NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR

June 2000 www.mnh.si.edu/arctic Number 8

THE YEAR IN REVIEW

By William Fitzhugh

“Now that’s the kind of problem I like to have,”

quipped Robert Fri, Director of the NMNH, as he noted Viking

show visitors lined up across the rotunda and out onto the Mall.

During the past twelve months it seemed impossible

that the day would finally come when Vikings opened. But it

did, with much fanfare and a media-crazed event with a full

house of Scandinavian royalty and record-breaking crowds.

The latter helped push the Museum’s visitors ahead of the Air

and Space Museum’s for the first time in 14 years, 2.8 million

visitors to NASM’s 2.3 for the first four months of the year.

NMNH is now the most-visited

museum in the world!

Other successes include

the catalogue, which after a

month of sales is in for reprinting. Newsweek, Time, The New

York Times, The Washington

Post, The Chronicle of Higher

Education, and other media have

carried the story, and Vikings has

been featured on Nova, on PBS

stations carrying our HDTV

special Lief Eriksson: the Man

who (Almost) Changed History,

and on other programs. News

stories on CBS, CBC, BBC, NPR TV and radio, and many

others have also spread the word. Vikings 2000 is hot stuff!

Poor Columbus! At least he had the sense to go to Iceland for a

geography lesson before his 1492 gambit! For the real scoop,

check out www.mnh.si.edu/vikings and our own site,

www.nmnh.si.edu/arctic.

But success does not grow on trees; Vikings has been

an unprecedented collective effort. I want to thank especially

the Nordic Council of Ministers, the White House Millennium

Council and its Chair, Hillary Rodham Clinton. On the

museum side, Robert Sullivan and many others, especially

Joe Madeira, Marjorie Stoller, Anna-Lincoln Whitehurst,

Kara Callaghan, Randall Kremer and Michelle Urie brought

the project to life. Michael Headley and the Office of Exhibits

DIRECTOR Continued on Page 2

“From the Fury of the Northmen, Lord, Protect Us”

By Elisabeth Ward

On April 29th, Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga

opened, and the entire ASC staff sighed in relief that this

monumental undertaking had finally come to an end. Over the

last 18 months, as demands increased and deadlines loomed, the

title of the exhibition took on new meaning: we felt part of a

long and arduous saga. Just like a saga, it unfolded and grew

more complex over time, with important funding coming

through at the last moment from Volvo, Phillips Petroleum,

Husqvarna Viking Sewing Machines, and Barbro Osher Pro

Suecia Foundation to augment the

grant from the Nordic Council of

Ministers (NCM). Like a saga, it

was created in one time period

while its subject matter and events

took place hundreds of years

earlier with all the problems

incumbent upon interpreting a

distant past. Just like a saga, plot

twists came from surprisingly

mundane details, like the fire

sprinkler locations that derailed

the original design for our Viking

longhouse. What was the most

reminiscent of literary sagas was

the way the exhibition consisted of

a community of people, all of whom had unique and sometimes

surprising roles to play in the development of the story. Nearly

the entire museum came together to make this project a reality.

Fortunately our saga did not end with multiple slayings

following a cycle of escalating violence! Instead, it ended with

an array of wonderful products and by-products: a traveling

exhibition with over 300 objects, a beautifully illustrated

catalogue, an ever-expanding website, two TV documentaries,

educational materials, magazine articles, press stories, and

scholarly talks and lectures.

Now that we’ve had a few weeks away from the

looming deadlines and daily crises, it seems appropriate to see

whether or not the curatorial goals were met.

VIKINGS Continued on page 3

Vikings opens at NMNH to great fanfare and excitement.

THE ASC VIKING SAGA:
ASC Newsletter 2

DIRECTOR’S NOTES Continued from page 1

Central staff; Richard Molinaroli and the MFM Design staff;

artist Hugh McKay; our website team of John and Kathy

Prusinski and Ted Timreck, the Anthropology Department

under the direction of Dennis Stanford, Carolyn Rose, and

Dan Rogers; the authors and object lenders; the catalogue

production team of Perpetua Press and SI Press; and especially my super co-curator, Elisabeth Ward. Everyone worked

like wizards and demons this past year.

As the Viking year progresses, related projects are

popping-up all around: the Library of Congress’ exhibition and

symposium, Living and Re-living the Icelandic Sagas and the

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s exhibition, Full

Circle. All of this ushers in a new chapter in the history of

North America, thanks to the archaeological discoveries of

Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, delivering proof positive on the

ideas of history and literature. While we tout Leif and

“norse.com” for their rightful credit, we need to remember that

Native response to Viking contacts effectively postponed

European settlement in North America for another 500 years,

preventing North America from being a Nordic-speaking world!

Vikings is not the only ASC story this year: Ainu:

Spirit of a Northern People, had a long run at Natural History,

closing in January 2000. It was a wonderful show and was

visited by hundreds of thousands of viewers. Unfortunately our

plans for a national tour fell through when the bean-counters at

prospective host museums decided other shows would make

more money. Nevertheless, the show and catalogue informed

Americans, foreign visitors, and scholars about Ainu history

and culture and contemporary Ainu life and art. Thanks are due

to Chisato and David Dubreuil and the many others, especially

Nippon Foundation, The Japan Foundation, and The JapanUnited States Friendship Commission who made this

beautiful show and book possible.

Activities in Anchorage have been forging ahead also.

Aron Crowell has completed curatorial preparation for Looking

Both Ways, an exhibition featuring early collections from the

Alutiiq region gathered by William J. Fisher in the 1880s.

Funded by NEH and others, the show will open at NMNH and

Kodiak in mid-2001 and will tour in Alaska for two years. A

catalogue by Aron Crowell and Alutiiq specialists will be

published by the University of Alaska Press.

The big Alaskan news is that we have applied for a

major three-year grant from the Rasmuson Foundation to

assist in the selection of NMNH and NMAI ethnographic

objects to be loaned to Anchorage. Supplemented by support

from the Museum Loan Network and hopefully Phillips

Petroleum, this grant would will enable groups of Alaska

Natives to travel to Washington for consultation on loan

materials, and the development of a web-based study collection

and related exhibition projects. Portions of the collections

would be exhibited at the Anchorage Museum; others would

be available for study and research. Close collaboration with

the NMAI, with Alaska organizations including the Alaska

Native Heritage Center and others, will be part of this longterm revolving loan program.

Although we have emphasized exhibits and collections

during the past year, fieldwork and research have not languished. Large portions of Labrador archaeological loans have

been described and returned to Newfoundland with assistance

from Dan Odess; Stephen Loring has initiated new community

archaeology programs with the Inuit of Makkovik; Igor

Krupnik has continued collaboration with St. Lawrence Island

Yup’iks to return historical and ethnographical knowledge;

Aron Crowell has completed resource inventories in southern

Alaska for the National Park Service; and Daniel Odess and I

have worked with Vladimir Pit’ulko to plan excavations at

Zhokov Island in the Laptev Sea. In short, this transitional year,

closing the first decade of ASC operation, has brought us many

accomplishments. We

have (I hope) weathered

the worst of the budget

cutting 1990s, have high

hopes for the new work

and priorities launched

by the new Smithsonian

Secretary, Lawrence

Small, and are ready for

our second decade,

bright-eyed and bushytailed, thanks to all of

you!

Left to right: Prince Joachim of Denmark, Princess Victoria of Sweden, President Halonen of Finland, President

Grimsson of Iceland, Queen Sonja of Norway, King Harald of Norway, and Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small

lift a glass to the celebrate the opening of the Viking exhibition.

GLOBE OF CONTENTS

News from around the Arctic is on the pages inicated
ASC Newsletter 3

E X H I B I T S

Among the many reasons for developing a show on

the Vikings, four were of primary interest to the ASC. When

Marjorie Stoller of the museum’s Special Exhibition Office

was first approached by the NCM, she asked Bill if he was

interested. Knowing how little most Americans know about the

Vikings in North America, how stereotyped those views were,

and how much had recently been discovered from archaeological and scientific research, it seemed that a Viking show could

make a major impact. The primary objective was to make the

Viking voyages to North America known as an historic fact in

the minds of the American public.

To reach that goal, we employed assistance from a

wide circle of Viking scholars. In consultation with Birgitta

Wallace, an international team consisting of Lilja Arnadottir,

Jette Arneborg, Colleen

Batey, Joel Berglund,

Torsten Edgren, Sigrid

Kaland, Thomas McGovern,

Carin Orrling, Peter

Schledermann, and Gisli

Sigurdsson was assembled for

curatorial and catalogue

production. Eventually, the

latter effort included more than

forty scholars. While a smaller

production team would have

been easier, the breadth and the

international nature of the

subject and the multi-institutional object loans required a

group of this size. Developing

close ties with scholars and

institutions throughout the

North Atlantic region was also an important goal.

