Arctic

I. Who are the people of the arctic zone? The Inuit (the People) first written about by Baird in 1611. Called Ashquimec (those who eat raw fish) by Chippewa.

A. Inuit is general name give to the group of closely related Native languages of the people of the coastal areas of the Arctic. The people of the interior Arctic speak either a form of Algonquin or Athabaskan. Inuit can be broken down into many smaller divisions the most prominent of which are Yupik, spoken by the people of Southwestern Alaska and also by Siberian people living on the Chuckchi Peninsula in Russia; Aleut, spoken by the people of the Aleutian Islands; Inupiak, the language of those who live along the northern Bering Strait and Beaufort Strait; and Nunivak, the language of the people who inhabit the area of Thunder Bay; and Kalaalisut, spoken by the people of Greenland.

B. They have inhabited this frozen terrain for 24,000 years.

1. This area is a true desert because there is no free water in winter. Land is too boggy in summer and permafrost keeps most of the bogs frozen.

a. The only wood is driftwood. This results in a different view of what a tree looks like, notice that this sculpture has no leaves or twigs or even very many branches. How could they know what a green tree looks like if all they see is driftwood?

b. Occasional bonfires for shamanic events made of drift wood and dried seaweed.

c. Driftwood used for face and finger masks; harpoon, spear, and arrow shafts; handles; drum rims; kayaks and umiaks; sled parts; drying racks.

e. In summer the diet includes flowers and berries and eggs of migratory birds who make nests on the ground.

2.

The Aurora borealis dominates the night sky. Click on photo for more Aurora pix -

A. Exceptionally long winter nights and summer days.

1. This dynamistic world experiences half of the year in unending darkness and the other half in unending sunlight.

a. In winter the sun never rises above the horizon. In summer it never gets darker than twilight for an hour or so.

i. The moon gives light and the stars give light because the snow and ice are so reflective.

ii. The sunlight on the snow is bright enough to cause snow blindness, a serious problem of lens and retina damage.

2. Very close knit families that share intimate space 24/7/365.

a. Independence in children encouraged early to ensure survival. Skillful use of knives (ulu) at two-years of age.

i. A ten-year old girl would run her own trap lines with her sled dogs, sometimes she would be gone from home for a week or more.

4. Life is structured around the seasons.

a. Summer is spent on dry land; winter is spent on the frozen sea.

5. Arctic Housing is quasi-temporary.

a. Earth lodges, stilt houses, or skin tents on land, igloos on ice.

6.

Caribou parka.

Clothing extremely tailored. The closest we know of to a space suit.

a. Waterproof seams. Fully insulated.

b. Always made by women. Those without a wife who was a competent seamstress risked death.

i. Women chewed the seams to waterproof them. Worn teeth considered sign of woman deserving high respect. Skin sewing was the highest form of woman's art. The designs were mind boggling.

c. Worn in two layers, an inner layer with the fur facing the skin and an outer layer with the fur facing out.

d. Made of fur of different kinds.

i. Most favored is seal fur, which sheds water.

ii. Next was caribou, which was lighter weight than seal fur and usable in the warmer months. Each hair shaft isd hollow, so it insulates without weight.

iii. Wolf fur is used around the face because water will not condense to ice on it.

iv. Rabbit skins are used to line shoes and the insides of mittens.

v. Fish skins are used on the soles of some shoes.

vi. Fox fur also used as trim and accent.

7. Transportation

a. On ice by dog sled and foot.

i. Dog sled demonstrates remarkable use and reuse of materials. It has runners made of frozen salmon wrapped in hide and glazed with moss and water. When the sled reaches the location of the new home the sled can be dissembled - the salmon can then be eaten, the moss used for tea, and the hides used for bedding or new clothes.

b. On water by umiak and kayak.

c. On land by foot.

8. Food - total diet eaten raw

d. Animals are not caught as much as they give themselves to the people to be eaten.

f. For a long time scientists wondered how the Inuit lived without a source of vitamin C. They have no citrus, only a few berries and blossoms in the summer. The Vitamin C level of the moss tea is marginal. However, raw meat contains lots of Vitamin C.

