although the cre-

ation of dolls with clothing made of materials associated

with traditional ways of life depends in large part on a

speedy and satisfactory resolution to the current state

and federal subsistence-priority impasse (Lee 2003).

New markets such as the internet will be increasingly

important to artists in rural Alaska. Another new trend

is the use of commercial web sites such as eBay, which

often offer Alaska Native dolls for sale. These new trends

and a resolution to the subsistence impasse should help

to strengthen the future of one of Alaska’s oldest and

liveliest Native art forms.

Figure 43. Greenlandic Dolls

Dolls like these Greenlandic Eskimo examples were made

across the Arctic to sell to outsiders. The two with topknots

are women. In Greenland, the topknot is a symbol of feminin-

ity. The fi gure on the right is packing a baby in her gut parka,

just like mothers in Alaska. Left to right: All three dolls from

Ammassalik District, Greenland. Left to right: 7.5 x 6.1 x 8.5,

UA66-011-0355; 9.5 x 3.3 x 2.6, UA66-011-0357; 11.6 x 4 x 3,

UA66-011-0356.

36

Figure 44. Dolls to Educate

Today, dolls are often used as a way to educate both Native

and non-Native people about activities no longer undertaken.

The activity dolls illustrate scenes from Native life such as

net making, weaving, storyknifing, and dancing. Modern

activities are also depicted, including the woman carrying her

nurse’s book. Clockwise from upper left: dancer and drum-

mer, maker: Agnes Bostrom, Yup’ik, 31 x 21 x 18, UA98-022-

0001AD and 29 x 16 x 19, UA98-022-0002AE; nurse’s aide,

maker: Lucy Berry, Yup’ik, 26 x 16.5 x 11, UA94-009-0025;

girls storyknifing, maker: Lucy Berry, Yup’ik, 17.8 x 12.7 x

26.7, UA94-009-0024; man working on net, maker: Martina

Oscar, Yup’ik, 12 x 11.5 x 14, UA68-020-0002; woman mak-

ing a grass mat, maker: Lucy Berry, Yup’ik, 13.9 x 14.6 x 11.4,

UA94-009-0027.

Figure 45. Innovation in Anaktuvuk Pass

Established art forms are often adapted in

new and innovative ways. The face of the

doll on the right is a miniature Anaktuvuk

Pass skin mask, for which this community

is famous. From left to right: mask, maker:

Simon Paneak, Nunamiut, 15.2 x 24, UA82-

003-0064; doll, maker: Susie Paneak, Nuna-

miut, 50.8 x 16.5, UA82-003-0063.

37

Figure 47. Two Dolls of Undetermined

Origin

Left: The doll is probably Yup’ik, as indicated

by the facial features and the construction of

the boots. 5.5 cm, UA67-098-0196.

Right: The beadwork and the parka style

suggest that it may be Athabascan, although

the many experts consulted were unable to

confi rm this. The heavy ornamentation of

the doll tells us that it certainly was not a

child’s plaything. The attached watch cogs

and springs may indicate that it was used by

a shaman. Siberian shamans often attached

metal pieces to their clothing to bring on a

trance state. The hair style and the piece of

dentalium that pierces the nasal septum sug-

gest a Gwich’in Athabascan origin. 25.4 x 9,

UA78-015-0001AB.

Figure 46. Canadian Dolls

During the 1940s and ’50s in Canada, there was a concerted

effort to promote Native arts and crafts. Eventually, the soap-

stone carving and printmaking of the Canadian Inuit became

known worldwide. Doll making also became popular because

dolls were easy to ship, compact in size, and widely appreci-

ated. This photo shows a male doll with a soapstone head, a

mother and child wearing the traditional “beaver-tail” parka

(amautik) of Baffi n Island, and a papier-mâché couple made

as part of an art program at the Grenfell Mission, Labrador.

From left to right: man in duffel parka, Canadian Inuit, 37 x

19 x 7, UA93-010-0001; mother and child, Canadian Inuit,

33 x 18 x 7, UA70-009-0001AB; woman doll, Canadian Inuit,

47 x 16, UA82-003-0092; male doll, Canadian Inuit, 49 x 17,

UA82-003-0092.

38 Chapter 1

Notes

1 Every Alaska Native culture is distinct from the others,

but in order to survey the uses of the human fi gure across

them all, we have sometimes generalized in places where

cultural features were similar. 2 The small number of loaned pieces for the exhibition

came from the Alaska Native Medical Center Auxiliary

Heritage Collection, Anchorage; the Anchorage Museum

of History and Art, Anchorage; the Alaska State Museum,

Juneau; and several private collections. We gratefully

acknowledge their generosity.3 This essay was written by Molly Lee based on the research

of Angela J. Linn for her master’s thesis project, which

resulted in the exhibition Not Just a Pretty Face.4 The advisory team for Not Just a Pretty Face included

Poldine Carlo, (Athabascan), Martha Demientieff (Alu-

tiiq), Rebecca Etukeok (Tlingit-Inupiaq), Eva Heff le

(Inupiaq), Christopher Koonooka, Velma Koontz, and

Jonella Larson (all St. Lawrence Island Yupik), Rebecca

Peterson (Yup’ik), Glen Simpson (Tahltan Athabascan),

Phyllis Morrow (anthropologist), Chase Hensel (anthro-

pologist), and Jean Flanagan Carlo (evaluator). We are

grateful to them all for their generosity with time and

information.5 Miniature human fi gures are not reported from Old Bering

Sea III sites.6 The figure was deposited at the Peabody Museum at

Harvard University and later lost. Only a plaster cast of

it remains (Black 2003:20). 7 Dates of the fi rst contact between Alaska Natives and West-

erners vary depending on the location. One of the earliest

was 1741, when Alexei Chirikov encountered the Aleuts

in the Aleutian Islands (Black 2004), and the latest was

about 1900, when trading posts were established among

the more remote groups of Athabascans. Therefore, there

is no single date for the beginning of the historic period

in Alaska. With this caveat in mind, we use “historic

period” here to refer to dolls and human fi gurines that

were reported or collected between the date of fi rst contact

between a Native group and non-Natives and about 1950,

when World War II had ended and modernization brought

about further changes in doll making.8 There are some early dolls in the University of Alaska

Museum collections whose clothing and/or skin legs may

be absent due to deterioration. These may have been made

for children but their original purpose is uncertain.9 In one instance, Nelson found a pair of dolls whose heads

and bodies were formed from clay. This fi nd, at Razbinsky,

on the lower Yukon, still maintained the stylistic charac-

teristics common to this area (Nelson 1899:343).10 In some parts of the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, dolls were

complementary to story knives, the fancifully carved

ivory knives used to draw pictographs in the mud to il-

lustrate the stories the girls told each other (Himmelheber

1993:28–31). According to Lucy Sparks, who grew up in

Chevak, when the fi rst cranes appeared in the spring the

girls would wrap up their dolls and take them to an older

female relative, who would exchange them for the story

knives (Hensel 1999).11 It is generally thought that the strict division of gender

roles in Alaska Native cultures (Giffen 1930) discouraged

boys from playing with girls’ toys, including dolls. How-

ever, Osgood is alone in specifi cally saying that boys were

discouraged from playing with dolls, in this case among

the Deg Hit’an (Osgood 1940:390).12 Not all charms and amulets were carved to represent

human beings. Some were zoomorphic and others bio-

morphic.13 According to Ray, charms and amulets differed conceptu-

ally but could not necessarily be distinguished visually.

Charms directed energy outward beyond the self. Amu-

lets, on the other hand, were invested with power by the

wearer or a religious specialist and thought to protect their

owner against a specifi c type of bad fortune or to bring

about good luck of a certain kind (Ray 1977:17).14 “Numaiyuk,” the spelling formerly considered standard,

actually originated with Otto Geist, who was on St. Law-

rence in the 1920s; it is based on the English phonetici-

zation of the way the name is pronounced. In the 1960s,

Central and Siberian Yupik orthography was standardized

such that the name would be spelled “Nemayaq.” This is

currently the spelling preferred by Native speakers, ac-

cording to the Alaska Native Language Center, University

of Alaska Fairbanks. 15 There is a possible parallel between fertility fi gurines in

the Yup’ik region and the sun-worm doll found among the

Koryak of northeastern Siberia. Regarded as the guardian

of women, the body of this doll is thought to contain a

worm (called the “vivifying one,”) that falls from the sky

into the woman’s root basket, protecting her from sterility

(Serov 1988:249).16 According to Ray, the human figurines were usually

found on the board type of monuments, the distribution

of which was mainly restricted to the lower Kuskokwim

River. Ray describes one such effi gy as a “life-sized man of

wood, holding a rifl e and surrounded by his possessions”

(Ray 1981:37; 1982).17 Osgood also reports the use of a second doll for the pur-

pose of divining good weather among the Deg Hit’an.

The small anthropomorphic fi gure was made out of wood

shavings and carried a sled, which may have been a sym-

bol of putting things in order. The doll was activated by

burial (Osgood 1940:422).18 Between 1842 and 1844, Lt. Zagoskin witnessed what

may have been a version of the doll ceremony: “On the

bench [in the ceremonial house] stood fi ve nude wooden

statues about an arshin [about a foot] in height, with the

arm bound in a special way and the legs only indicated

by a line. Two of them were female. There was a mask over

the face of each of them, and a lamp was burning before

each. The Natives danced in turn and then they placed

before each statue platters with fi sh tolkusha [archaic term,

meaning unknown], and other food. As they did this they

said: ‘ T his is for you from our supplies, help us to more

[sic] in the future.’ . . . On the [next morning] when the

Intimates and Effi gies 39

[ritual steam] bath was over they put the statues away in

their old place behind the kazhim and covered them over

with birch bark” (Michael 1967:229).19 In his diary, Moravian missionary John Kilbuck discusses

the Moravians’ confi scation of doll festival fi gurines and

the Yup’ik men’s puzzled and angry reaction. When Kil-

buck refused to return them, the men later brought in a

bundle of the dolls’ possessions including fur clothing and

a miniature drum (Fienup-Riordan 1991:189). Whether

this was a gesture acknowledging their defeat or was a

way of making sure that the dolls would have what they

needed in their new life is unknown.20 The size of doll festival fi gurines is in doubt. Ray (1981:22)

describes them as “huge.” Nelson (1899:379) did not wit-

ness the event himself and gives no information about

the size (Donta 1993:188–189). According to Osgood

(1940:423–424), the fi gurines for the same Deg Hit’an

ceremonies were between seven inches and one foot tall.21 Ivanov reports that the Aleut also placed small human

fi gures outside their barabaras (underground houses) to

dispel evil (Black 1991).22 Quartz was considered to have magical properties

throughout much of the Eskimo cultural region. Ac-

cording to Weyer: “Small fragments of quartz crystal are

[considered to be] the centers of masses of ice that have

frozen so hard they become stone. These are prized as

amulets” (Weyer 1932:312). The British Navy captain

Rochfort Maguire, who spent two years at Barrow from

1852–54, also observed that the local Eskimos wore “large

pieces of crystal on their breast” as amulets (Bockstoce

1988:210).23 Puppets are also reported for the Yup’ik region, although

less is known about them (Fienup-Riordan 1996:130).