The opportunity of celebrating a 1000-year anniversary in a way that could change public perception of American

history was another way the Viking exhibition could encourage

a broader understanding of history. To many Americans, the

historical lens rarely extends earlier than 1776 or 1492. EuroAmericans need to realize there is a deeper past underfoot. We

wanted to emphasize that history iscumulative and extensive.

After all, the Vikings were in North America five hundred years

before Columbus, and Norse maintained a vibrant European

Christian settlement in Greenland for as long as Europeans have

now maintained a permanent settlement in the Americas.

A more immediate goal was to use the Vikings as an

example of how one comes to know the past. The exhibit

makes a point of calling into question some of the notorious

“Viking” finds, like the Vinland Map and the Kensington Rune

Stone. Historical discoveries are almost never that simple; one

doesn’t just find a stone that proves Vikings were in Minnesota.

In fact, uncovering the truth about the past requires wading

through layers of misconceptions (e.g. Vikings wore horned

helmets) and searching an array of scholarly disciplines. The

past cannot be known only from history, especially when that

history is written by only one party to the events of the past –

the monks and churchmen who were victims of Viking attacks.

That biased view of the Vikings has led to many misconceptions and stereotypes.

Another written source about the Viking past is the

literature preserved in Iceland – poems and stories called sagas

composed by the Vikings and their descendants. While this

literature gives us an intriguing view into the intellectual culture

of the Vikings, disseminating factual information is not their

main function, as the sagas contain contradictory statements

about times, people, and places. This is especially evident in

the Vinland sagas. While it took archaeology to validate the

accounts, no one would have looked for Viking ruins on the

northern tip of Newfoundland Island were it not for the saga

stories. While archaeology

sheds light on daily life and

economy, the opportunity to

pair knowledge of known saga

characters with archaeology

makes the past come alive.

Archaeological investigations have recently provided

insight into another piece of

the historical puzzle through

the work of natural scientists

looking for evidence of climate

change and human impacts on

the environment. Together,

these various sources give a

more complex view of who the

Vikings were and what their

lives were like than the old

views based solely on historical records and spectacular archaeological finds. In the

exhibition, we utilize all of these disciplines to show that

understanding the past is no simple matter.

Our final goal was to emphasize the Viking discovery

and exploration of North America as an anniversary of the first

meeting between Europeans and Native Americans. For twohundred years, the story of Leif Eriksson coming to America

has been a point of pride for Scandinavians and ScandinavianAmericans. We believe it can also become a point of pride for

Native Americans – Micmac, Innu, Inuit, Iroquois – that their

ancestors had met the “fierce” Vikings and not only held their

own but actually turned back their western expansion. This

1000-year anniversary is not only a European story; it is part of

the history of Native America. That is the reason our curatorial

focus has been on contact between the Vikings and the Thule,

Dorset, and Woodland Indians. This is not a story of one

culture’s expansion but of various cultures coming together in

surprising ways – conflict, curiosity, and trade. Although this

view tends to be obscured by public interest in Viking warriors,

First Nations in Canada have taken note. With a June opening

of Full Circle: First Contact in St. John’s, Newfoundland, we

hope that this will gain greater currency.

VIKINGS Continued from page 1

Greenlandic walrus ivory chessman from the Isle of Lewis. NMS coll.
ASC Newsletter 4

AINU REFLECTIONS THROUGH JAPANESE EYES

By Igor Krupnik

I had the pleasure of being in Japan just as the ASC

exhibit, Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People, was on display at

NMNH. Naturally, there was much curiosity in Hokkaido and

elsewhere in Japan with regard to the focus and potential

outcome of the Smithsonian Ainu effort. People were very

interested to discuss how the exhibit was assembled and to

compare its design and its vision of the Ainu culture with other

Ainu ethnographic displays in Japanese museums. So, I took the

opportunity during my fellowship in Japan where I was

transcribing old Siberian Yupik stories to make a comparative

Ainu museum survey in Japan.

Many people were extremely helpful in offering their

assistance, guidance, insights, and experience for this particular

task. The list included: Inoue Koichi of the Slavic Research

Center; Deriha Koji, Anthropology Curator at the Historical

Museum of Hokkaido and an old Fellow of the ASC; Kayano

Shigeru, President of the Kayano’s

Nibutani Ainu Museum; Nomoto

Masahiro, Curator at the Ainu Museum

in Shiraoi and a skilled builder of the

Ainu house (chise) and boat (itaomachip)

for our Smithsonian exhibit; Sasaki

Shiro and Kishigami Nobuhiro of the

National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka;

Sasaki Toshikazu, Curator at the Tokyo

National Museum; Ogihara Shinko,

Professor of Eurasian Studies at the Chiba

University; Amano Tetsuya, Hokkaido

University Museum; Watanabe Yutaka

and Nakada Atsushi, from the Hokkaido Museum of Northern

Peoples in Abashiri, Okada Hiraoki, Hokkai Gakuen University, and Okada Atsuko, from the Hokkaido Tokai University,

and many others. Most of those people were participants in the

Smithsonian ‘Ainu’ project or were among the Ainu catalog

contributors. Their names appear here according to the Japanese

tradition, with the family names coming first.

Of course, the Smithsonian Ainu exhibit represented

but a tiny fraction of the available Ainu collections and cultural

resources. Many archaeological and modern Ainu artworks

loaned from Japanese museums were combined with ethnographic objects from little-known American museum collections. Both Japanese and American artifacts were integrated

into a single storyline that did not separate the objects by

lending institution.

Certain other differences were also quite visible to our

Japanese and Ainu colleagues. Beyond its distinct ‘minority

culture’ focus (which carried a very charged message in the

modern political context of the Ainu culture in Japan), the

exhibit crossed an important boundary for traditional Japanese

Ainu displays by mixing Ainu traditional ethnography and

modern art (thanks to a pioneer approach introduced by Chisato

Dubreuil, our exhibit co-curator). This is hardly ever done in

Japan, where ‘art’ and ‘ethnography’ usually belong to different

departments and museums. The Smithsonian show featured

Ainu culture from its prehistory to the modern days as one

single story. Again, this approach is not done in Japan, where

Ainu history and Japanese prehistory, in general, are normally

split into different cultural periods. The Smithsonian approach

was first and foremost educational and outreach-oriented,

which is quite understandable for an exhibit focused on a littleknown minority group in a foreign country. Japanese museum

displays are primarily object-oriented. The Smithsonian show

featured prominently themes such as spirituality, change, and

voices (through video and music recording). The Japanese

Ainu exhibits commonly display the diversity and richness of

Ainu material culture (much less of the Ainu spiritual world)

backed by historical still photography. The Smithsonian Ainu

exhibit was an event that was built with and was aimed at

generating enthusiasm and pride. The Ainu historical village in

Shiraoi, with its musical and dancing performances, is a job, a

daily operation going on for many years and aimed primarily at

the general public and tourists. Of course, no North American

experience of displaying or dealing with

a northern native culture can be easily

transplanted to the Japanese soil.

Parallels can be easily misleading, as

was clearly seen at the International

Festival of Indigenous People held at

the Ainu Museum in Shiraoi, Hokkaido

in October. At the festival, dance teams

and speakers from several indigenous

nations took part: the Saami of Finland,

the Nanay and Nivkh of Siberia, the

Maori of New Zeland, the Inuit, the

Cree, and the Ojibway of Canada, the

minority people of Taiwan, and surely the hosts, the Ainu

people of Japan. People performed with great enthusiasm in

trying to express their legacy through dance, song, and wonderful costume. However, their indigenous cultures are very

different, as are the problems they face in their daily life.

Nowhere were these differences more obvious than

during a meeting with Shigeru Kayano, the doyen of Ainu

cultural research and the Ainu revitalization movement in

Japan, and Vasilii N. Ivanov, Director of the Institute of

Research in Humanities in Yakutsk, Sakha Republic, Russia

(the former Institute of History, Ethnography, and Archaeology). The meeting took place at Kayano’s house in Nibutani,

Hokkaido, followed by a tour of Kayano Shigeru’s Nibutani

Ainu Museum. Whereas one nation (the Ainu) is struggling to

keep their language and traditional culture under the pressure of

acculturation, the other (the Sakha, or Yakut) is vigorously

building economic and political grounds for its sovereignty

within the Russian Federation. I asked both leaders what would

be, in their view, the most critical factor for their nation’s future

in the next century. “To preserve our Ainu language” was

Kayano’s immediate response. “To keep our Presidency,”

answered Ivanov, meaning the current Sakha political system

with its elected President and the level of self-government. Let

us hope that both prospects will be sustained.

