Yup’ik masks in the precontact past and the contested present

ABSTRACT

The Nunalleq site (ca. 1400–1675 AD) near the village of Quinhagak, Alaska has produced the largest archaeological collection of Yup’ik material culture. Amongst other perfectly preserved artefacts recovered from the site, there are masks and mask fragments that deserve special attention. The knowledge and skills involved in Yup’ik mask making have been almost forgotten in Quinhagak for generations due to the abolition of this Indigenous tradition by Moravian missionaries in the early 1900s. Quinhagak community members view the Nunalleq masks not just as artefacts but gifts from their ancestors that remind them how the Yup’ik celebrated life and survival prior to colonisation. In today’s context, these masks have become endowed with new cultural meaning as symbols of decolonisation and cultural revival. This article discusses the role of Nunalleq masks in the efforts of local community members to reclaim their pre-colonial cultural practices and heal the colonialism-induced trauma.

KEYWORDS:

• Alaska
• Yup’ik
• masks
• cultural revival
• decolonisation
• healing

Acknowledgments

Our deepest gratitude goes to the community of Quinhagak and the CEO of Qanirtuuq Inc. Warren Jones. We extend our appreciation to all Quinhagak Elders and culture bearers who shared their oral histories with us, especially Annie Cleveland, Joshua Cleveland, †Paul Beebe, John Smith, John Sharp, John Roberts, and John Fox. Quyana cakneq! The authors would like to thank Dr. Rick Knecht and Dr. Charlotta Hillerdal and two anonymous reviewers who contributed valuable feedback and edits to this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Agayuyaraq, literally ‘the way of praying or requesting’, is an annual winter ceremony, during which the Yup’ik through songs and dances tried to influence animals’ spirits and shaman helping spirits to elicit the successful harvest of fish and game and other resources in the new subsistence season (Fienup-Riordan 1994, 315; 1996, 307). In ethnographic literature, Agayuyaraq is also being referred as Kelek (from keleq-, ‘to invite to one’s home’) or Itruka’ar (from iter-, ‘to enter or come into a habitation’).

2. Annie Cleveland, interviewed in Quinhagak on 30 June 2016.

3. John Smith, interviewed in Quinhagak on 29 July 2019.

4. John Smith, interviewed in Quinhagak on 29 June 2016.

5. Based on the interview at Drew’s studio in Portland on 14 August 2019; edited and expanded by Drew for the purpose of this publication.

6. Both oral history and archaeological evidence affirm that Nunalleq was attacked and burned by rivals from another village during the bow-and-arrow wars circa around 1670 AD (Knecht 2014). The intergroup conflicts in southwest Alaska lasted for hundreds of years and ended in the early 1800s with the arrival of Russians in the region (Funk 2010; Fienup-Riordan and Rearden 2016).

7. On random occasions, dancing has been performed publicly in Quinhagak since 2013 when the Quinhagak dance group was formed at the local school (Watterson and Hillerdal 2020), but the first masked dance was performed in 2018 at the opening of the Nunalleq Museum.

8. Yuraq is a generic term for Yup’ik dancing (see Barker, Fienup-Riordan, and John 2010).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institute of International Education under the Fulbright Foreign Student Program [Grant ID 15150510]; the European Regional Development Fund (Dora Pluss Programme); the TÜHI Research Fund of Tallinn University; and the Qanirtuuq Inc.

Notes on contributors

Anna Mossolova

Anna Mossolova defended her PhD dissertation ‘Mending the Breaks: Revival and Recovery in Southwest Alaska Mask-Making Tradition’ in 2020. Since 2015, she has been actively involved in the Nunalleq community-based archaeology project, conducting archaeological and ethnographic fieldworks in Alaska and working in the conservation lab at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. She has done extensive archival and collection-based research on the Yup’ik masks in museums across Europe and the United States. She is a Fulbright alumna.

Drew Michael

Drew Michael is a contemporary Alaskan Native artist, teacher and researcher. He has been working as a mask maker for over 20 years and taught mask making across Alaska. In his work, Drew utilizes new, unconventional materials and combinations of mixed media. His current work incorporates healing practices of the Yup’ik people focusing on the imagery of religious iconography blended with traditional mask making.