One example, deposited at the Alaska State Museum (cata-

log number II-A-3070), is illustrated in Ray 1981:188.24 According to Lowenstein, puguqs depicted stories told

in more recent generations whereas quluguluguqs illus-

trated stories taking place in long-ago mythological times

(Lowenstein 1993:117).25 Puppets and marionettes were used widely along the

Arctic Coast. For example, see the ivory puppet from King

Island illustrated by Kaplan and Barsness (1986:154, fi g.

146). Ray describes three puguqs in the collection of the

American Museum of Natural History (Ray 1977:121).

26 According to University of Alaska Museum Ethnology

records, the museum acquired this marionette in 1964.

Thereafter, the Point Hope people created a new, “almost

life-size” example.27 According to Ivanov, such fi gurines were also placed

outside Aleut barabaras to ward off evil spirits (Black

1991).28 According to Birket-Smith, some shamans practicing at

the time of his 1930s fi eldwork used Western-made dolls

bought at the local store (Birket-Smith and de Laguna

1938:210).29 Although the introduction of Christianity irrevocably

altered the core beliefs of Alaska Native people, certain

aspects of indigenous religions were incorporated into

Christianity. For example, prayers for the return of game,

a cornerstone of most indigenous religions, have been in-

corporated into Christian church services in rural Alaska

today (Hensel 1996:68).30 Up until the 1960s and 1970s, many children still used

cloth play dolls. Although handmade, these are not con-

sidered indigenous because they were made of imported

fabric.31 According to Ray, the Russians taught the Aleut and Alutiiq

people to craft items such as buckets, berry mashers, and

cabinetry (Ray 1981:58).32 Susan W. Fair offers an alternative explanation for the

reduction in horn dolls. She suggests that fewer are made

now because the art form is not remunerative enough to

be economically viable to the extended family required

to produce them (Fair 2006).33 According to Hedrick and Hedrick (1983:4), Lena Sours

of Kotzebue actually made the fi rst wooden-headed doll.

The head was carved by Oliver Brown (Nipaloq).34 According to Eva Heffl e, who grew up in Kotzebue, after

doll making got going there, Nipaloq carved most of the

doll heads for other doll makers, although Ethel appar-

ently always made her own. 35 Wooden-faced dolls from Eek are grooved around the

perimeter. According to Fair, this technique goes back

to earlier doll construction techniques (Fair 1982:47).

Wooden masks from the same region were similarly

grooved so that the parka hood could be brought around

the face during a dance for a more realistic portrayal (see

Fienup-Riordan 1996:296, bottom fi g.).

41

2Playing for Real Scholarly Perspectives on Alaska Native Play and Ritual

Angela J. Linn

As I researched the play dolls in the University of

Alaska Museum collection for Not Just a Pretty Face,

I began to realize that the category “play” is a general

term for a wide array of activities, usually joyous but

always vital to the development of children. In this

essay I discuss the varied perspectives on play taken

by anthropologists and psychologists, with particular

attention to those that focus on play dolls. Next, I show

how this body of literature is applicable to the analysis

of play among Alaska Native children. Finally, I will

point out that in some indigenous cultures of Alaska

there is a strong link between children’s play and the

more formalized play of adults that we call ritual.

The Spectrum of Play

Fundamental to any scholarly study is a defi nition

of its focus. However, nearly a century of combined

psychological, sociological, and anthropological re-

search has failed to arrive at a collectively acceptable

defi nition of play, much as a generally agreed-upon

defi nition of culture has eluded anthropologists. The

literature suggests that the defi nitions of play can be

thought of as a continuum. At one end are the func-

tionalists, for whom play is simply the opposite of work

(e.g., Huizinga 1950). At the other are those who have

used neuropsychology to arrive at a largely biological

defi nition of the phenomenon (e.g., Parman 1979).

Hovering somewhere in between is the perspective of

phenomenologists, who argue that play activities are

essential to making sense of and learning from experi-

ences (Cameron 1996).

Researchers subscribing to the work vs. play distinc-

tion have followed the lead of twentieth-century Dutch

historian Johan Huizinga, who, in his book Homo

Ludens, defi ned play as:

A free activity standing quite consciously outside

“ordinary” life as being “not serious,” but at the same

time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is

an activity connected with no material interest, and

no profi t can be gained by it. It proceeds within its

own proper boundaries of time and space according to

fi xed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the

formation of social groupings which tend to surround

themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference

from the common world by disguise or other means

(Huizinga 1950:13).

Other researchers, such as Caillois (1961), Cohen

(1987), and Norbeck (1971), have followed this basic

premise, occasionally tailoring it to fi t a research aim.1

Most agree that play is a “framed” activity in which one

makes a conscious decision to adhere to rules and roles

that are in contrast to everyday situations.

At the other end of the spectrum are those, such

as Parman (1979) and Csikszentmihalyi and Ben-

nett (1971), who defi ne play as a universal biological

process. They state that play relieves boredom as well

as the complicated worries of everyday life and elicits

behavior that allows the player to lose consciousness of

self (Csikszentmihalyi and Bennett 1971). Parman sees

a direct connection between playing and dreaming,

arguing that a common neurophysiological process

underlies both. This process arises from the need for

disruption of synchrony, something provided inter-

nally during sleep, but which occurs during waking

hours during institutionalized or noninstitutionalized

42 Chapter 2

play. To function healthily, the nervous system re-

quires changed sensory input and differentiated

neural activity, both of which are achieved during

play (Parman 1979). Neuropsychologically then, the

capacity for play promotes youthfulness and vitality

(Norbeck 1971). This perspective is the basis for the

contemporary theory that the need for play continues

into adulthood.

In between these two extremes is the phenomeno-

logical view that play furnishes both children and

adults with the ability to synthesize experience (Cam-

eron 1996). From this perspective, children constantly

recreate their environment through play, rearranging

its components to align with their own notions of

the world. According to Lévi-Strauss (1966), the best

known of the moderates, play ensures the perpetu-

ation of social patterns and rituals. I argue that this

view of play best fi ts the historical context of Alaska

Native cultures.

The Historical Study of Play

Anthropologists and psychologists have studied play

in various ways, most commonly as a medium for

revealing the unconscious thoughts and relationships

of children, as well as their cognitive development.

Early anthropologists saw play from an evolutionary

point of view. William Wells Newell, in his Games and

Songs of American Children (1903), interpreted games as

survivals of the adult activities of earlier societies. The

activities of children were thought of as windows to

the past. Newell and his followers originated the idea

that children’s activities were primitive, frivolous, and

unworthy of scientifi c study.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the heyday of function-

alism, theories on children’s play emphasized its

imitation of adult behavior. To the functionalists, the

sole purpose of play was to socialize children into

behavioral norms. While reductive, their notion at

least disputed that play was frivolous (Schwartzman

1978:133). At about the same time, culture-and-per-

sonality investigators such as Margaret Mead fused

anthropology and psychology, using children’s play

as a case study of a culturally specifi c activity that re-

futed the idea of universal, biologically based behavior

(Schwartzman 1978:207).

It was not until the 1940s that investigators incor-

porated play dolls into their studies of children’s activi-

ties. Researchers, especially psychotherapists such as

Henry and Henry (1974), used dolls in the treatment

of children to elicit unconscious or repressed feelings.

Psychologist Jean Piaget published Play, Dreams, and

Figure 49

Elena Carlo and her Barbie wear matching lightweight cotton

parkas. Courtesy of Jean Flanagan Carlo.

Figure 48

Through play, children learn social skills that will prepare

them for their adult roles. The young boys with their toy guns

pretend to be hunters while the young girl in the tent keeps

the camp orderly. Frederick Drane Collection, acc. no. 91-046-477, Ar-

chives, Alaska and Polar Regions Department, Rasmuson Library, University

of Alaska Fairbanks.

Playing for Real 43

Imitation (Piaget 1962), one of the most infl uential

studies of the subject. Piaget’s main method of research

was observing his own three children, and one of his

principal contributions to the study of play was his

conclusion that children use play dolls and toys for

working out daily tensions. Later, Piaget’s ideas were

merged with psychoanalytic theory, and eventually

his techniques of doll play were applied to the study of

children cross-culturally (Schwartzman 1978:150).

Dolls in Play and Ritual in Alaska Native Cultures

Anthropological, psychological, and folkloric studies

of play are helpful in analyzing uses and contexts of

Alaska Native dolls. Westerners tend to think of dolls

in connection with little girls playing house, where the

doll functions as a pretend baby. But other cultures

(Cameron 1996:20) distinguish beween doll functions

in play and ritual. In this book, we distinguish between

the fi gures used by children, or “play dolls,” and those

used by adults in ritual and ceremony, or “human

fi gurines.”2

One instance where the scholarly literature can help

with the interpretation of Alaska Native children’s

play activities during the early historic period is in

addressing the question of whether playing with dolls

was a gendered activity. The ethnographic record rarely

makes clear whether the play habits of boys and girls

were the same or different. However, given the strict

division of labor between men and women in Eskimo

culture generally (Giffen 1930), it can be assumed that

for the most part it was girls who played with dolls.

Functional analysis suggests an explanation. If boys

grew up to be hunters, it should follow that their play

focused on miniature bows and arrows, halibut hooks,

or harpoons. Likewise, the expectation of Alaska Na-

tive girls was that they grew up to be mothers, seam-

stresses, and homemakers. Thus, we would expect their

toys to be miniature cooking and sewing implements,

women’s knives, and play dolls.

That play is preparation for ritual activity in Alaska

is also suggested by the literature. This is illustrated in

the distinctions that Alaska Eskimos, Tlingit Indians,

and possibly, the Aleuts and Alutiiqs made between

dolls and puppets. In these groups, dolls were consid-

ered miniature people, and children played with them

in specially constructed imaginary worlds that required

no separate audience. Puppets, on the other hand,

could represent people as well as animals or mythi-

cal beings, and they were used in ritual performance

(Cameron 1996:13). This distinction can be seen in

the Inupiaq village of Point Hope, where puppets and

marionettes were used in the annual fall ceremonies3

to give thanks to the spirits for the return of the whales

(see Linn and Lee this volume). These models were

not children’s toys; they played a critical role in adult

ritual performance.

Piaget’s studies provide insights into the play-as-prac-

tice activities of Alaska Native children. Young girls on

St. Lawrence Island used walrus mandibles as dolls (and

wooden “yoke dolls” that replicated the shape of a walrus

mandible) in order to practice packing a baby on their

shoulders. Practicing for an adult role allowed the girls

to acquire the understanding that miniatures stand for

real objects and that they can be used similarly (Cohen

1987:51). According to Piaget, this understanding is part

of the cognitive development of childhood, enabling

children to make sense of the world around them. Piaget

found that once children could create complicated play

situations, such as emulating motherhood, play activities

enabled them to begin the process of coping with future

reality (Cohen 1987:44). From Piaget’s perspective, when

E.W. Nelson walked into a house on Sledge Island and

saw that two small girls had “placed their dolls standing

in a semicircle before us upon the fl oor, while they sat

quietly behind us as though permitting their dolls to

take a look at the strangers” (Nelson 1899:345), he may

have witnessed such an event. These girls, who probably

had not seen many white men before, were most likely

Figure 50.