Kani (Crab) by Bikky Sunazawa
ASC Newsletter 5

AINU EXHIBITION

CLOSES

By William Fitzhugh

After eight months

on view in the special

exhibition gallery at NMNH

Ainu: Spirit of a Northern

People closed in early January

2000. During this period Ainu

was one of the more popular

exhibitions on the Mall, and it

received several hundreds of

thousands of visitors. One of

the members of the

Smithsonian Council described it as the finest and

most important Smithsonian show in recent years and Secretary

Small singled it out as his favorite at the time. A full review is

soon to be published in the American Anthropologist.

Unfortunately, our plan to tour the show in North

America fell through when the prospective venues that had

expressed interest in hosting the show declined at the last

minute, citing the prospects of box-office losses for a show

whose themes were directed primarily at adult audiences.

Although the reconstructed chise (Ainu house) and iyomante

(bear ceremony) were popular with both adults and children, the

major themes – history, culture, and contemporary art – were

serious in nature. Indeed, Chisato and David Dubreuil and I,

and our many collaborators, designed the exhibition to provide

North Americans with an appreciation of a culture that had

drifted very near extinction but that recently has found a means,

through art, spiritualism, ethnicity, and political action, of

resusitation. The exhibition and book document the history and

development of Ainu culture over hundreds of years into the

modern era, and show how Ainu culture had fought for survival

against frightful odds.

Even though the exhibit cannot travel in its entirety,

arrangements are being made for the chise and iyomante

reconstructions and props to travel to other museums where

they will become the backdrop for other Ainu exhibitions,

perhaps including one in Tasmania. We will also be preparing a

major website featuring highlights of the exhibition.

Chisato and David Dubreuil spent several weeks in

Japan during April and May returning archaeological materials,

contemporary artworks, and archival documents to institutions

and individuals who loaned material to the show. Many of these

individuals and other Japanese saw the show in Washington and

commented on its beauty and the importance of having it

produced in North America. While they were sorry it could not

tour in North America or Japan, they felt the exhibition had

broken new ground and would have a major impact on the

appreciation of Ainu culture and on future exhibitions of Ainu

culture and art in Japan. In Japan such shows have never

effectively bridged the historical-contemporary divide, due to an

unfortunate feature of Japanese museum organization and

funding structures: historical

museums do not display contemporary art, and vice-versa, and most

Japanese Ainu scholars also do not

cross this divide. Hopefully the

voices of the Ainu themselves will be

heard more strongly in future cultural

presentations in Japan. In addition to

Nippon Foundation, we thank The

Japan Foundation, Nippon

Express, All Nippon Airways, the

Agency for Cultural Affairs

(Bunka-cho), the Ainu Cultural

Research Center, the Asian

Cultural Council New York City,

The Japan-United States Friendship Commission, and the many

lending museums and their curators, and other institutions,

organizations, and individuals who assisted this project. Above

all, thanks to Chisato and David Dubreuil, without whose

dedication and sacrifices neither the exhibition nor catalogue

could have been done.

ASC PROJECT MANAGER FOR LOOKING BOTH WAYS

By Aron Crowell

ASC Anchorage is moving ahead rapidly with

production of its traveling exhibition Looking Both Ways:

Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People, set to open at

NMNH in June, 2001, and bolstered by the dynamic energy of

Project Manager Shirley Mae Springe- Staten. Ms. Staten,

who joined the staff in December, coordinates ASC’s work with

many partners and contributors to the Looking Both Ways

project, including the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, elders and

advisors in Alutiiq communities, the National Museum of

Natural History, the Smithsonian’s Office of Exhibits Central,

and the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. She brings a

wide range of international experience in cross-cultural projects,

community service, and coordination of public programs in

education and the arts.

Among her credits is

service as Cultural Events

Coordinator for the

United Nations International Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995.

Ms. Staten’s professional

scope is a broad one, and

includes the stage - she is

a noted singer, actress,

storyteller, and workshop

presenter on the Alaskan

and national scene. Our

appreciation for her fine

work on Looking Both

Ways!

An Ainu funeral (NAA 98-10405) parallels our sadness at the

closing of the exhibit.

Shirley Mae SpringerStaten
ASC Newsletter 6

NEWS FROM THE ANCHORAGE OFFICE

By Aron Crowell

Plans to enlarge the Anchorage Museum and make it a

home for Smithsonian collections moved forward this year.

ASC submitted proposals to the Rasmuson Foundation in

Anchorage and to the Smithsonian Institution’s CollectionsBased Research Fund, requesting support to bring Alaska

Native consultants to Washington, D.C. The consultants,

including elders, artists, and educators, would help to select and

interpret cultural objects to be sent to Anchorage on long-term

loans from the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)

and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). A

total of 1000 or more pieces will be selected from the two

museums. Both the Anchorage Museum and NMAI will be

major partners in planning and implementating the project. One

outcome will be an educational web site with information about

the objects selected, including 3-D rotatable images and video

commentaries by Alaska Native consultants.

In Anchorage, the city’s Historical and Fine Arts

Commission held hearings to ask for public comments about

plans to double the size of the Anchorage Museum and to

include new galleries for Smithsonian exhibitions. Public

support was overwhelmingly positive. The Anchorage

Museum’s current funding target of $90 million is already

riding high on a $50 million gift from Elmer Rasmuson, who

with his wife Louise recently recieved the American Association of Museums’s Distinguished Medal for Philanthropy for the

year 2000. Federal funding will also be part of the mix, with

several million dollars already received through an appropriation to the Smithsonian.

Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the

Alutiiq People, a traveling exhibition developed by ASC’s

Anchorage office, is on track for its June, 2001 opening at

NMNH. Project manager Shirley Mae Springer Staten joined

the Anchorage staff in December, with a rich background in

education, public programs, community service, and the arts.

At NMNH, Assistant Chair Dan Rogers, Collections Manager

Deborah Hull-Walski, Conservator Catherine Magee, and

Registrar Deborah Wood have been ably

handling loans and materials for the

exhibit. The Smithsonian’s Office of

Exhibits Central (OEC) is building

Looking Both Ways under the direction of

Rick Pelasara. Tina Lynch at OEC has

created a great design, and Rosemary

Regan is editing the exhibit script.

On the research side, work

continues on partnered studies with the

National Park Service on the archaeology

of the Gulf of Alaska region. The work is

highly relevant to current scientific

concerns and debate over global climate

change and dramatic “regime shifts” in the

North Pacific food chain, and a major NSF

proposal is in preparation to examine impacts on human coastal

inhabitants. University of Alaska intern Melia Busch spent the

semester at ASC-Anchorage compiling a region-wide catalog of

archeao-faunal collections that reflect changing human food

gathering strategies along the southern Alaskan coast.

Sonja Luehrmann, who spent two fellowships at

ASC-Anchorage to gather information from Russian sources on

the ethnohistory and demography of the Alutiiq region, finished

her Master of Arts thesis at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe

University in Franfurt. Her thesis is entitled “Alutiiq Villages

Under Russian and U. S. Rule.” Former Looking Both Ways

intern Shauna Lukin graduated from UAA this May with a BA

degree in History. Congratulations to both, and many thanks

for the fine work!

ANNUAL ARCUS MEETING FOCUSES ON GLOBAL

CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN IMPACTS

By Aron Crowell

The Arctic Studies Center represents the Smithsonian

Institution as a member of the Arctic Research Consortium of

the United States (ARCUS), a non-profit association of 39

American and international universities concerned with arctic

research and science education. ASC’s participation in ARCUS

has focused on bringing data from anthropology and archaeology into the long-term picture of circumpolar ecology. This

year’s meeting on May 16-19 in Washington, DC examined the

impacts of global warming on the Arctic. The interplay of

atmospheric and ocean circulation leads to “arctic amplification” – the special sensitivity of high latitude regions to even

minor changes in global temperature. New data discussed at the

conference document thinning of the polar ice cap by as much

as 40% over the past three decades. Large changes in the total

system can occur because one effect builds on another. For

example, a shrinking ice cap means that less solar energy is

reflected by white ice and more is absorbed by dark water,

accelerating the warming of the Arctic Ocean.

Caleb Pungowiyi, Native affairs advisor to the Marine

Mammal Commission, discussed the effects of warming from

the perspective of Alaska Native

observers in Bering Sea communities.

Declines in walrus, changing patterns of

whale migration, shrinking caribou

herds, and shifts in the breeding ranges

of seabirds have been noted. ASC

archaeological research presented at the

conference by Aron Crowell documented human adjustments to climate

change in the Gulf of Alaska, including

colder temperatures of the Little Ice Age

(1200-1900 AD). Overall, northern

marine food webs appear to fluctuate far

more rapidly than once assumed,

placing a premium on flexibility in

human adaptations.