9. Dogs - after the seal, the dog was the most important fur-bearing animal used by the people of the Arctic.

a. They served as a kind of currency; provided security from predators; pulled sleds; provided extra warmth in the igloo on especially cold nights; found seal breathing holes; cleaned the rear ends of babies; and in times of famine, were eaten.

B. Social structure based on close communities of no more than thirty in a community. Resources were that thinly spread.

1. To show anger or worse yet to act out of anger is considered childish, viewed as the most humiliating social display, worse than an adult loosing control of a basic bodily function might be for us - worse than letting go a cloud of noxious intestinal gases in a closed space.

a. Dangerous to all. Stupid does as angry is. Stupid mistakes equal death in the Arctic. Fights to settle torts held in a public arena.

2. Shared material culture and space. Everyone shared the same bed, even visitors.

3. Children highly valued. Never yelled at or treated harshly. Seldom told "NO!" Competent at a very early age - before they have teeth and after they stop nursing they use a razor sharp knife to cut their meat, right at their lips - a suburban middle class family would be accused of child endangerment or neglect if they let a child handle such a sharp knife.

a. Infanticide [euthanasia of babies and small children] as an option to starving to death if survival of children could not be assured.

i. Children were well fed and warmly dressed and left along frequented trails in hopes they would be rescued by a family with enough resources. Adopted children lived long and happy lives.

4. Elders valued above all - their memories held the answers to problems. We are baby obsessed, but the Inuit valued wisdom over youth.

5. Shaman was important. Controlled weather and food supply, also healed. Performed for the good of the community.

a. To become a shaman must have psychotic behavior as child, get instruction from another shaman, or see a vision (unusual circumstances). Must also be able to return from these experiences to join the community again.

b. Shaman used devices for performances.

i. Sleight of hand.

iii. Transformation: bound hand and foot, burned alive, speared in the stomach then reappeared unharmed.

v. Many masks - the two with black background represent seal spirits. Most spirit masks have rings of wood around them signifying the realms of the spirit world to which a Shaman may travel. The one in the center represents the elements.

c. Shamans transformed themselves into a "were-walrus" a creature part walrus and part human to control the elements, disease and resources.

a. Sources for ivory in the Arctic are tusks of walrus, narwhal, and frozen wooly mammoth.

2. Inventions include bow drill, snow visor, dog sled, woman’s crescent knife (oloo or ulu), coiled basketry, igloo, kayak, umiak, gortex.

D. Traditional art forms included buttons, toggles for clothing and harnesses, game chips, kids toys, harpoon rests in animal shapes, story knives for carving designs in snow, twinned and coiled baskets (baleen = plankton sieve of the gray whale), helmets and masks.

1. Most are small ivory carvings.

2. Masks developed in the west, perhaps with Dorset ancestry.

a. Carved of wood, whale bone, leather.

b. Mask production essentially stops with missionization in 1900s.

c. Worn in association with non-healing and non-memorial dances and festivals.

d. Face masks worn by men and finger masks worn by women.

e. Destroyed by burning.

f. Emphasize spirits of animals and inanimate objects

i. Whirlpools, seals, guardian spirits, tutelary spirits, recording shamans trips to other realms.

g. Interpretation very difficult.

i. If not realistic doesn’t represent natural realm.

iv. Transformation masks, depict swallowing and rebirth.

v. Shaman’s journey mask is ringed with hoops.

3. Finger Masks used by women.

a. Serve as an extension of the body and as a distraction.

b. Used in story telling and dance.

c. Two faces on one mask, one on either side.

4. Skins for clothing and bedding include: puffin, seal, squirrel, fox, caribou, wolf, rabbit, fish, bear, musk oxen.

a. Bear and musk oxen hides large enough to use as bedding, too heavy for clothing.

5. Snow goggles of wood contoured to head with an eye slit. Men showed their artistic ability.

E. Modern sculptures show change in

many ways.