These young boys are practicing their hunting skills with

slingshots. Alaskan Sheperd Collection, acc. no. 88-117-42N, Archives,

Alaska and Polar Regions Department, Rasmuson Library, University of

Alaska Fairbanks.

44 Chapter 2

using their dolls to assess the strangers, thus diminishing

their apprehension.

Studies published in the 1960s, which demonstrated

the utility of play in the development of creativity,

would be applicable to the Alaskan case. Lieberman,

for instance, found that children who were encouraged

to play exhibited “divergent-thinking abilities, ide-

ational fl uency, spontaneous fl exibility, and originality”

(Schwartzman 1978:322). This conclusion sheds light

on the connection in Alaska between play and ritual

activities and also suggests the importance of creative

thinking in a harsh environment where imaginative

solutions to critical problems could make the difference

between life and death.

Piaget’s play-as-practice theories also help us to

understand how everyday interactions with dolls

prepared Alaska Native children for the use of human

fi gurines in adult rituals and ceremony. Before the

arrival of Christian missionaries, shamans, the medi-

cal-religious practitioners4 common to all Alaska Na-

tive groups, often incorporated human fi gurines into

their practices. Some of the main uses were in curing

ceremonies, to treat infertility, and for divination. Both

written and oral sources make clear that these fi gurines

could assume living form and take on the role of a

shaman’s helper. Figurines were used to bring about

good or evil. During curing ceremonies, for example,

the helping spirits residing in the fi gurine moved to the

affl icted person, driving out the evil spirits5 believed

to be the cause of illness. At other times, the shaman

could use his familiar to cause evil, like the death of

a child.

So strong was the fear that a doll could come alive

that it continues to haunt some Alaska Native elders

today.6 They recall the days when shamans regulated

their lives, and the possibility that a human fi gurine

could act on behalf of a shaman persists among some

of them. For this reason, elders sometimes shy away

from dolls that appear too lifelike. Recently, Chevak

doll maker Earl Atchak made a doll that, according to

elders, bore an eerie resemblance to an early-twentieth

century shaman (Fig. 52). Because of the resemblance,

the elders worried that the fi gurine might also be ca-

pable of springing to life. This suggests that old beliefs

Figure 51. School Children—

Alatna.

The girls are holding Native

dolls while the boys hold min-

iature bows and arrows, fish

traps, and a toy gun. One boy

holds a doll and possibly a

push-top. As a rule, girls and

boys were encouraged to play

with different toys. Tishu Ulen

Collection, acc. no. 89-88-64N, Ar-

chives, Alaska and Polar Regions

Department, Rasmuson Library, Uni-

versity of Alaska Fairbanks.

Figure 52. Cup’ik shaman

Utuan, Chevak, ca. 1928.

Also known as Kangciurluq,

some of this shaman’s exploits

are described in Thomas Mo-

ses’ story “Angalkull-ret/The

Old Shamans.” Courtesy of Jesuit

Oregon Province Archives, Gonzaga

University, image no. 267-167.

Playing for Real 45

sometimes persist even though most Alaska Native

people today are Christians.

According to Parman (1979) play is a controlled

deviation from normalcy, and its contrast serves to

strengthen the rules of everyday life. This is illustrated

in the Alaskan case. Among the Yup’ik Eskimos, doll

play was permitted all year long, but only allowed

outside in summer after the return of the geese. If a

girl ignored this prohibition, the snow would not melt,

the animals would not return, and the village would

be unable to participate in summer subsistence activi-

ties. Such conventions taught Alaska Native children

the necessity of observing rituals of the annual cycle.

Seasonal appropriateness persisted in the ritual ac-

tivities of adults. For example, every winter the Yup’ik

people held a ceremony known as the Bladder Festival,

which ensured that the animals would return. Failure

to perform the ceremony could result in widespread

famine.

In addition to their role in the socialization of young

girls, dolls also served as markers of the transition

between their childhood and adulthood. Families of

Yup’ik girls marked the occasion of their daughters’

fi rst menstruation by holding a feast, during which the

girl gave away her dolls. The practice was also reported

for the Yakutat Tlingit,7 who held a potlatch for this

purpose (de Laguna 1972:520).

The division of labor between genders is also rein-

forced by corresponding differences between girls’ and

boys’ toys. There is little evidence that young Alaska

Native boys played with dolls. Possibly, there was some

cultural avoidance of dolls by males because they

marked female rites of passage.8

Theories on Play and Ritual

In light of the examples above, it is clear that the

activities of play and ritual in Alaska Native cultures

are connected in ways that have not been previously

investigated. In Western culture this is not a new con-

cept. According to Plato:

What, then, is the right way of living? Life must be

lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifi ces,

singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to

propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his

enemies, and win in the contest (quoted in Huizinga

1950:17–19).

Structurally, play and ritual share many features.

Both create a reality outside of the ordinary time and

space. They are parallel states of existence, differ-

ent only by the age of the participants. According to

Cameron, “Children re-create the adult world through

play and bring continuity to the real world; adults

cause change in the real world through serious ritual

play” (Cameron 1996:26–27). In the Alaskan context,

children play with dolls as a way of learning about the

world around them. Dolls can act as a projection of the

child’s personality. The manipulation of play dolls can

invest children with the ability to control their circum-

stances. They help develop creative thinking skills and

furnish the means for learning about adult roles. Ritual

uses of human fi gurines also allow for the projection of

one’s self, under the guise of sympathetic magic as seen

in the Point Hope ceremony with the whaling crew (see

Linn and Lee this volume). By showing the successful

hunt of the whale model, adults attempt to manipulate

and control their realities. Shamans contributed to the

well being of the community when they used a human

fi gurine as a vehicle for curing. In the Doll Festival of

the lower Yukon, the shaman used human fi gurines

to foretell the abundance of game. Ultimately, the cor-

respondence between play and ritual is close indeed.

Play asks the performers to “make believe” while ritual

asks them to “believe” (Lavenda 1996:938).

Conclusion

Play dolls in Alaska Native cultures performed as vital

a role in the lives of children as human fi gurines did

for adults. When attempting to arrive at a defi nition

of play, early psychologists discounted these activi-

ties as insignifi cant, but in Alaska Native cultures, as

elsewhere, play and ritual are equally necessary. Func-

tionalists argue that playing with dolls teaches young

girls—and the boys who watched them—about the

culturally appropriate roles of behavior. From the point

of view of developmental psychology, play promotes

cognitive growth, enhancing creativity and critical

thinking skills as well as physical dexterity. Through

playing with dolls Alaska Native children were able

to gain control over compelling aspects of their lives,

which promoted the growth of self-confi dence. These

various factors helped the child grow into an adult

who could readily accept the use of human fi gurines

for rituals.

46 Chapter 2

Notes

1 Some oppose this definition. Anthropologist Helen

Schwartzman argues that play is not always fun, that games

do not encourage spontaneity, and that play is not always

unproductive. She also challenges the notion that play

must occur in a separate space and time. To her, play is a

mode of existence, rather than a phase, which can come

any time, any place (Schwartzman 1978:327–328). Games

are defi ned differently from play. They tend to be more

formalized. They have defi nite rules, fi xed sequences of ac-

tion, and uncertain outcomes (Cheska 1979). In contrast,

play is more casual. Schwartzman shows that energetic

play is connected to creativity, and that if play activities are

permitted at work, they may result in higher productivity.

Schwartzman also argues that children’s play contributes

to a child’s emotional, social, and cognitive development

(Schwartzman 1978:327–328).

2 Studies have shown that if boys are permitted dolls they

play differently with them. A girl usually pretends that she

is grown up, and the doll is her baby. Boys tend to project

their personas into the fi gure and to assume the adult role

of warrior, hero, or villain (Cameron 1996:20).

3 Both Rasmussen (1927) and Rainey (1947) witnessed this

ceremony. It was a type of thanksgiving festival in which

the miniature umiak crew, led by the umialik, paddled their

oars and breathed with the assistance of sinew lines and

gut breathing tubes.

4 In many Alaska Native cultures, it was thought that ill-

nesses were caused by the penetration of an evil spirit

into the body of the affl icted. Shamans were responsible

for restoring good health by removing such spirits.

5 Specifi c examples of this method of treatment can be seen

in Birket-Smith and de Laguna (1938).

6 This fear was shared by Westerners of earlier times. Ac-

cording to Ariès, in the Middle Ages “the doll was . . . the

dangerous instrument of the magician and the witch”

(Ariès 1962:69).

7 Cultural anthropologist Phyllis Morrow has hypothesized

that giving up dolls at puberty could be the result of the

dolls’ perceived roles as symbolic children. Once the girl

was physically able to have a real child, her symbolic child

was no longer needed. Morrow’s hypothesis of the cor-

respondence between dolls and symbolic babies stands

up in the Tlingit case. The Tlingit word for a doll, sik,

translates as “little daughter” (de Laguna 1972:515).

8 I have only seen one Alaska Native boy playing with a

doll, and that was in a historical photograph.

47

In preparing a video to accompany this exhibit, I

had the opportunity to interview twelve Alaska Native doll

makers during craft sales at the Fur Rendezvous in Anchor-

age, the Festival of Native Arts in Fairbanks, and in their

homes. The interviews were exciting and wide-ranging,

covering a variety of topics relating to doll making. In order

to preserve the fl avor of these interviews, I tried to let the

doll makers speak for themselves, grouping quotes under

topics and stitching them together with brief comments of

my own.1

The doll makers I interviewed included Dora Buchea (St.

Lawrence Island Yupik), Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy (Yup’ik),

Denise Hardesty (Koyukon Athabascan), Eva Heffl e (Inu-

piaq), Alice Johnnie (Tlingit), Ruth Koweluk (Inupiaq),

Walton Irrigoo (St. Lawrence Island Yupik), Iva and Ken

Lisbourne (Inupiaq), Carolyn Kava Penayah (St. Lawrence

Island Yupik), Jackie Schoppert (Tlingit), and Lillian Tetpon

(Inupiaq).

Denise Hardesty, like other Alaska Native doll makers,

makes old things new. She is an innovator, inventing beaded

sun catchers one spring when she wanted stained glass in

her window. She also recycles materials, giving old things

new lives. She has created many Athabascan dolls based on

historic photographs. In conversation, she suggested that as

long as there is documentation and preservation, the objects

in archives and collections are not dead, but only resting,

ready to be brought back to life and be reincorporated into

contemporary traditions. For example:

Denise Hardesty: One of the things I’ve been

thinking about the past couple of years is nobody has

made any crocheted rabbit skin clothes in 40 years,

that I know of. I have never even seen one, and I do

want to come up there to the museum and see what

you have. I have 30 rabbit skins, and I’m going to make

two great big balls of rabbit skin yarn and give one to

my mom and one to my cousin, and tell them, “Here,

make something.” It’s just like everything old can be

new again. All you’ve got to do is look for it.