A S C A N C H O R A G E

Male caribou in the Labrador tundra
ASC Newsletter 7

MANY HANDS MAKE SHORT WORK

Exhibit Workshop in Anchorage

By Aron Crowell

In January, ASC and the Anchorage Museum of

History and Art co-hosted an exciting exhibit-making workshop

for tribal museums with funding from the Alaska State Council

on the Arts. At the workshop, Yup’ik elder and whaling captain

Roger Silook of St. Lawrence Island stood before a rapt

audience of 40 Alaskan artists and museum

staff. Mr. Silook talked about the beautifully

carved objects of walrus ivory that he held,

including human figurines, whaling harpoons, and ceremonial hunting amulets.

Many were almost 2000 years old, from the

island’s Old Bering Sea culture. Mr. Silook

explained the uses of the objects and talked

about spiritual links between Yup’ik people

and the animals that sustain their lives. His

own ancestors were walrus-people, Silook

said, including his grandfather who traveled

south with the animals on their migrations

each year.

Roger Silook and two well-known

ivory artists, his daughter Susie Silook and

Gambell carver Walton Irrigoo, were guest

curators at the workshop. This project was

designed as a training

session to assist small

museums and Alaska

Native cultural centers in

developing communitybased exhibits. The event

was part of the Alaska

Governor’s Conference for

the Arts 2000. Robert Fri,

Director of the NMNH,

visited the workshop to see

the exhibit process in action,

and to talk with participants

about the needs and

priorities of tribal museums

in the state. The project was

covered by National Native

News for countrywide radio

broadcast.

During the course

of an exciting day, participants worked together on all steps of

developing the exhibit, from conception and writing to design,

production, and installation. Aron Crowell, ASC’s Alaska

Director, developed the workshop concept and facilitated the

morning’s interpretive discussions with the guest curators. In

the afternoon, the group divided into teams to work with Dave

Nicholls, Janelle Matz, and Allan Shayer of the Anchorage

Museum staff to typeset labels, design the exhibit case, and

mount the objects.

Cultural perspectives of the Yup’ik curators guided the

collaborative effort. The curators explained that the carvings

express spiritual connections with walrus, bowhead whales,

polar bears, and other animals who give themselves to hunters

for the survival of the people, and that the designs are symbols

of respect for all things in nature. These relationships are part

of today’s subsistence lifeway, just as they were 2000 years

ago. Mr. Silook described how a bowhead whale comes to

hunters, consciously seeking its death. In reference to an

engraved bucket handle

from the Old Bering Sea

period, Mr. Silook

explained that a whaling

captain’s wife still pours

fresh water from a

bucket over a killed

whale’s mouth to

quench its thirst. Pails

were also traditionally

used to bring food to the

crew of a successful

boat: “When they got to

the shore, the boat

captain’s wife came with

a little pail. She walked

out in a fancy rain

suit...When she got to

the shore, the harpooner

threw his harpoon between her legs. Then

they all ate a little bit from that pail, and

the ceremony was over.” Examining a

hunting amulet, Mr. Silook remembered

other traditions of respect for polar bears.

When a bear was killed, its soul was

honored in a three-day ceremony. The

bear’s paws and head were arranged on the

ground to represent the animal’s body. A

pouch of tobacco was placed near the head

of a male bear, while a female was

adorned with beads.

Contemporary ivory artists live and

work within this spiritual tradition. Susie

Silook said, “What I do is a sign of respect

for my culture.” She added, “To be able to

get in front of people and talk about my artwork in relation to the Old Bering Sea culture is challenging. These opportunities give

me a chance for cross-cultural education.” Mr. Irrigoo told about

learning how to carve from his father, and reflected that the type

of finely detailed engraving seen on Old Bering Sea carvings is

very difficult to achieve, even with electric tools.

The completed display, entitled “Sakwat (Objects) ”

included examples of both ancient ivory art and new works by

the guest artists. It was presented at the opening reception for

the Governor’s Conference and was shown at the Anchorage

Museum through April.

Participants discuss exhibit design ideas in the collections

department, AMHA. Photograph by Harry M.Walker.

Judith Hoersting and Francine Hopson-Rochon work on

mounting a Punuk period ivory carving from St. Lawrence

Island for display. Photograph by Harry M. Walker.
ASC Newsletter 8

PARKA PROJECT CELEBRATED IN KODIAK

By Aron Crowell

In October, the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, Alaska

unveiled a beautiful ground squirrel skin parka that was created

by contemporary skin sewers Susan Malutin and Grace

Harrod. The garment is sewn from rows of tanned ground

squirrel pelts and accented with white ermine, caribou, and

mink fur. The tassels adorning the garment are made of dyed

skin, sea otter fur, and red trade cloth with ermine puffs.

The new parka is a precise replica of an Alutiiq man’s

parka purchased at the village of Ugashik on the Alaska

Peninsula in 1883 by Smithsonian collector William J. Fisher.

It is now part of the Alaskan ethnological collection of the

National Museum of Natural History. Malutin and Harrod

traveled to Washington, D.C. in 1996 to study the parka as part

of a University of Alaska/Arctic Studies Center field trip for

Alaskan artists and museum studies students. They carefully

photographed and measured

the parka and discussed its

construction with ASC staff.

Archival and ethnohistoric

research on the garment had

already been completed by

ASC as part of the upcoming

exhibition, Looking Both

Ways: Heritage and Identity of

the Alutiiq People, and each of

the many types of fur had been

identified by microscopic hair

analysis.

All of this information proved useful in the

project, but the artists also took

a more intuitive approach to

their work. As they sewed

they thought about the original

artist, a young woman of the

last century. “Here we are in a

nice warm kitchen with lights.

What did she have? Did her

fingers get cold?” they wondered. They noted that every

possible square inch of the squirrel furs had been used, whereas

contemporary skin sewers are often more wasteful. The project

took four years of work, from purchasing the furs and other

materials through the long process of dyeing, stretching,

preparing, and sewing the skins with sinew thread. The work

took place in Susan Malutin’s kitchen in Kodiak, with financial

support from the Alaska State Museums Grants-In-Aid program.

Dozens of volunteers assisted, and the women concluded that

the original artist must also have had extensive help from family

and community.

The parka is on exhibit at the Alutiiq Museum in

Kodiak and will be included in Looking Both Ways, when it

opens in Washington, D.C. in June 2001 prior to an Alaska and

Seattle tour.

ASSISTING THE SIMON PANEAK MUSEUM

By Grant Spearman and Vera Weber

Recently the Simon Paneak Memorial Museum made a

request through Aron Crowell at the ASC in Anchorage for

assistance from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

The Paneak Museum, located in the Nunamiut Inupiat village of

Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska, is a small local history and ethnographic museum operated by the North Slope Borough, and is

dedicated to preserving the history, culture and traditions of the

Nunamiut people of the north central Brooks Range.

Drawing upon information from their oral history

research and artifact documentation programs, the museum staff

is currently involved in developing a wide array of educational

materials for classroom use in North Slope schools. One of the

units nearing completion concerns traditional household

cooking utensils and cooking methods.

Based upon ethnographic interviews done with village

elders, the household utensils unit describes the materials, manufacture, and use

of traditional wood, stone, antler and other

food preparation implements which predate the introduction of metal and ceramic

wares in the late 19th century. Because

such implements are now very rare and are

usually found only in large museums,

Smithsonian personnel were asked if they

could provide illustrations and dimensional

information about similar types of implements collected in Barrow in the 1880s by

John Murdoch, so they could be incorporated into the artifact descriptions.

Aron passed the request along to

Dan Odess who, with assistance from

ASC graduate intern Karen Kramer and

the Collections Management Division’s

Dave Rosenthal, measured the objects and

provided descriptions of how they were

manufactured, information that is not

available in Murdoch’s report.

Once the Paneak staff had

researched and written the basic content of the unit, it passed

the information along to a team drawn from the North Slope

Borough Inupiaq History Language and Culture Commission, the North Slope Borough School District and Ilisagvik

College, who will develop curricula aimed at meeting both State

of Alaska standards as well as the ‘Alaska Standards for

Culturally Responsive Schools’ and the North Slope Borough

School District Inupiaq Standards.

On behalf of the museum, the community of

Anaktuvuk, and the organizations involved in the development

and refinement of the these educational materials, we would

like to express our appreciation to the staff at the Arctic Studies

Center in Anchorage and the Smithsonian Institution in

Washington, D.C. for their enthusiastic response and support of

our requests.