1. Larger, mobility no longer the same issue.

2. Stone introduced for sculpture not just serving platters.

3. Essence of animals continue to show through.

4. Platform carvings emphasize assembly.

5. Frozen motion emphasized as in wolf attack.

6. Supernatural animals still favored like bear anthropomorph.

7. Women carvers appear.

II. Dominant art periods are western and eastern or transcontinental.

A. Old Bering Sea (Okvik) 300 B.C. - 1,000 A.D., western.

1. Early OBS = OBS I; Late OBS = OBS II & III.

2. Small objects “discovered” in 1931.

a. Anthropomorphized forms with minimal facial detail.

i. Only one figurine known, special emphasis on genitals, vagina dentatum.

ii. Incised in fine lines, usually

iii. OBS I used unembellished lines.

iv. OBS II used double lines with spurs.

b. “Winged” forms (thought to be counterweights).

B. Thule (plug). about 1,000 A.D. emerged from OBS culture and spread rapidly East than again west.

1. Linguistic dispersal accompanied that cultural diffusion.

a. Introduced a kind of cultural uniformity by teaching dog sleds, etc.

2. Some say influence by Vikings.

3. Fine works of art though originally thought to be flat and derived. Bow drills bear images of hunting scenes.

C. Dorset culture in the east at Hudson’s Bay, Baffin Island, Greenland, Labrador from 1,000 B.C. - 300 A.D.

1. Ashquimoid.

2. No drills or dog sleds.

3. Perhaps a bear cult.

4. Tiny figurines of bone and ivory.

a. weasel and bear (1 ½ ” high) and maskettes.

i. Bear assoc. with shaman’s need to die and return as bear.

ii. Elongated swimming pose.

b. anthropomorphic amulet

C. Ipiutak culture appeared around 350 A.D. along the arctic coastline (Point Hope Alaska).

1. Short-lived and isolated cultural tradition.

2. Produced copious numbers of objects first excavated in 1939.

3. Village of 600 houses, subterranean coastal.

4. Thin refuse layer, 138 burials found in one season.

a. Mask- like carving found in burial - ivory with wood backing.

5. Linked to Northern Siberian culture through artistic style.

6. Specialized in openwork carving, chains and hinges.

a. Many objects attached to Shaman’s garments.

7. Loon (earth diver) images common as principal helpers of shamans.

a. Loon carved on post over Shaman’s grave.

III. The Aleuts of southern Alaska.

Russians devastated the people of the Aleutians. They kidnapped women and children and only gave them back if the men would sign on and work for them trapping otters. Left on their own many women and children starved to death when their food procuring mechanisms were destroyed. Aleut men had their tongues cut out and they were often blinded in one eye. Because Aleut men were all enslaved, women and girls were raped by the Russians in such high numbers that more than 700 Aleut women and girls jumped to their deaths from a high cliff rather than be raped by the Russian men again.

Hrdlicka, A. 1945. The Aleutian and Commander Islands and Their Inhabitants. Philadelphia: Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology Press.

Sauer, Martin 1972 [1802] Expedition to the northern parts of Russia. [Account of a geographical & astronomical expedition to the northern parts of Russia]. Surrey: Richmond Publishing Co.,
Ltd.

A. Language, Eskaleut, is similar to Inuit.

B. Lifestyle different from Inuit.

1. Lived in permanent villages, where could they migrate?

2. Less seasonal orientation.

3. Lived from the sea, expert whalers.

4. Social class distinctions including slaves.

5. Changed by contact with Russians. 70% die after contact, enslavement, and subsequent starvation.

C. Arts included clothing, basketry, wood carving.

1. Clothing showed interaction with Russians by the addition of coins as ornaments and introduction of floral patterns.

2. Cormorant gut was used to created waterproof outer garments.

a. These garments rustled when moved, used in drama.

b. This was the original "gortex"

3. Hats necessary to cut glare, have a large brim.

a. Painted with designs, ornamented with pendants.

4. Basketry of coiled sea grass.

a. Lidded with a distinctive knob or an ivory or bone handle.

b. Sparse designs.