Finally, she suggests that making doll clothing based on the

clothes she has studied in historic photographs is a way of

understanding the past as well:

Denise Hardesty: You see them [people] in their

pictures. They took what they thought were the fi ner

things from both their cultures and dress themselves up

in nice, good, solid White man’s clothes. But they just

had to have the [beaded] boots, the mittens, the baby

strap or whatever that was better than they could buy

down at the store. . . . People are just the same. They just

want to be respected and held in high esteem, and that

was what the big deal was with all the fancy clothes.

Everything Old Is New AgainInterviewing Alaska Native Doll Makers

Chase Hensel

Denise Hardesty

Koyukon Athabascan—Fairbanks

Now living in Fairbanks

3

48 Chapter 3

How Did You Learn To Make Dolls?

Most doll makers learned from two or more teachers. For

women, one of these was generally the doll maker’s grand-

mother, or sometimes her mother, aunt, or great aunt. For

men, these teachers were usually grandfathers or fathers. The

second might have been another, perhaps more judgmental

relative, or a teacher in school. For example, Dora Buchea

said she learned:

Dora Buchea: From my grandma, mostly. My

grandmother was very patient, not my mother. Don’t

let her know that. My grandma was very patient, and

she points them [mistakes] out. I think she fi gures that

if she takes them apart for us to redo that we might get

discouraged. She always just lets us fi nish, since it’s our

own toys. We didn’t have very much toys when we were

growing up, so we just made our own.

Elsewhere, however, she uses different terms to describe

how she learned:

Dora Buchea: When I was a little girl, I was hyper.

That was my punishment, to sit there and make doll

clothes for my aunts. Just Barbie dolls, after Barbie dolls

came. I had fancy Barbie doll clothes. . . . I came from a

long line of doll makers, too. I don’t know if you know

Annie Alowa. She’s my father’s sister. So I kind of got

the thing from her, because we never really quite got

along, until I got good. She was always telling me, “You

did this wrong,” and I’d get mad, so I tried to improve

mine better than hers, and I end up making it pretty

good. But I think she was my inspiration because we

argued about, something looked bad, she’d tell me, and

I’d get mad at her because I was just learning. But she

did a lot for me, I feel.

Caroline Kava Penayah describes the central position of watch-

ing, visually attending, as well as doing hands-on work:

Caroline Kava Penayah: My grandmother was a

doll maker and so was my mother. They didn’t sit down

and teach us. We [were] just watching them, they’re do-

ing it, we just keep up with [what they’re doing], but she

taught me the stitches a lot, which I didn’t like it. When

you were younger, you don’t want to [work], but I loved

to visit her. . . . When I walked in, open the door, she

was doing something. No way I can run away or hide.

I have to do what she’s just handed to me.

Dora Buchea

St. Lawrence Island Yupik

Now living in Slana

Caroline Kava Penayah

St. Lawrence Island Yupik

Now living in Anchorage

Ken and Iva Lisbourne

Inupiaq—Point Hope

Now living in Tok

Walton Irrigoo

St. Lawrence Island Yupik

Now living in Anchorage

Everything Old Is New Again 49

Iva Lisbourne describes her early apprenticeship and her

search for technical advice as an adult:

Iva Lisbourne: I learn from my mother, because

I used to thread her needles and stuff and watch her

sometimes. But I’m still learning. I still got a lot of

things to learn. And I have my father help me too. Be-

cause mama, she’s gone. I don’t have any [living close

female relatives]—sisters are gone, so I ask for help a

lot. And I’m still learning a lot.

Often this early learning involved redoing something several

times until it was done to acceptable standards:

Walton Irrigoo: My dad taught me. I started carv-

ing when I was about 12 years old. And he started me

off with small fi gurines, owls, and seals. And as I got

a little older and, of course, my skills advanced, he

started teaching me some of the other artwork that we

do: kayaks, animal fi gurines, polar bears. You didn’t see

any in my display case because we sold out the fi rst day,

of my carvings anyway. And from there I kind of went

off on my own and started producing my own things.

When he was teaching me how to do the kayaks . . . the

little men that sit in the kayaks, I made fi ve or six before

he fi nally let me put one of those men on my kayak. . . .

I’d go and show him one, and he’d look at it and he

goes, “Well, you’re going to have to do another one.”

And he’d just toss it. And so I’d have to go and make

another one. And then that’s how I learned.

Alice Johnnie: I learned that from my grandmother.

Before she passed away, she told me to pick that up.

Of course, when you fi rst do something, I had put it

together backwards, but she said, “It’s all right, it’s all

right,” . . . It made me feel good. . . .

The border on there [the blanket], I had it upside

down like that, and I put, I think it was an eagle. I put

it up here, and I showed it to my grandmother. I said,

“How did I do, Grandma?” I used my own Tlingit word,

and she said, “Oh, that’s pretty. That’s pretty,” she said.

I knew there was something wrong when she said that.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have said that was good. Then

just before I walked out, she said, “You put it upside

down, but it’s all right.” I had to undo it again.

Jackie Schoppert: Well, she [her grandmother]

insisted on accuracy, for one thing. We had to be ac-

curate in anything we depicted . . . in our sewing. I

remember having her rip out a seam. I’d just sew along,

and then I’d get to the end and tie the knot, and she’d

rip it out because it wasn’t perfectly straight. We had

to learn the basics fi rst before we could do anything

else. I remember hours of just sewing one line or one

seam just on a piece of cotton, and when I got to the

end I just knew she was going to tear it out. . . . It was

so boring, but we couldn’t say it was boring. That word

didn’t exist in our vocabulary. We couldn’t even roll

our eyes like that.

Sometimes the doll makers’ early teaching was less than

successful. Eva Heffl e notes:

Eva Heffl e: Well, I wasn’t too good at sewing. I never

was. That’s why I surprise everybody. Growing up, Lena

Sours [Eva’s great aunt] was the teacher, teaching us

kids how to sew at the school, and I remember while

the other girls were making mukluks, I was making

mittens. I just have to sew the outside of it. I can’t

remember how she had [arranged it], but the simplest

thing, I couldn’t even do that right. So she had me mak-

ing thread out of caribou tendon. I got all tangled on

that, and she was so disgusted with me. I just couldn’t

sew, so I never picked up sewing again. When I tried to

learn, my grandmother, Mary Curtis, would chase me

away, because she’d say I’m going to lose her needles

and her beads. Then she seen my dolls, and she was so

sorry, because she made them beautiful show parkas

with the wolverine tassels and stuff. She looked at my

Alice Johnnie

Tlingit—Juneau

Now living in Juneau

Eva Heffl e

Inupiaq—Kotzebue

Now living in North Pole

50 Chapter 3

work, and she said, “I should have showed you.” By

then she was pretty old, and all she could work on up

until her death, 90 some years old, was yo-yos.

However, perhaps she had learned more about sewing than

she knew:

Eva Heffl e: My fi rst doll took me two weeks, maybe

more. It’s been a long time. But that fi rst doll didn’t

even have arms. I sewed the sleeves together, because I

didn’t know how to put on arms, and the mukluks were

like them old Lapland shoes that curl up. [Laughs.] I

forgot to put the strip between the mukluk top and the

bottom part of the mukluk. Without it, it’s just a real

skinny, long thing. Oh, I had a time with my fi rst doll.

But it had a wooden head. I don’t know who made it,

but my grandma sent me some dry fi sh, and there were

two of them in there, so that’s how I started.

While most doll makers learned primarily from relatives,

Ken Lisbourne thinks that being technically schooled in

fi ne arts and Native arts was also vital to his profession as

a Native artist:

Ken Lisbourne: I feel when I studied art, after be-

ing able to go to school for it and having some of the

fi nest teachers like when I was very young in Point

Hope . . . Andrew Tooyak, Sr., was one of my fi rst teach-

ers in ivory carving. My father was also one of my fi rst

teachers. But later on, my high school years, I decided

I was very interested to get into an art school. That’s

when [I went to the Institute of American Indian Arts]

in Santa Fe, which was all Native arts, which you can

take every day for classes. You had great teachers like

Henry Tubis for painting, which was oil, acrylics, or

watercolor. Sculpture teacher Allan Houser, who taught

my sculpture, and ceramics was a lady named Linda

Figure 53.

Two of Denise Hardesty’s dolls are on the far left. The striped

material on the doll to the left is old pillow ticking that Denise

remembered her father using when she was a child. In this group

of dolls are Athabascan, Northwest Coast, and Aleut dolls. Left

to right: William Paul, Koyukon Athabascan, maker: Denise

Hardesty, 26.7 cm, UA93-003-0003AC; trapper, Koyukon

Athabascan, maker: Denise Hardesty, 27.3 cm, UA93-003-0004;

male and female dolls, Ahtna Athabascan, maker: Doris Charles,

26.6 x 13, UA94-003-0001AC, 27 x 15, UA94-003-0002AC; two

male dolls, Athabascan, maker: Laura Alfred, 31.5 x 14, UA72-

011-0001, 32 x 15, UA72-072-0001; Tlingit crest doll, maker: An-

nie Lawrence, 25.5 x 16, UA69-050-0006A; doll, Tlingit, maker:

Mabel Pike, 25.5 x 13.5, UA84-003-0062; male in kamleika (gut

parka), Aleut, maker: Sophie Pletnikoff, 26 x 13, UA70-051-

0029B; female in long parka, Aleut, maker: Sophie Pletnikoff,

23 x 10.5, UA70-051-0029A; male dolls, Aleut, maker: Hartina

Savaroff, 29.2 x 8.9, UA81-003-0178, 0179.

Everything Old Is New Again 51

Lillian Tetpon

Inupiaq—Marys Igloo

Now living in Anchorage

Larson, who taught us the way to work with ceramics.

And I think I just connected my way of work along with

my style of Native art and my schooling … both con-

nected. But art school is very important [for the] work.

You have to go to school to be able to produce better in

this day and age.

So I think that the most important thing is to go to

school and stay in school. If you’re becoming a Native

artist, you do need to go to school.

“Each Time I Remember, I Make a Doll”: Making Meaning by Making Dolls

Making dolls is both deeply personal and deeply cultural.

One part-time doll maker stressed the importance of a posi-

tive social environment when working:

Jackie Schoppert: The way I was trained in regalia

making is if there’s any contention, anything negative

around, then you have to put the work down. You

can’t work on it. . . . So when I work on weaving, or

carving, or making jewelry, or working on the dolls,

or whatever it is I’m doing, I block out anything that

is negative, and if there’s something negative coming

into the house—my kids are screaming, whatever—it

gets put down. I won’t touch it. I will not touch it

because what if some little girl sees this, and my kids

have been screaming their heads off, then that negative

energy goes into that. This is how I believe. Maybe no

one else in the room [the three non-Native interview-

ers present] believes it, but this is what I believe. Then

that little girl or little boy is going to want that doll,

and they’re going to pick it up. . . . What we work on is

sacred, and if we keep that in mind as we’re working,

and if more of us did that, probably we would not

have the problems that we have in the world. It starts

with one drop in the ocean, just that one drop or that

one whisper.