Alutiiq squirrel parka finished and on display
ASC Newsletter 9

RECAPTURED HERITAGE: HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE OF BERINGIAN YUPIK COMMUNITIES

By Igor Krupnik

The Beringian (Siberian-St. Lawrence Island)

Yupik Heritage Project, a two-year ASC research, publication, and outreach initiative, is coming to its final stages (see

ASC Newsletter No.7). The project stems from an NSF grant

and it is directed by a team of four that includes Igor

Krupnik, the ASC ethnologist; Willis Walunga, Yupik

elder and a respected local historian from Gambell, St.

Lawrence Island; Vera Kingeekuk Metcalf, originally from

Savoonga, St. Lawrence Island, and presently the heritage

coordinator at the Bering Strait Foundation in Nome; and

Lyudmila Ainana, Siberian Yupik educator and political

leader from Provideniia, Russia. The goal of the project is to

recapture valuable historical resources related to the Yupik

communities, ‘re-package’ it for local users, and make it

available to the residents of the Bering Strait area for educational, heritage, and other programs.

During late 1999 and early 2000, more people joined

the team and more historical documentary records, notes, maps,

and old photographs related to the St. Lawrence Island Yupik

people were recovered. Lars Krutak, currently on the NMAI

repatriation staff, conducted extensive surveys in the Henry B.

Collins, Aleš Hrdli...ka, Riley D. Moore, and other collections

at the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian

Institution in Washington, D.C. He also surveyed the Otto

Geist, Dorothea Leighton, Froelich G. Rainey, and St.

Lawrence Island Teacher/ Missionary Journal collections at

the Elmer Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks,

which stores the largest file of historical photographs and

anthropologists’ field notes from St. Lawrence Island. As

expected, many spectacular materials have been recovered. We

are extremely grateful to our predecessors who usually made

outstanding field records, although only a small portion were

ever used by or known to later anthropologists and native

Alaskans.

The fascinating story of Riley D. Moore’s collection,

now stored at the National Anthropological Archives at the

Smithsonian, is a good example. Moore was sent to St.

Lawrence Island in summer of 1912 by the Smithsonian

physical anthropologist, Dr. Aleš Hrdli...ka, “...[i]n the joint

interest of the Smithsonian Institution and the Panama-California Exposition.” He spent four full months on the island (from

July 1st, to October 31st, 1912), primarily making body measurements and other physical observations. Eleven years later (!),

Moore published much of theethnographic data he collected

during this trip in a large article, “Social Life of the Eskimo of

St. Lawrence Island” (American Anthropologist, 1923, 25(3):

339-375). Among other things, Moore was the first to mention

the existence of several patrilineal clans among the people of St.

Lawrence Island and to provide the first list of historical clan

names.

While surveying Moore’s

collection at the NAA, Lars

Krutak came across Moore’s

original anthropological forms for

individual body measurements

and a few old photographs of

Gambell made in 1912. Several

more of Moore’s photographs

were found in the Aleš Hrdli...ka

collection, including over 50

individual photographs taken as a

part of the physical anthropological program. These old photographs were copied and mailed to

Gambell, where Willis Walunga engaged several local elders in

an enjoyable process of identifying ‘our people of the old

times.’ As it turned out, Moore had taken measurements of

some 180 local residents (out of the then-island population of

292), and had recorded their names and estimated age. A young

local man named Paul Silook, then 19-years old, worked as

Moore’s interpreter. This was the beginning of Silook’s

outstanding career as a local historian, educator, and a longterm collaborator to several anthropologists who later worked

on St. Lawrence Island in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s including Henry B. Collins, Otto Geist, James A. Ford, Alexander and

Dorothea Leighton, among others.

Using St. Lawrence Island genealogies built through

the project, Igor Krupnik matched the people measured by

Moore as well as their names and ages that were evidently

recorded by Silook in families and clans. He also checked and

added people who were missed by Moore (but who were

definitely present on the island during his visit as based upon

the 14th U.S. Census of 1920). The result is a reconstructed

village census of 1912, the second-earliest list of almost 300

residents of St. Lawrence Island, with their Yupik names and

clan organization, and even with their most likely residencies on

the island. This data was then scrupulously checked by Willis

Walunga. This is an entirely new kind of record and a new type

of knowledge created by processing the old knowledge through

cooperative research.

Another piece of the unknown Moore legacy is his

two-page article, “Note on St. Lawrence Island: Eskimo

Measurements of Implements” (American Anthropologist, 1928,

30(2): 349-50). For anthropologists, it was mostly of passing

interest to know how Yupik people once used every possible

dimension of their bodies as measuring devices (like arrows that

used to be of one arm length, from the shoulder to the thumb

end) – instead of standard inches, yards, fathoms, and feet. For

the St. Lawrence Island Yupik people, to the contrary, this is an

invaluable record of their fathers’ and mothers’ knowledge and

practical skills in building skin boats, making hunting tools and

weapons, cutting skins for boots and fur clothing. Nancy

Walunga from Gambell has re-read Moore’s paper and she

produced drawings of measurement techniques listed by Moore.

R E S E A R C H

Asunaghaq, Gambell elder

Photo by R. Moore, 1912
ASC Newsletter 10

These and many

other old documentary records

and historical photographs by

early anthropologists as well as

stories recorded from the

Yupik elders of today will now

be assembled together as a

sourcebook in St. Lawrence

Yupik heritage and history,

under preparation by the

project team. This 350-page

volume is titled Sivuqam

Igaqulghhet: Our Words Put

on Paper. It has five sections:

Our Faces and Names Caught in Records; Our ‘Old Day’

Stories Documented; How Other People Saw Us From the

Outside; Yupik People Speak for Themselves: Stories and

Writings of Our Father; and Old Papers, Today’s Elders:

Matching Memoirs and Written Records. The volume will be

heavily illustrated with numerous historical photographs, maps,

and copies of the original historical records and old census

sheets. The printed sourcebook and a CD-formatted version

will be presented to the two Yupik communities on St.

Lawrence Island and in Nome at the termination of the project

in late 2000.

Another contribution is a collection of Siberian Yupik

elders’ stories from Igor Krupnik’s field notes (see p. 12). In

addition, two historical electronic name databases have been

created in course of processing old documentary records and

elders’ interviews: one for the Yupik residents of St. Lawrence

Island (ca. 1,400 names) and another for the Siberian Yupik

people of the nearby Provideniia District on the Chukchi

Peninsula, Russia (ca. 1,500 names). Project computer consultants, Yuri Rodny, from Mill Valley, CA and Robert Metcalf,

from Nome, AK helped to make these extended electronic files

operational for local users. The St. Lawrence Island database

includes all people listed in historical records and island village

censuses between 1900 and 1980. The Chukotka database lists

people known from genealogies, elders’ stories, and written

records between the years 1850 and 1941. These databases

represent the most complete listings of both the Siberian and St.

Lawrence Island Yupik population ever collected. The Siberian

name database verified by Lyudmila Ainana is in Cyrillic Yupik

and in Russian (with parallel name spelling in Roman-based St.

Lawrence Yupik introduced by Willis Walunga); so that it can

be installed in Russia for use at local schools and cultural/

heritage programs.

The databases are now organized as two operational

ACCESS files, with several specific task options (queries)

available for potential users. For example, one can access

information on every clan’s and lineage’s list of personal names

as well as clan population numbers for any particular period or

through the available record. Names of former and present-day

boat captains are accessible in the database as well as the data

on inter-clan marriages, on migrations of people between

Gambell and Savoonga, etc. Lists of individual relatives and of

one’s clan and lineage members can also be produced using

personal ID numbers recorded in the database. A similar set of

operations will be possible with both St. Lawrence and Russian

Siberian Yupik databases.

In February 2000, Igor Krupnik and Vera Metcalf

chaired a small workshop in Nome, to share major project

outcomes and current activities. A one-day training session was

offered to those people from St. Lawrence Island who may be

interested in using the completed historical name database.

Two Yupik students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks,

Jonella Larson from Nome and Chris Koonooka from

Gambell, are currently working on research projects based upon

the census data, name database, and genealogies collected by

the Beringian Yupik project team. Both Yupik students are

exploring their clan histories by matching historical documentary data and interviews with elders from their extended

families.

The culmination for the Beringian Yupik Heritage

Project will come later this year when the results of the twoyear effort and all project materials – the sourcebook, the name

database files, copies of all historical photographs and records –

are to be presented at public meetings in Gambell and

Savoonga. As the project comes to a close, the team members,

elders and other local participants reflect on the learning

experience. As Willis Walunga reports from Gambell,

“...working with those historical photographs really makes our

elders happy. People are asking whether more “old pictures”

will come from the Smithsonian.”

As intended, the Beringian Yupik Heritage Project is

already building bridges of trust and cooperation. This project

pioneers the path to knowledge repatriation, that is, to open

historical documentary records and anthropologists’ data

resources to native communities. It has made a significant

impact on local views about the role of anthropological and

social research, and the relationships between native communities and large scientific institutions, like the Smithsonian and

the NSF. Discussions are currently under way on whether a

similar effort in knowledge repatriation may be launched for

other native Alaskan groups in 2001.We believe this is an

invaluable contribution to the public welfare and to the dignity

and self-image of native communities that were considered

“without any valuable written history” just a few decades ago.

Willis and Nancy Walunga interview Flora Nemayaq, Asunaghuq’s great

niece, Savoonga 1999

Walunga’s drawing for Moore’s paper
ASC Newsletter 11

INDIGENOUS MANAGEMENT OF RESOURCES

By Nobuhiro Kishigami

Having conducted field studies on social organization

and social change in Canadian Inuit villages for 15 years, I was

delighted when research at the National Museum of Ethnology

(NME) underwent reorganization in 1998 and formed a new

Department of Advanced Studies in Anthropology. Established

to instigate new projects on important topics in current anthropology, a key focus is indigenous management and use of

renewable resources.

The primary objective of cultural ecology is exploring

how human groups exploit and utilize resources and the

relationships between the human activities and socio-cultural

arrangements. After the end of WWII, Arctic and Pacific

indigenous groups had severe conflicts with foreign states’

over-exploitation and self-determined ownership of marine

resources. In this contemporary climate, applied

research is increasingly

necessary. Existing

differences of econopolitical power among the

human groups has resulted

in overt differentiation of

resource accessibility and

use. In most cases, indigenous peoples suffered the

disadvantages of limited

access. Furthermore,

corporate development has

exhausted resources on

which local people depend

and often has destroyed local environments.

The current project investigates indigenous exploitation, distribution, and management of marine resources in the

Arctic and Pacific regions. We are also gathering information

on indigenous ecological knowledge, co-management, consumption, trading, ownership, harvesting regulations, and

environmental conservation of resources.

The author is conducting research on hunter support

and its impacts on Nunavik Inuit society, focusing on harvesting, use, distribution and management of beluga whale and

arctic char in Eastern Canada. Masami Iwasaki-Goodman

(Hokkai Gakuen University) is investigating native harvesting,

use and management systems of salmon in Northwest Coast of

Canada. Minoru Oshima (Otaru University of Commerce) is

carrying out field research on native harvesting, use and

management systems of salmon on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

For the purpose of comparison, three scholars in the tropical

Pacific are included: Tomoya Akimichi (NME) explores

indigenous harvesting and management of sea turtle in Indonesia; Daisuke Takekawa (Kitakyushu University) engages in

ecological research on harvesting, use and management of

dolphin resources in Solomon islands; and Hiroyuki

Matsumoto (Osaka University of Education) investigates

dugong resources in Torres Strait.

ZHOKOV AND NEW SIBERIAN ISLANDS EXPEDITION

By Dan Odess

Plans are well underway for Bill Fitzhugh and Dan

Odess to participate in an international research program

organized by Vladimir Pitul’ko and funded by the Rock

Foundation on islands in the Laptev Sea June - August.

Together with botanist Steven

Young, Director of the Center for

Northern Studies and ASC Board

Member, Steven Cox, also of

CNS, and Ted Carpenter and

Adelaide de Menil, they will work

with Pitul’ko and Russian colleagues to study the natural and

cultural history of the region. The

bulk of this summer’s efforts will

be devoted to excavating at

Zhokov Island and surveying other

islands in the New Siberian chain.

The Zhokov site is located

at 76 degrees north latitude and is

one of the most significant early

sites ever discovered in the Arctic. It has remained frozen

almost from the day it was abandoned 8,000 years ago and

preserves a variety of stone, wood, bone, antler and ivory tools

and weapons, as well as the bones left from Mesolithic meals.

In this regard it is similar to Qeqertasussuk, the exceptional

frozen Saqqaq site excavated several years ago in Disko Bay,

Greenland – except that it is 4,000 years older. Excavation and

study of this material will provide insight into the perishable

side of the Siberian Mesolithic society and its toolkit – information that has heretofore been left largely to the realm of

informed speculation. Other analyses will be directed at

illuminating the diet and economy of the site’s inhabitants,

thought to be based on hunting reindeer and polar bears, and on

determining the relationship between these people in

westernmost Beringia and those who lived in Alaska and the

rest of Siberia at roughly the same time.

In addition to working on archaeological questions,

team members will collect botanical samples from the island,

useful for reconstructing past environments and climates from

the site’s well-preserved deposits. By integrating this data with

information gathered from ocean cores taken in the adjacent

Laptev Sea by Russian and German researchers over the past

few years, we expect to make significant strides in filling the

void in global paleoclimate reconstruction.

Walruses coming ashore in Chukotka. Photo by A. Slapins.

Several times a year we will meet to discuss our

findings with other research members including Henry Stewart

(Shouwa University), Komei Hosokawa (Saga University), Jun

Akamine (National Museum of Ethnology), Keiichi Omura

(Osaka University) and Kazufumi Nagatsu (Kyoto University).

We plan to publish the results in a volumeof Senri Research

Reports and organize an international symposium on indigenous

use and management of marine resources at NME in 2002-3.

Kishigami e-mail: inuit@idc.minpaku.ac.jp
ASC Newsletter 12

SOJOURN IN JAPAN: SIBERIAN YUPIK STORIES

By Igor Krupnik

ASC’s Ainu connection took a peculiar twist when

Igor Krupnik spent three months at Hokkaido University in

Sapporo in AugustNovember 1999 as an

International Scholar at the

Slavic Research Center

(SRC). The SRC is the

leading Japanese research

institution in North Eurasia/

Russia/Eastern European

studies. Each year the

center’s 12 scientists host

between five to eight longterm international visitors

on research and writing

scholarships.

During this

period, work was completed on “Let Our Elders

Speak: Oral Stories of the

Siberian Yupik People of

Chukotka, 1975-1987.”

This was mainly a writing

venture based on transcripts of some 400 oral stories that were

recorded from over 70 elders in several Yupik communities in

Russia. Those stories were based on written interviews and

field notes created over twenty-five years ago. In the meantime,

most of the elders had passed away, so that their knowledge and

voices were preserved in my fieldnotes only. During a threemonth period, the old interviews were re-typed and processed

into a 500-page volume of oral stories. It has 30 thematic

chapters organized in four major sections: The Old Villages;

The Sea and the Tundra; Kinsmen and Neighbors; and Our

Yupik Knowledge. The stories covered the time roughly from

the 1880s until the 1940s. They describe traditional activities,

traditional rituals, cultural practices and stories about powerful

shamans and other leaders of the past. This may be the largest

corpus of Siberian Yupik ethnography documented as narratives

of people recalling stories and memories of their lifetime.

The volume will be published in Russian later this

year. Most of the books will be donated to the Siberian Yupik

communities in Chukotka and local schools. This project is part

of a larger effort in ‘knowledge repatriation’ under the NSFsponsored project focused on the related ‘Beringian’ Yupik

communities of St. Lawrence Island and Siberia.

We are extremely grateful to the Hokkaido University

and the Slavic Research Center, its then-Director, Dr. Inoue

Koichi for hosting this venture to the great benefit of the native

Siberian people.

Anther important component of my sojourn in Japan

was building connections with Japanese scholars who work in

circumpolar anthropological research. Japanese anthropologists

and linguists working in Siberia like Yoshida Atsushi (Gydan Aringaawen from Avan (1900-1985)

Ipi from Chaplino (1914-1993)

Peninsula), Sasaki Shiro (Primor’ie), Ikeda Tohru, Saito

Shinji, Takakura Hirok, and Yamashita Munehisa (Yakutia),

Ikeya Kazunobu and Kurebito Tokusu (Chukotka), Oshima

Minoru, Watanabe Yutaka, and Ono Chikako (Kamchatka),

Inoue Koichi (Sakhalin, Yakutia, Trans-Baikal area), and others

face the problem which is familiar to Russian colleagues: the

language barrier. This is worse for the Japanese as very few

foreign scholars read Japanese script(s), whereas many Western

anthropologists can fumble through Cyrillic, with the aid of a

dictionary. Unless papers are translated into other language(s)

or have extended summaries with translated titles, they are

blocked out of mainstream northern research. Chester Chard

created Arctic Anthropology in the early 1960s to link the two

knowledge bodies with strong Japanese, Russian and Korean

translation.

Japanese northern scholars also attempt to bridge the

gap through international projects, publications, and meetings.