Eva Heffl e came to recognize that doll making not only put

her in closer touch with her Native culture, it actually helped

a vital part of that culture to continue:

Eva Heffl e: I do enjoy doing the dolls. The reason is

I’m trying to keep our culture alive through my dolls,

if I could. Some day, if I’m dead and gone, the kids that

haven’t learned it in school can look at my dolls, and

they’ll sew. That’s what we do. When I go to the schools,

I tell them we take pride in what we do because we have

survived this country. We just didn’t go to the store and

buy something. Every culture, even your people at one

time, had to make their own stuff. And in this cold

country, the people survived. The Inupiat survived. . . .

Way back, I was so busy trying to learn, it never oc-

curred to me that I’m doing my culture. But then after I

started doing it, I started thinking, this could preserve

the culture, because [some of it is] getting lost.

Each time I remember, I make a doll. It wasn’t just

automatic [that] I knew my culture, because I’d for-

gotten a lot of it. A lot of times I go to Kotzebue, and

I say, “Oh, I remember my grandma doing that.” So I

put it mentally in my mind. Then when I come home

I’ll remember it, and I’ll make the doll.

Lillian Tetpon said she uses dolls in connection with stories

to keep her culture alive:

Lillian Tetpon: That’s how I feel too. So I make

sure that I make dolls for my grandchildren, and I tell

stories about how I was brought up because I want

them to know.

At fi rst, Alice Johnnie stated that she did not see doll making

as an activity for cultural survival:

Alice Johnnie: You know, I really don’t think of it

that way [as keeping Tlingit culture alive]. I really don’t,

because I didn’t grow up in [a Tlingit household] at all.

I was an orphan, so I was passed to different people,

and I grew up in a Catholic school, a Catholic mission.

I really don’t even know the story of our history. My

mother died while I was still a baby. My dad didn’t

spend much time with us, and my grandmother was

too old to take care of us, so I was sent away. What I

learned, a very little bit, is from my husband. My hus-

band is a chief, so I always listen to him.

Soon, however, she began to discuss how she embroiders dolls with the appropriate symbols of moiety and clan. All Tlingits belong to either the Raven or Eagle moiety. Each moiety is subdivided into clans such as Killer Whale and Frog:

Alice Johnnie: What I do is I put two different clan

[symbols on the button robe] I put the killer whale on

52 Chapter 3

the top, and I put eagle below it so the people will know

that they’re eagles [eagle moiety, killer whale clan].

When I sew frog, I put the frog on the blanket all by

itself, but I tell the people which tribe [moiety] it is. I

don’t show the whole body, just the head part, and I

put eagle there because that’s an eagle tribe.

Leonard Kamerling: So do people buy the dolls

of their clan?

Alice Johnnie: Yeah, they do. Like today, this

[person said] “I’m not there.” [There’s no doll with my

moiety and clan symbols.] I told them that, well, it was

there. It’s all bought.

Another item of interest for doll makers was whether or not

the dolls they make look like someone and if this resemblance

is intentional or accidental. Two doll makers said that they

mark the faces of some of their dolls with the beauty marks

that occur on their own daughters’ faces:

Ken Lisbourne: There’s one thing about the doll

is this beauty mark. It’s always a trademark. This little

black dot here on each face. The reason was that we

had this daughter, and she’s 16 years old now. She had

this beauty mark that showed up and that’s the reason

why this is put on them, as our trademark.

Dora Buchea: There’s two dots. Cerene [her col-

lege-age daughter] has those two beauty marks. That’s

been my trademark since I do females. Ever since she

was born, I’ve been putting them on. But then she had

them removed. I was mad at her. I said, “You took my

trademark away.” But what she didn’t know is [that]

those moles, if she stayed out in the sun, they come

back. They came back but lighter. I laugh at her. I said,

“See.”

Many of the doll makers had dolls that ended up looking like

people they knew, often family members. In retrospect, some

wish that these dolls had been saved instead of sold:

Dora Buchea: A few times I made dolls that looked

just like my cousins. So I named them after my cousins,

but I bet they’d be mad if they knew.

Figure 54.

Doll maker Eva Heffl e has created activity dolls for many

years. She also makes entire dioramas that incorporate many

individual activities and combines them. Here she has recre-

ated a scene in a gut-covered tent with fi ve separate dolls, each

involved in making clothing and preparing food. 31 x 47 x 43,

UA81-003-0145.

Everything Old Is New Again 53

Ken Lisbourne: Over the years when I’d carve

each face for her [his wife Iva Lisbourne], I’ve always

thought of my relatives and her relatives when we’d

produce the grandma doll, the mother doll, the father,

or the grandpa. Each face always turn out to be some

person here.

Iva Lisbourne: He makes a face look just like my

mother. I wish I had kept that. I should have just let

him make another one [that] looks like my mom.

Ruth Koweluk: Sometimes I laugh. . . . Last year,

somebody from St. Lawrence Island said this looked

like someone at home. Boy, they were really laugh-

ing. We just make them any old way, so they look like

someone.

Caroline Kava Penayah: I started out [making] my

little sister’s face. . . . And then I changed for different

people when I see their face I like. Just looking at them

and get home and try to do it. And one doll I tried to

make Barbara Walters. I guess [it is] unique, but that’s

my little secret.

Denise Hardesty: One of my favorites was this

. . . dog musher, and he could have been from back in

the forties. He just had a blue canvas pullover and a

traditional marten [fur] trapper hat . . . and beautiful

mittens. The mittens took me about a week just to bead

. . . because I used really, really tiny beads. . . . But I

never told anybody until recently that after I got done,

I thought that looks like Marvin Kokrine, and all the

girls like Marvin. I put three tails on his hat because I

knew he wasn’t married yet. Usually, unmarried men,

if they were looking for a wife, they would put three

tails on there, so everybody would know that he was

looking. I’ll have to tell Marvin about that.

Eva Heffl e: In the sixties, Lena Sours’ husband died,

and that’s my grandma’s sister. Because my grandpa

had been dead since I was a little girl, probably; I don’t

know how many years, I never knew him. So to me he

[Burton Sours] was my grandpa, because them sisters

would go camping, and he’d always be there, when we

were getting fi sh.… He passed away. I didn’t have any

money, or the kids were small. I couldn’t just up and

leave them, because their dad was working. I wanted

to go [to the funeral] because he was just like my own

grandpa. . . . I started making a doll, thinking about

him, and that doll was sitting down. Grandpa had salt

and pepper hair that kind of stuck up. . . . I remember

I was making that doll, and thinking about him.

That doll came out looking just like him whittling on

[something]. He used to do that when he was making

us kids toys, and there’s nothing else to do. I’ve never

made it since, and it looks just like him.

I was going to keep the doll, and it got sold while I

wasn’t home. (Laughs.) I was going to keep the one of

my grandfather, because, I tell you, I looked at that doll,

and it looked just like him, and I automatically made a

doll like Aglavialuuraq [Burton Sours]. That’s his name.

And then it was the fi rst one sold.

One doll maker talked about her concern that her dolls not

look too much like people she knows. Another shared her

fears that sometimes they already are too life-like:

Denise Hardesty: A lot of [dolls] would start look-

ing too much like people that I know, and so I never

ever painted their faces in.… It might be too much

like a voodoo doll or something. It just bothered me.

I just couldn’t do it. The cottonwood bark was scary

enough, just because of the way the grain [looked]. A

lot of people who have been out in the elements a lot

of years, they just get that look.

Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy: Rosalie [Paniyak] told me

that when she made a whole bunch of dolls a long time

ago, she was by herself, and she said that she was afraid

Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy

Yup’ik—Hooper Bay

Now living in Glennallen

Ruth Koweluk

Inupiaq—Wales

Now living in Anchorage

54 Chapter 3

of her dolls because she thought that they would come

to life. I said, “Oh, yeah?” Because I never told anybody

either, [but] I thought the same thing, too.

Another doll maker also talked about how the clothing of

each doll she made refl ected how she felt as she was work-

ing on it:

Dora Buchea: When I make each doll it’s different

all the time because I make it the way I want to be

dressed that day. Sometimes you have lots of tails and

beads, other times when I feel like a real worker it’s

just kind of plain.

The Economic Side of Native Doll Making

Many doll makers talked about the economics of doll making.

One doll maker shared childhood memories of making and

selling dolls to tourists:

Alice Johnnie: I remember when we were real small,

my sister and I. We [lived in] a fi sh cannery. When the

tourists comes, we used to go out on the porch and put

all our little stuff on a little towel. Of course, we didn’t

know how much we were supposed to be selling. Some

of them, we were selling it for fi ve cents, ten cents, and a

quarter. We thought a quarter was real big money. I was

seven years old, and my sister was a little bit younger

than me, and that’s how I got started.

Another doll maker talked about how she got started:

Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy: When I started making

dolls in early 1980, I started off—when I won some

money at bingo. I invested all of it into materials like

leather, ivory, furs, and sealskins.

A third doll maker stressed the economic primacy of doll

making when she was growing up on the Seward Peninsula

in Western Alaska:

Leonard Kamerling: When you were a kid grow-

ing up in Wales, did you see other dolls around? Were

there women making dolls then?

Ruth Koweluk: Everybody sews. That’s the only

income we have. When the health boat come, we sell,

and the mail boat come once a month. When the North

Star [the annual supply ship] come, they [the crew] go

to town and like to buy stuff to take home. Some of

them bring fabric to trade. Some stuff they bring to

trade like watch and stuff. We always take the money

so we could order from Sears Roebuck.

For Lillian Tetpon, learning early on that sewing was eco-

nomically viable crystallized a career choice for her:

Lillian Tetpon: Oh, I learned from my mother at

Marys Igloo, watching her. And I used to watch her

when she made ivory faces and her dolls. Me and my

sisters helped her when she sewed. So it was a learning

process just to be around her. So I made up my mind

that when I had children, I would learn how to sew

also and make a living out of it. I’ve been sewing for

about 33 years.

Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy: This is what I do for a

living. This is my way of making a living.

Ruth Koweluk talked about how doll making has been a

path to an easier life:

Ruth Koweluk: I do lot of hard work when I was a

child. I’d dream I was going to go where it’s easier to

live. Betterment of living.

Chase Hense l: A nd did you f ind that in

Anchorage?

Ruth Koweluk: I still go home and see my sister in

Wales, and my other relatives in Nome.

I sew away from home, get lots done. I do bead-

work when I’m in Hawai’i. It’s nice and bright [on the]

balcony or on the beach. We get to know people. We

sew. Sit on the beach under the tree behind Sheraton

Hotel. . . . It’s just fun. If we get tired, we get out into

the ocean and swim.