The annual international symposium held at the Hokkaido

Museum of Northern Peoples at Abashiri, Hokkaido is one of

the best known venues for northern research. Each symposium

brings 6-8 speakers; half Japanese and the other half invited

guests from other countries. The proceedings are published as

bilingual volumes, half-English and half-Japanese, with

extended English summaries. Bill Fitzhugh and Igor Krupnik

both attended earlier meetings in Abashiri; the last symposium

in October coincided by Igor’s fellowship, who participated as a

guest commentator. This symposium entitled Ainu and

Northern Peoples: With Special Reference to Subsistence

Strategy contained three invited guests were from Russia:

Anatoly Startsev (from the Institute of History, Archaeology,

and Ethnology in Vladivostok), Vladimir Nutayulgin (Director

of the Koryak Regional Museum in Palana, Kamchatka), and

Evdokiya Sadovnikova (Itelmen Cultural Program, Kovran

High School, Village of Kovran, Kamchatka). Two of the three

invited Russian speakers are native cultural workers and all

three are currently working as research partners in long-term

projects with their Japanese counterparts. The proceedings of

this meeting will be

published shortly.

The Jesup-2

project still has minimal

Japanese participation.

One issue discussed with

the Japanese anthropologists during the Abashiri

meeting was whether

they could build up a

Japanese ‘portion’ of the

Jesup-2 program before

2002. There are many

options, including a joint

volume or hosting a

future Jesup-2 symposium. We are waiting to

hear what our Japanese

colleagues may offer.
ASC Newsletter 13

F I E L D W O R K A N D C O N F E R E N C E S

COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY AT ADLAVIK

HARBOR, CENTRAL LABRADOR

By Stephen Loring and Leah Rosenmeier (Robert S. Peabody

Museum of Archaeology and Brown University)

 A joint initiative by the Smithsonian Institution and

the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology in Andover,

Massachusetts, in collaboration with the community of

Makkovik (including the Jens Erhardt School and the Makkovik

Historical Society) was launched during the summer of 1999.

From its inception, the project was designed specifically as a

community archaeology project whose avowed goals include

working with the community to develop a program on archaeology in the local school curriculum; providing training and

employment opportunities; identifying archaeological and

historical resources in the vicinity of the community and to

advance the heritage appreciation and awareness of tourism

opportunities; and fostering pride in Labrador culture and

heritage.

The goals of the

1999 fieldwork included

determining the

community’s interest in

supporting a cooperative

archaeological program

associated with the J.C.

Erhardt school, and

assessing the viability of

a site at Adlavik Harbor,

about 35 kms east of the

village. The 1999

fieldwork was conducted

under a research permit

issued by the Newfoundland-Labrador Division

of Culture, Tourism and

Recreation. It was

supported by the Arctic Studies Center, the Robert S.

Peabody Museum, Brown University, the community of

Makkovik, the Makkovik Historical Society and by a

generous grant from the Quebec-Labrador Foundation. The

student team from Makkovik – Bernie Andersen, Errol

Andersen, Tracy-Ann Evans, Amalia Fox and Lena Onalik –

proved to be exceptionally dedicated, hard-working and

imaginative.

 The remains of three large rectangular sod-wall

structures were discovered at Adlavik Harbor in 1987 during a

Smithsonian reconnaissance. Along with the famous site at

Eskimo Island in the Narrows of Hamilton Inlet, the Adlavik

Harbor site appears to be one of the southernmost Eskimo

settlements in Labrador. Research here is expected to contribute tremendously to an understanding of Labrador Eskimo

culture history. The size of these structures suggested that they

are the remains of Inuit communal houses dating to sometime in

the late-17th or early-18th century, a time when Inuit groups in

Labrador were coalescing around prominent native leaders. It

was a time of tremendous social change as Inuit families sought

prestige and power through increased interaction with Europeans, interaction that ran the spectrum from trading to warfare to

outright murder.

We hoped the 1999 field work would enable us to

determine the rough chronology of the site and acquire information about the extent of cultural deposits and their preservation

at the site so that we would be able to determine how an

archaeology program for high school students could be planned

and developed. Fieldwork was conducted between August

fourteenth and the twenty-second.

The sod-house structures at Adlavik Harbor are

nestled beneath a high bedrock knoll that hides the site from

view by travelers working their way along the Labrador coast.

We suspect that this defensive attribute of the site’s situation is

not fortuitous, but reflects the pervasive climate of social unrest,

a consequence of the incessant internecine raiding and trading

that characterized 17-18th

century relations between

the Inuit and the expanding

European presence along the

south and central Labrador

coasts.

Test units were

placed in the interior of

House-1 and House-2 with

more or less similar results.

They demonstrated that the

structures were both

exceptionally well-preserved

and undisturbed, with

features including paved

floors, sleeping platforms,

lamp stands, storage alcoves,

etc., which upon completion

of excavations would present

striking and dramatic examples of 18th century Labrador Inuit

winter dwelling.

A two-meter long test-excavation unit was placed in

the midden in front of House-1, just beyond the beginning of

the entrance passage. The loamy organic midden soil proved to

be almost 40cm deep and full of refuse bone and wood demonstrating the presence of an intact stratified deposit with exceptional preservation.

The midden contains a promising array of artifactual

remains from both domestic and subsistence contexts, indicative

of both traditional Inuit tools and technologies (especially

harpoon technology and fragments of soapstone kettles) and

new tool forms (harpoons made of iron, European iron pots) and

raw materials (iron nails, spikes, bolts and scrap). A few

European ceramic sherds were recovered including grey

stonewares and delft-ware. Preliminary analysis supports the

interpretation that the site was occupied sometime between ca.

AD 1680 and 1750.

Makkovik student archaeologists (left to right) Tracy-Ann Evans, Amalia Fox,

Lena Onalik. Errol Andersen and Bernie Andersen join project co-directors

Leah Rosenmeier and Stephen Loring on Southern Island near Makkovik.
ASC Newsletter 14

While middens are usually interpreted as areas of

refuse accumulation, their proximity to houses means that

certain activities including wood cutting, animal butchery, tool

manufacture, maintenance of dog teams and storage facilities

must have occurred on or in close vicinity to the midden. Just

one example of these sorts of activities is indicated by the large

whale vertebra that was found that had been used as an anvil in

the production of tools and for splitting wood. A test-pit in the

entrance passage for House-2 produced not only iron scrap and

many nails and rivets but also the neck and upper portion of a

large green glass bottle of late 17th century English style. The

bottle fragments may attest to Inuit interests in glass as a raw

material or perhaps in the wine contents. The glass may be the

remains of scavenged objects found at European sites, or a

bottle that washed ashore to the astonishment of the Inuit--as

attested to in a delightful story recorded by Junius Bird

(Archaeology of the Hopedale Region, 1945:163).

In this original (1934) pre-play of the Gods Must Be

Crazy, Bird’s Inuit assistant Heinrich Ursak, commenting on

similar bottle fragments recovered from the Hopedale sodhouses, recounted a song he knew about the discovery of the

first glass bottle ever seen by an Inuk! This is a remarkable

example of the tenacity of oral history since the event, according to Mr. Ursak, had happened prior to the arrival of the

Moravians at Hopedale in 1781. The story even included the

fact that the bottle was round-bottomed and would not stand

upright, a description that fits what we know about many 18th

century bottles like the one recovered at Adlavik.

The general paucity of European manufactured

products at Adlavik Harbor – with the significant exception of

iron (iron nails, spikes, bolts and scrap) – suggests that the

assemblage of European objects and materials was derived from

Inuit raids or scavenging expeditions to southern Labrador. The

site location itself implies both a need to monitor the coming

and going of groups (Inuit and Europeans alike) along the

central coast and, perhaps, fear of retaliation, given its hidden,

defensive position.

However exciting the archaeology and the history of

Labrador’s indigenous Indian and Inuit populations are, much

of the results of this research are unknown to Labrador communities. Until recently few First Nations individuals have been

involved in more than a cursory fashion in archaeological

projects addressing their own history. The primary goal of our

project is to address this problem and to make archaeology an

intimate feature of coastal Labrador communities. We believe

that the project will contribute significantly to an awareness of

the deep historical roots of the community and serve as a source

of local pride for young people and a model for projects in other

Labrador communities.

Both the Arctic Studies Center and the Robert S.

Peabody Museum for Archaeology believe that communitybased research is the future of archaeology in Labrador. The

project is committed to careful exploration and development of

Labrador’s heritage resources and to making opportunities

available to young people from Labrador communities. The

future of the past in Labrador belongs to Labradorians. Our

research seeks to develop new ways to involve students,

community members and political leadership in the production

of Labrador history.