Lillian Tetpon raised the issue of producing dolls in quantity

to meet the market demand. Elsewhere she says that:

Lillian Tetpon: I think my grandmother’s parkas

were all done by hand, and my dolls that I make are

made real, real fast. They would be satisfi ed with one

doll where I want a dozen. So I work on the one pat-

tern, so that would be the difference. . . . When my

grandmother made the dolls, they had real hair. I don’t

know where they got the hair, but they got it. They did

their real black and white [pieced calfskin] trimming

for their parkas that I don’t have the time to do. Mine

are very simple.

Other doll makers shared her concerns:

Ken Lisbourne: Our ancestors always had produced

the best Native arts like I said. Today’s Native arts are

done with better tools but they’re made so fast these

days, they’re not producing the best type of work. I

think it’s due to the demand of the crafts. It’s how you

have to fi nd ways to go faster, quicker. The quicker, the

better. And it just produces more money.

Everything Old Is New Again 55

Iva Lisbourne: There are times when he [Ken

Lisbourne] tried to hurry. He doesn’t make good faces.

I said, “I work so hard on these. I wanted a nice face.”

Ken would do them over. Otherwise, if I didn’t say

[anything], they would have funny little face, because

he tried to rush. Because I remember my father always

told my mom, “If you’re going do that, do it right. Try

to do it right. Don’t do it pimaqluktuq.”

Ken Lisbourne: Pimaqluktuq means don’t do it the

wrong way.

Dora Buchea: When I did it, it was a hobby, you

fi nish one doll, and you look at it, it’d look like so and

so. But a lot of times when you’re doing it as a busi-

ness, you don’t see that part of it anymore, which is

real sad. That’s what I’d tell Cerene, “You go to school.

You don’t need to be a seamstress. Because your hands

get ugly.”

Doll makers also talked about concerns about getting

properly compensated for their time, particularly for highly

detailed work.

Lillian Tetpon: One of the problems that we have

here in Anchorage is that—even in a show like this that

we’re having here (Fur Rendezvous)—is that if you do

real intricate work, you want to know if you can get

the full price for your dolls, but that’s not the way that

it is anymore.

Dora Buchea: Then I made the third one but that

one takes long time. She’s carrying water, buckets,

carrying water with a yoke. . . . I think I made her

three times and quit because I’m not very good basket

weaver. Takes me long time to make them so I just kind

of quit because I end up throwing those little buckets

across the room so many times. Because if you’re a

skin sewer, you’re [keeping the thread] pulled tight.

Then the grass just breaks when you [do], so you have

to take the whole thing off and redo it again. Maybe

I’ll start making my buckets with sealskin. It might

be quicker.

In counterpoint, there was one doll maker (not employed full

time as a artist) who described herself as “spoiled rotten” in

that she only made what she wanted to:

Denise Hardesty: The economic thing is—it’s like

the more I need money, the less I can work. If I get fi red

up over something . . . it’s just the need to do something.

The cultural part comes from the fact that I think I’m a

raven, and anything I can scavenge up for free is mine.

I’ve got birch. People come to me if they need birch

bark. I got caribou hair dyed for tufting already . . .

and I’ve taught quite a few women here in the Interior

how to do tufting. I don’t do it myself. I might do it

for love, but not for money because it’s too icky and

messy, but I know how. Once I make it [an artwork],

unless I have another idea that I can change a little bit

and make it a little different, I may not ever make one

again. There’s people who know me who’ve got orders

that have been on layaway for fi ve–six years, and I say,

“Well, if I make another one, it’s yours.”

Doll makers also talked about how the cost of materials

affected pricing:

Walton Irrigoo: Actually, I carve the head and the

hands. The majority of the dolls that we make are ce-

dar, and that puts them in the affordable range where

people can purchase. But the other dolls that we make

are the collectors’ version, and they have the ivory head

Figure 55.

Alice Johnnie makes dolls to represent the clans and moieties

of the Tlingit of southeast Alaska. She sews beads onto felt to

illustrate crest symbols. 29 x 14.5; doll courtesy of Mary Ellen Frank.

Photo by Barry J. McWayne.

56 Chapter 3

and ivory hands. I put the scrimshaw [of the traditional

St. Lawrence Island tattoos] on the face and on the

hands. . . . They’re [the collectors’ version], quite easily

six to ten times more than our regular version. We sell

our regular dolls, our lowest ones are $300, and our

most expensive collectors’ version is $4,500.

Lillian Tetpon: I do [buy commercial furs]. This

year the most popular dolls that I have are these mother

and babies made out of sealskin. I have a great demand

for this doll. Sealskin is very, very expensive, so the

prices on my dolls are higher than I would [charge]

with any other material that I make.

Doll makers also commented on ways to make more effi cient

use of materials:

Dora Buchea: I make masks. After all the work

you do with the skin . . . we scrape it and change water

for over a month. All the little scraps I have, I hate to

throw them away, so I just start molding them to my

doll faces. That way I could tattoo them too, and they

look pretty sharp. A lot quicker than carving them.

Several doll makers talked about different aspects of market-

ing. Ken and Iva Lisbourne talked about their own shyness

in marketing:

Ken Lisbourne: I think that the hardest part for

each Native artist is to be able to talk to the customers

and sell your Native crafts. You have to get over that.

And I’ve had that problem too. I’m just beginning to

be open with my customers, and I love each one of the

customers. They’re great.

Iva Lisbourne: At fi rst, when we were selling, I

never sit [at the sales table] with him, and it’s been

only about three years [since] I start sitting.

One perhaps surprising fact is that the purchasers of the

more expensive dolls are generally Alaskans.

Walton Irrigoo: So far they [the purchasers of very

expensive dolls] have all been Alaskans. More than

anybody [it] is going to be somebody that lives in the

state. We do shows at the museum…. We see a lot of

the tourists that come through, and they don’t really

look at the dolls. They look more at the carvings, or

Figure 56.

The Cama’i Dance Festival held every March in Bethel invites

artists to show and sell their arts and crafts. Photo by Amber A.

Lincoln, 1999.

Everything Old Is New Again 57

they look at the other artwork that we do. But most of

our things will [be sold to] Alaskans.

Finally, one doll maker made an explicit connection between

teaching younger people and selling:

Denise Hardesty: I believe in teaching kids because

if they aren’t future artists, they’re future customers. I

will never pass up a customer. I’m always out trolling,

born that way. So, I’m a salesperson/artist, really.

Doll Making and the Future of Native Arts in General

Doll makers have mixed opinions about the future of Native

arts and doll making. Some were very positive:

Ken Lisbourne: Native arts will never die. Today

there are so many younger Native artists who are

having craft shows, and they’re very talented. I notice

they’ve been passing the arts to their kids and their

grandkids. . . . Native artists are getting younger these

days, and they’re getting more plentiful. I believe

there’s a hundred of us who get together: Eskimos,

Indians, Aleuts, Tlingits, Haidas. They’re all out there

[and] getting younger, and they’re really working as

Native artists. There’s no reason it’s going to die out.

It’s just getting stronger.

Denise Hardesty: Both my oldest daughters are

artists. The oldest one tried plumbing-pipefi tting, and

she went back to her beads. . . . There’s a hole in the

market . . . [because I used to make] beaded sun catch-

ers, and they’re bugging me and wanting something.

So I’m going to do the next best thing and say, “Come

on, kid, [older daughter] because she’s already done it.

She helped—when we did some for the Smithsonian

Christmas catalog. We did a limited edition of 250 sun

catchers, and there wasn’t very many people around

that I could just train just like that to do it. Everybody

who said they could, couldn’t, and I ended up having

to rely on my kids and my sister-in-law, this woman

from Venetie.

Eva Heffl e: A couple of years ago, I think that man

was a principal at Shishmaref, and he’d come to my

table twice. He’d come over and he’d say, “Eva, one of

my students is learning to sew.” [Then she said] “I’m

going to get as good as Eva Heffl e or better.” (Laughs.)

That made me feel so good.

Alice Johnnie: That’s how my grandchildren is

learning from me. They watch me. My last grandchil-

dren is four years old, and the other one is one year.

They come and watch me. They say, “We’re going to

watch you.” I tell them, “Go ahead and watch me.”

That’s the way they learn, because that’s the way I

learned, by watching. I’ve been sewing since I was

seven years old.

They like doing this [sewing]. In Juneau, one of my

granddaughters lives here now. . . . She was probably

about seven years old when she sat at the same table

with me in Juneau. She was sewing, and the people

liked it. The tourists liked it. They said they’ve never

seen the grandmother and a granddaughter sew to-

gether, so we had our pictures taken together. They

put her sewing things here and mine on this side. So

that’s how they learn.

Others are less sure about the future of Native doll making,

because of the complexity of marketing required for success.

Lillian Tetpon: Makes me very unhappy when I

see [what happened to] a lot of Eskimo ladies that start

making dolls when I was in the village. When I went to

my husband’s village, people quit sewing there. I did

a lot of sewing, and it brought the interest back into

women sewing. So it’s a dying art. The ladies made dolls

similar to mine. They made whole bunch of dolls, but

they couldn’t sell them. They settled for a very small

amount of money, and it was very discouraging because I

thought for sure that they were going to make an income

like I did. So I tell them that you have to market your

things. You have to continually think in large numbers

in order to make the money. . . . After they found out

that you do have to market your things, then they got

discouraged and quit. It made me feel very unhappy,

because they didn’t know that you had to do that. It

takes years and years to get known for the products

that you make.

Like Denise Hardesty, each of these doll makers makes the old

new. By giving new meanings to old forms, they constantly

reinterpret the past with needle and thread, sewing new

representations of their history, guided by memory, stories,

artifacts, photographs, and imagination. The faces that

they put on the past—ivory, cottonwood, or leather—speak

volumes about them and that past. It points a way to the

future as well.

Note

1 False starts, vocal pauses, and fi llers like “you know” were

deleted from the written transcripts to render them easier

to read. Deletions of words are marked with ellipses, and

inserted words that make the meaning more clear are

bracketed. The original tapes and transcripts are archived

by the Oral History Program, Alaska and Polar Regions

Department, Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska

Fairbanks as Not Just a Pretty Face, University of Alaska

Museum Special Exhibit Collection, acc. no. H99-38.

58

Figure 57.

Jigging for fi sh doll. 26.5 x 15 x 14, UA2005-003-0005.

Figure 58.

Woman Looking Into the Future.

Figure 59.

Rosalie Paniyak makes dolls

in her living room while

her great- granddaughter,

Earl Atchak, and Angela

Linn look on.

59

Bracing against the biting March wind, we walk up

the hill in the village of Chevak while snowmachines

buzz past, racing from one end of town to the other.

We reach our destination and stomp the snow off our

feet. Rosalie greets us with a smile but few words. She

seats herself on the fl oor and returns to work: she is

the creator of hundreds of dolls, each encapsulating,

in a few well-chosen features, an aspect of Native life

in southwest Alaska.

Standing as if on display, a gut-clad group of quirky

fi gures performs tasks that you can see any day in the

small Cup’ik1 village of Chevak. One wizened man

holds a miniature kayak, while another displays a fi sh

dangling from a jigging stick. A small female doll sits

before a cooking pot, legs pulled under her gut parka

for warmth. A bucket full of berries is clasped in the

arms of yet another tiny woman who leans on a walk-

ing stick, satisfi ed with the day’s effort.

Rosalie Paniyak is a petite gray-haired woman with a

quick smile. She stitches with short, strong, and nimble

fi ngers designed more for cutting fi sh than thread,

constructing each doll entirely by hand. Beside her on

the fl oor is a small bag. She extracts a bit of wire that

her son scavenged from the village dump, which she

uses to make the legs and arms of her dolls. Later, she

will cut scraps of sealskin with her uluaq, a semilunar

knife used for over a thousand years by Alaska’s Eskimo

peoples and sew bright pieces of cotton fabric into a

qaspeq, a dress-like garment worn over the parka. As

each fi ne stitch is taken and small scraps of fur for a

tiny ruff are attached, a small person emerges from

Rosalie’s hands. She will bead the eyes of the doll and

set the teeth in a gap-tooth grin, bringing to life in skin

and cotton a caricature of someone she has observed

in town or drawn from memory.

Rosalie Paniyak made her fi rst doll in 1953 in order

to support her family. She recalls watching older people

in the village sewing skins, but Rosalie chose to make

Rosalie PaniyakA Portrait

Angela J. Linn and James H. Barker

Figure 60.

Rosalie Paniyak at home.

4

60 Chapter 4

dolls instead. She sold her fi rst efforts to nurses in

Anchorage for less than twenty dollars each. She then

began to make larger dolls with haunting features, a

style for which she was fi rst recognized in the 1970s.

Rosalie has since returned to making small dolls, which

are easier to sell. She often includes notes with her dolls

describing the activity she has depicted. She described

her famous “honeybucket doll” as sick with a stomach

ache after eating (see Fig. 37). She fi nds humor in the

details, a special gift considering the challenges that

the Qissunamiut faced for the last three centuries.

Following a winter fl ood in 1946, Rosalie and her

family endured a harrowing move from the village of

Qissunaq to a new location at Chevak. The old village

site of Qissunaq was located a few miles inland from

Hazen Bay (Map 1). There, the semisubterranean

houses of sod and driftwood were built into a mound

that rose fi fteen feet above the barren coastal plain.

Qissunaq was a semipermanent winter settlement.

During the summer, the Qissunamiut set up temporary

camps in their pursuit of various food sources includ-

ing salmon and small mammals. Throughout the long

history of Qissunaq, families would leave the settle-

ment during fl ood season and disperse to safer hunt-

ing grounds. But the villagers always returned when

winter set in. In the 1940s, with the encouragement

of a priest, the community moved farther inland to a

site they now refer to as “Old Chevak.”

Following World War II, and with the coming of

the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools in the 1950s,

the villagers moved again, this time to higher ground

at the site of present-day Chevak. The new village,

comprised of simple frame houses raised above the

ground, required the Cupiit to dramatically alter their

lifeways. Many gave up collecting their food from the

surrounding wetlands. Rosalie remembers fishing

and picking berries and greens. But the store, post

offi ce, and school of “modern” Chevak and the costly

conveniences of electricity and gas have restructured

the economy of the delta region and provided the eco-

nomic incentives for Rosalie to take up doll making.

Rosalie grew up on the Yukon–Kuskokwim delta

of southwest Alaska and the inspiration for her work

surrounds her. Many of her dolls are “activity dolls,”

which illustrate the activities of nineteenth and twen-

tieth century Yupiit. (See Fig. 44 for several examples.)

Rosalie’s fi gures offer the berries picked from the

tundra, or display a bundle of fi rewood collected on a

rainy afternoon. Miniature women wave dance fans,

mimicking the motions of Cup’ik dancers. Women

in colorful qaspeqs hold twined packs full of eggs or

display coiled baskets made of beach grass.

Figures 61–63.

From top to bottom: Rosalie Paniyak cuts out eyes for a doll;

sewing the nose onto the face; clipping the thread in the doll’s

mouth.

Rosalie Paniyak 61

What sets Rosalie apart from other Yup’ik, Cup’ik,

and Inupiaq doll makers who produce “activity dolls”

is her unconventional choice of subjects: an old woman

with a missing tooth rides a snowmachine; a youngster

sits in the cockpit of a bush plane; a woman paddles

her kayak. Rosalie even made a doll that represented

an old woman gleefully fl ourishing a check she just

received in the mail, an often-observed event at the

local post offi ce.

Installations of Rosalie’s work at the Alaska Native

Medical Center in Anchorage feature seasonal scenes

such as Christmas carolers and a nativity with Mary

and Joseph dressed in sealskin boots, mittens, and

fur-trimmed qaspeqs. In the late 1980s, Rosalie began

making Statue of Liberty dolls (see Fig. 38), the clas-

sic fi gure with a crown made of sealskin and a torch

of fur.

The economics of doll making favor Rosalie’s work.

From her modest beginning, in which she sought only

to supplement her family’s income, Rosalie has become

so successful that she now supports three generations

Figure 66.

Rosalie Paniyak, Rosalie’s great-granddaughter, and Ursula

Paniyak at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention, 2004.

Figure 64 (top left).

Sewing the ruff to the hood.

Figure 65 (top right).

After two days, Rosalie has completed the doll of a woman club-

bing a fi sh, a task that was often assigned to her. Photographer

James Barker asked if she had ever made a doll showing this

action. She responded in the negative, and then created this

doll. 30 x 17 x 12, UA2005-003-0001.

62 Chapter 4

of family members who live with her. Her commercial

success has inspired others in Chevak to begin mak-

ing dolls. Today, perhaps a dozen other women craft

dolls in the style Rosalie made famous. Some call them

“the uglies” (Schuldberg 1996:11) or “ugly-faced” (Fair

2006:63), describing them as having a “macabre awk-

wardness” (Ray 1981:129).

This awkwardness is visible in the faces, with skin

pulled tight, overly large wrinkled noses sewn with

heavy stitches, and too-small eyes beaded in black

and white. The figures stand with stooped backs,

pigeon-toed feet, and bent appendages. But this awk-

wardness transmits a realism that speaks directly to

the viewer’s emotions, eliciting a laugh and a sense

of recognition.

The perceived “ugliness” or awkwardness has proven

no obstacle to the popularity of the Chevak dolls and

the success of their makers. One popular art gallery

in Fairbanks mounted a display of 149 Chevak dolls

by eight doll makers in 2005. The works ranged from

small activity dolls to large-scale sculptures. Dolls the

size of a kindergartener stood next to a pregnant doll

entitled “I’m Ready.” Nearly every doll had a sealskin

face and boots. The gallery owner, Yolande Fejes, no-

ticed that customers were especially conscious of the

dolls’ expressions. Doll makers such as Earl Atchak,

who is also Cup’ik, comment that Rosalie has broken

ground for all of them; her work serves as an inspira-

tion for others.

Rosalie Paniyak is the center of a large extended

family. Her home is full of activity—young and old

constantly come and go; family and friends cycle

through the house or lounge on the couch chatting

with Rosalie, who sits on the fl oor sewing. The radio

is tuned to the local station and competes with the

voices on the VHF radio, omnipresent in rural Alaskan

homes. The phone rings, Rosalie hands it to her son,

granddaughter, sister, or whomever else happens to

be visiting and goes back to her work, glancing up

now and then.

Passing along the tradition of doll making in the

Paniyak family is a major concern. At craft fairs,

Rosalie’s daughter, Ursula, often displays her own

dolls alongside those of her mother. Occasions such

Figure 67.

Rosalie Paniyak in front of her house in Chevak.

Rosalie Paniyak 63

Figure 69.

Float plane doll.

Figure 68.

A pair of dolls made by Ursula Paniyak, for sale at the Alaska Federation of Natives ar ts and crafts sale in Anchorage, October 2004.

as the art sale at the annual Alaska Federation of Na-

tives meetings, the Cama-i dance festival in Bethel,

the Fur Rendezvous in Anchorage, and the Festival

of Native Arts in Fairbanks provide venues for bulk

sales. Gift shops across the state carry Rosalie and

Ursula’s dolls.

Ursula’s daughter, Janice, has been making dolls

for the past few years along with Janice’s daughter,

Rosalie’s great-granddaughter. Four generations of

doll makers in one family testify to the popularity and

success of the whimsical characters Rosalie Paniyak

envisions, then creates from the raw materials of her

daily life in a remote village in the Alaskan bush.

Rosalie Paniyak is like many other pioneers—pos-

sibly unaware of the signifi cant role she has played in

the world of Native doll making. Her observations of

the world around her, so familiar to her, so foreign

to many of her collectors, are communicated hon-

estly, with skin, and cloth and thread. A storyteller at

heart, she does what comes naturally to her, depicting

her friends and family, pointing out the silly things

they do and reproducing them in miniature. And we

64 Chapter 4

Figure 72.

Man with a kayak model and his son. 28 x 14 x 13.5, UA2005-

003-0006.

Figure 71.

Rosalie’s woman with akutaq doll. Akutaq is also called “Eskimo ice

cream” and is made with berries and whipped fat or shortening.

recognize the stories she tells, seeing ourselves in these

little people as we caught our fi rst fi sh, or picked our

fi rst batch of berries, danced our fi rst dance, or made

ourselves sick from eating too much. This recognition

of self explains why the ugly-faced dolls have become

so well known and widely collected. Their creator,

Rosalie Paniyak, is an innovator who began creating

out of need and continues out of success, paving the

way for the next generation.

Note

1 Cup’ik is a dialect of the Central Alaskan Yup’ik language.

The people of Chevak refer to themselves as the Qissuna-

miut, which translates as “the people [of the village] of

Qissunaq.”

Figure 70.

Sewing a boy doll into a kayak model.

65

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Index 69

IndexNote: Italicized page numbers indicate fi gures or photos.

AAbraham, Margaret (Penni), 26activity dolls of Helen Carius, 30, 31 and education, 36 of Eva Heffl e, 28, 29, 52 of Janice Paniyak, 31

of Rosalie Paniyak, 31, 32, 58, 60–61, 64

of Ursula Paniyak, 31, 63 of various artists, 50Admiralty Island, 8Agaveksina, 20Alaska Native languages and dia-

lects, viii (map), 64nAleuts, 5–8, 12, 22–23, 50Alfred, Laura, 50Alowa, Annie, 48Alutiiqs, 5–8, 7, 12, 24amulets, 14, 38, 39Anaktuvuk Pass doll, 36anti-aesthetic, of Rosalie Paniyak, 33antler dolls, 25archaeological sites, 2 (map)arts and crafts show, 56Ashcraft, Hilda, 35Atchak, Earl, 44, 58, 62Athabascans beaded mittens, 10 Deg Hit’an, 38 dolls, 12, 19, 35, 50 fi gurines, 8, 18

Bbaby belt, Athabascan, 13Barbie dolls, 35, 42Beaver, JoAnn, 13Bering Strait Region, 1–3Berry, Lucy, 36bird-people dolls, 33Bostrom, Agnes, 36bow and arrow, Canadian Inuit, 13Brown, Oliver (Nipaloq), 39n33Buchea, Dora, 48, 52, 54–56Bunyan-Serovy, Rosalie, 53–54

CCanadian Inuit, 13, 37caribou-jaw doll, Inupiaq, 26Carius, Helen Slwooko, 30, 31Carlo, Elena, 42Carlo, Poldine, 12Central Yup’ik Eskimos See also Yup’ik entries fi gurines, 15–18 modern dolls, 30–33 play dolls, 10–11Charles, Doris, 50charms, 14, 38nn12–13Chevak dolls, 32, 59, 62 See also Paniyak, Rosaliechildren with toys, 36, 42, 43, 44Christianity, 39n29Christian missionaries, 24clans, 51–52, 55clay heads, 16Cleveland, Stella, 30clothing for dolls, 26–27coiled grass dolls, 26, 30Cook, James (Captain), 12Cup’ik dialect, 64nCup’ik dolls, 26, 31, 44 See also Paniyak, RosalieCurtis, Mary, 49

DDeg Hit’an Athabascans, 38n17devil dolls, 18, 19, 33deities, images of, 5doll accessories, 10, 26–27doll ceremony, 38n18doll festivals, 18, 39nn19–20doll makers See also individual names on economics of doll making, 54–57 on future of doll making, 57 home villages of, viii (map) on learning to make dolls, 48–51 modern, Central Yup’ik, 30–33 modern, Inupiaq, 25–28

modern, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, 28–30

doll making economics of, 61–62 materials, 15, 33, 34–35, 59dolls See also activity dolls; specific

ethnic groups; play dolls Anaktuvuk Pass, 36 for arts and crafts sale, 63 in coming-of-age rituals, 11, 13, 45 for divining weather, 38n17 fear of, 44, 53–54 fertility, 8 Greenlandic, 35 life-like qualities of, 52–53 modern, in general, 26 origins of, viii (map) in play and ritual, 43–45 puppets, 21, 39n25, 43 soft-bodied, 10, 26, 30 St. Lawrence Island, 11, 13, 28–30 sun-worm, 38n15 as symbolic babies, 46n7 Tlingit, 14 ugly-faced, 62, 64 of undetermined origin, 37 Western-made, 24, 25, 35, 39n28Driggs, Elizabeth, 26

Eeconomics of doll making, 61–62Eek village style, 30Eningowuk, Delbert, 26Eskimo belief system, 22

FFair, Susan W., 39n32fall whaling rituals, 20fear of dolls and f igurines, 44,

53–54Fermoyle, Betty, 32fertility dolls, 8fi gures and fi gurines See also under ethnic groups

70 Index

fear of, 44, 53–54 headless, 6, 15 house guardians, 15 life-sized, 7, 20 Nukleet, 4 Okvik, 1–3 Old Bering Sea, 3 origins of, viii (map) in rituals and ceremonies, 15–19,

23–24 St. Lawrence Island, 3, 26 uses, in general, 8–10fi gurine fl oats, 19–20fl ying puguqs, 20Francis, Rosa, 27Friday, Monica, 32functionalists, on play, 41, 45

Ggames, 46n1gender roles, traditional, 38n11,

43, 45grave goods, 8Greenlandic dolls, 35

HHardesty, Denise, 47, 50, 53, 55, 57harpoon head, Aleut, 5hats, Aleut, 23headless fi gures, 6, 15head piece, wooden, 9heads, clay and ivory, 16heads, wooden, 29Heff le, Eva, 27–28, 29, 39n34,

49–51, 52, 53, 57Hensel, Chase, 54historic period, 10–13, 38Hooper Bay fi gures, 17horn dolls, 25, 26, 39n32house guardians, 15Houser, Allan, 50Huizinga, Johan, 41

Iillnesses, dolls and, 46n4indigenous religions, 39n29infant with Catholic medal, 24interviews. See doll makersInupiaq dolls, 11–12, 25–28, 33, 35Inupiaq fi gurines, 9, 10, 18–22Inupiaq housewife, 10Irrigoo, Walton, 48, 49, 55–56,

56–57ivory carvings busts, 8 fi gurines, 3, 19 function unknown, 5 heads, 16

ivory-headed dolls, 9, 28 miniature, 6, 23 prehistoric, 6

JJohnnie, Alice, 49, 51–52, 54, 55, 57Jowly Man, 5

KKamerling, Leonard, 52, 54Kanrilak, Rose, 32kayak models, 7, 8Kilbuck, John, 39n19Kilowiyi, Miriam, 13, 30Kingeekuk, Floyd and Amelia, 26,

28–29King Island, 19Kodiak Island, 7–8Kokrine, Marvin, 53Koontz, Velma, 11Kotzebue tradition, 26, 27, 29Koweluk, Ruth, 53, 54Miss Koyukuk doll, 35Kululhon, Ellie, 30

Llanguages and dialects, viii (map),

64nLarson, Linda, 50–51Lawrence, Annie, 50life-sized fi gures, 7, 20Lincoln, Emma Black, 27Linn, Angela, 58Lisbourne, Iva, 48, 49, 53–56Lisbourne, Ken, 48, 50–53, 55–57Lyons, Jeff, 26

MMadonna, Okvik, 3marionettes, 21, 39n25, 43Marston, Marvin R. “Muktuk,” 27, 28Martins, Anna, 32masks, 36, 39n35Mead, Margaret, 42memorials to the dead, 17–18Mendenhall-Mills, Ida, 28men’s house, 18, 20mittens, Athabascan, 10moieties, 23, 51–52, 55Morrow, Phyllis, 46n7mother and baby, 12mother-and-child fi gurines, 15–17

NNayamin, Natalia, 32negative energy, 51Nemayaq, 10, 16, 17, 38n14neuropsychologists, on play, 41–42

Newell, William Wells, 42Northwest Coast dolls and fi gurines,

8, 12–14, 23–24Norton, Minnie, 27Nukleet fi gures, 4Nunivak Island fi gure, 17

OOkvik fi gurines, 1–3Old Bering Sea fi gurines, 3old people dolls, 30, 33Old Togiak partial fi gures, 17Omwari, Pansy, 30Oscar, Martina, 36

PPaneak, Simon, 36Paneak, Susie, 36Paniyak, Janice, 31, 33, 63Paniyak, Rosalie dolls of, 31, 32, 61, 63 family of, 61–62 at home, 58, 59, 62 making dolls, 60, 61, 64 and old-people style, 33 Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy on, 53–54Paniyak, Ursula, 31, 33, 61, 62, 63parkas, miniature, 10Paul, William, 50Penayah, Caroline Kava, 48, 53phenomenologists, on play, 41Piaget, Jean, 42–44Pike, Mabel, 50Plato, 45play defi nitions of, 41–42 historical study of, 42–43 as practice, 43–44 Helen Schwartzman on, 46n1 theories on ritual and, 45play dolls, 10–13, 43, 46n2 See also under ethnic groupsPletnikoff, Sophie, 50Point Hope dolls and fi gurines, 20,

21, 43portrait-style dolls, 26prehistoric period, 5–8productivity and play, 46n1puguqs, 20, 39n24puppets, 21, 39n25, 43“putting away the dolls,” 11, 13

QQissunamiut, 64nQissunaq, 60quartz crystal, 19, 20, 39n22quluguluguqs, 39n24

Index 71

Rrabbit skins, 47rag dolls, 9Ramos, Elaine, 23rituals coming-of-age, 11, 13, 45 doll ceremony, 38n18 dolls in play and, 43–45 human f igur ines in, 15–19,

23–24 seasonal, 7, 20, 45 whaling, 20rock-faced doll, 9

SSavaroff, Hartina, 50Schoppert, Jackie, 49, 51Schwartzman, Helen, 46n1seasonal rituals and traditions, 7,

20, 45Seward Peninsula, 28sewing kit, Inupiaq, 10shaman fi gures, 20, 23shamans, 18, 23–24, 44shamans’ dolls and fi gurines, 6, 8,

16, 39n28sitting ceremony, 20skin boat with whaling crew, 20skin mask, 36Sledge Island, 19Sledge Island fl oat, 19Smith, Helen, 33Smith, Natalia, 33Smith, Viva Wesley, 26, 30soft-bodied dolls, 10, 26, 30Sours, Burton, 53Sours, Lena, 27, 39n33, 49souvenirs, 7, 8, 24–25Sparks, Lucy, 38Spencer, Dolly Mendenhall, 27, 28spirit access point, 6spirit guard (yake), 23spirit quests, 23–24St. Lawrence Island doll boots, 10

dolls, 11, 13, 28–30 fi gurines, 3, 15–18, 26 heads, 16 house guardians, 15Statue of Liberty dolls, 32, 61Stone, Clothilda, 26, 33Stone, Henry, 33stone-headed dolls, 13–14storyknifi ng, Yup’ik girls and, 36story knives, 38n10sun-worm doll, 38n15superstitions, 11, 12Svarney, Gertrude, 22

Ttaboos, 11, 12, 20tails, symbolism of, 53Tetpon, Lillian, 51, 54–57Thule period, 3–4, 6Tlingit dolls and fi gurines, 14, 23,

50, 55Toll, Louise, 33Tooyak, Andrew, Sr., 50topknots, 35toys, Athabascan, 13Tubis, Henry, 50

Uugly-faced dolls, 62, 64umiak model, 21Umnak Island, 5Unalaska Island, 7Unga Island, 7Ungott, Josephine, 30unisuit, 12

Vvisor, Aleut, 22

Wwalrus ivory carvings. See ivory

carvingsWalrus Man, 7, 22Washington, Ethel, 26–27

weather-divining dolls, 38n17Westerners, and Alaska Natives, 38Western-made dolls, 24, 25, 35,

39n28whale bone dolls, 26whaling kit, 19whaling rituals, 20White, Grace, 30winter festivities, Aleut, 7wooden carvings dolls, 9 head piece, 9 heads, 29 masks, 39n35 memorials to the dead, 17–18 by Nemayaq, 16 shaman fi gure, 23 shamans’ dolls, 24 Sledge Island fl oat, 19 wooden-faced dolls, 33, 39n35 wooden-headed dolls, 9, 26, 39n33work vs. play distinction, 41

Yyoke dolls, 11, 43Yukon Island, 8Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta dolls,

38n10Yupik dolls, 11, 13, 28–30, 30 See also St. Lawrence IslandYup’ik dolls See also Cup’ik dolls; Paniyak,

Rosalie activity dolls, 33, 34, 36 conventions for playing with, 45 man in fur parka, 26 modern, 30–33 play dolls, 9, 10–11Yup’ik figures and figurines, 10,

15–18, 17Yup’ik girls and storyknifi ng, 36Yup’ik miniatures, 10, 13