Evidence of our success is noted in comments from

the student evaluations:

When I found out that I was going on this trip, I was very happy

for many reasons. One was to learn about the way the Inuit

lived and to go back to the place where I fished with my uncle

who passed away, so it was good to be back there and to see

what archaeology is like. – Errol Andersen

Overall this was one of the most boring, but most interesting

things I have ever been on. I have learned a lot about the past

life of my ancestors and how important archaeology really is.

– Tracy-Ann Evans

As I sit here and collect my thoughts of the past week, I realize

I’ve learned so much about the way our ancestors lived and it

makes me feel proud that I could learn more about our culture

from this expedition.

– Lena Onalik

Lena Onalik, Leah Rosenmeier and Amalia Fox with their testexcavation unit in the midden in front of House-1 at Adlavik Harbor site.

Adlavik Harbor site (GgBq-1) is situated near the center of the peninsula

on Southern Island near Makkovik, central coast of Labrador.
ASC Newsletter 15

Spring in Gambell, Alaska

SCIENTISTS AND INUIT EXCHANGE OBSERVATIONS

ON ARCTIC CLIMATE AND SEA ICE CHANGE

By Igor Krupnik

Everybody knows that arctic climate is changing.

There are many signs of dramatic shifts in the arctic environment, which are quite visible across northern marine and

terrestrial ecosystems alike. Some indicators of change, such as

the more northern position of the arctic pack and drift ice

boundaries, rising air and water temperatures, thawing of the

permafrost layer and thinning of sea ice, earlier growing

seasons, and the northern advance of trees and bushes on land

have been well-documented by recent research. Others, such as

shifts in migration patterns of key marine mammal species,

changes in sea ice characteristics, and greater frequency of

winds and storms have long been pointed out by residents of

arctic communities.

It is quite popular these days to talk about “linking”

indigenous and scientific knowledge. Unlike scientists, hunters

are not bound in their observations by “project time” or to any

salaried research period. They test arctic weather, brave the sea,

and go on the ice almost every day, year after year. They have

detailed terminology for dozens of local environmental conditions, such as the famous “300 Eskimo words” for various types

of snow. They are also very keen to preserve their memories

and observations, to listen to elders’ stories, and to share their

experiences with other hunters. This body of knowledge has

been praised highly by many anthropologists and natural

scientists for years; recently it has been widely publicized as

one of the most powerful tools for documenting global environmental change.

Most of the recent efforts, however, commonly look

for some magic bullet of environmental expertise that is stored

(or even “locked”) in native tradition. Reportedly, it can be

opened if and when one matches the “300 Eskimo words for

snow” with “hard science” collected by scientists. There have

been several recent attempts to enlist the observations and

knowledge of northern residents to track modern changes in the

arctic environment. A few efforts have been quite successful,

while many more have not.

 With these considerations in mind, and with a desire

to bring together scientists and indigenous experts to discuss

issues related to global warming, the Marine Mammal

Commission (MMC) organized a workshop on “Impacts of

Changes in Sea Ice and Other Environmental Parameters in the

Arctic.” The workshop was held on February 15-17 in

Girdwood, Alaska, and brought together some 50 arctic

scholars, staff people from research and environmental protection agencies, and native experts, including Inuit hunters from

several Alaskan communities. The workshop was sponsored by

the MMC, the North Pacific Marine Research Initiative, the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),

and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Participants were chosen to provide a balance between scientists and

indigenous experts from various scientific disciplines researching arctic environmental change, and along sections of the

North Alaskan coastline, from Nunivak Island to Barrow. The

ratio of scientific and indigenous experts was almost 50:50, and

it represented a broad spectrum of northern communities. The

list included communities of Mekoryuk, Unalakleet, Gambell,

Savoonga, Elim, Nome, Deering, Kotzebue, Kivalina, and

Barrow in Alaska, and Inuvik, in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Individuals from Greenland as well as from Diomede,

Emmonak, Stebbins, and Shishmaref in Alaska were invited but

could not make it to the workshop.

The idea of a special climate workshop aimed at

bringing together scientific and indigenous experts was

originally proposed by Caleb Pungowiyi, the MMC Special

Advisor on Native Affairs. John Reynolds, the MMC Chairman, opened the three-day session that was efficiently organized by Robert Mattlin from the MMC staff in Washington,

D.C. and Henry Huntington, from Eagle River, Alaska. An

extensive background report was produced in advance under the

editorship of Henry Huntington, with important chapters

contributed by Gunter Weller and Alan Springer from the

University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Lloyd Lowry from Alaska

Department of Fish and Game, Jackie Grebmeier, University

of Tennessee, Kenneth Dunton, University of Texas, and Caleb

Pungowiyi from Kotzebue.

ASC’s and general social sciences’ contribution was

presented by Igor Krupnik, who also contributed a chapter,

Humans in the Bering Strait Region: Responses to Environmental Change and Implications for Future to the background

report. In addition, Krupnik documented many individual

stories from native experts about their observations of sea ice

Provideniia, Chukotka, Russia. Photo by A. Slapins
ASC Newsletter 16

change. Those interviews and other contributions were later

summarized in a special section, Native Perspectives on Climate

and Sea-Ice Change, which will appear in the workshop’s final

report. Another summary perspective was offered by George

Noongwook, an experienced Yupik hunter from the village of

Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island.

It is almost trivial these days to talk about the “barriers” and “hurdles” in matching native or local knowledge with

data collected by the scientific community. The obstacles most

commonly listed arise from the presumption (which more often

than not remains untested and never fully examined) that

traditional knowledge is intuitive, holistic, qualitative, and

orally transmitted, whereas academic or scientific knowledge is

primarily analytical, compartmentalized, quantitative, and

literate. While there is some truth to these differences, both

scientists and native experts can effectively operate with both

types of knowledge, as was demonstrated by many of the

presentations given at the Girdwood workshop.

It is not a different

nature but rather a different focus

that keeps scientific and local

knowledge looking in different

directions. Modern scientific

studies of environmental change

are unmistakably time-focused, in

that scholars are primarily looking

for well-documented series or

samples of otherwise uniformly

organized data (like annual or

seasonal temperatures, ice charts,

satellite photos, ice core samples,

etc.). This focus allows scientists

to operate with both the average

and the extreme characteristics of

the environment that are easily

and thoroughly positioned in time and which are regarded as

“statistically reliable.” Thus, most of the scientific studies of

climate change are openly designed to expand the timing and

reliability of the data they use; the very nature of the data may

be of secondary importance.

Local knowledge, on the other hand, is first and

foremost detail-focused in that it prizes specific and very

detailed information about the characteristics of the environment observed, including changes in climate and ice. There is

no issue of statistical reliability, and every personal observation

is considered sound and equal, as long as it relates to the

environment which is familiar to the given observer. The age of

the observer is probably the closest equivalent of the scientific

concept of “reliability,” as changes reported by elders are

always considered more valid than those observed by younger

people. And there is hardly an issue of precise timing. Local

knowledge documents the many possible facets of environmental changes as well as truly exceptional phenomena; but in most

reported cases it is not focused on absolute dating or on any

mechanism of precise timing similar to the beach-ridge chronology developed by geologists and archaeologists. That is why

for many scientists local knowledge contains too much data that

are very hard to organize properly in a standardized time series.

Therefore, in order to be compatible, both types of

knowledge must be substantially modified to accommodate

each other’s specifics in the same way that the data from social

and natural (physical) sciences have to undergo certain accommodations to be used in any interdisciplinary or joint research.

One can also see from the statements of many native participants that local hunters are far more advanced in mastering the

terms, data, and approaches developed by scholars than vice

versa. Unlike native experts, scientists learn through “projects”

and they respond to new challenges by “research programs.”

Therefore, the only way academic science can become more

open to the accommodation of native knowledge is by developing a special research program on how to do this.

This approach differs from the many previous studies

that argued instead for the incorporation of traditional knowledge into scientific research. Rather, it is scientific knowledge

about recent climate change in the Arctic that has to become

detailed and specific. From

abstract global models, it has

to be projected down to the

regional and even to the

individual village level in

order to interact productively

with the expertise and

observations of change shared

across local communities. For

local knowledge, on the other

hand, a timing mechanism has

to be created in order to make

native observations of past

and present events compatible

with the records kept by

academic scholars. This

complicated enterprise, an equivalent to a “beach-ridge

chronology,” has to be built for each local community, based

upon its particular history, available documentary records, and

memories shared by elderly experts.

With regard to the more specific suggestions, it is

recommended that a more developed framework should be

created for documenting systematic environmental observations

by residents of Alaskan native communities. Records might

include factors that are significant from the local perspective,

such as the dates of first snow cover and snow melt; ice

thickness; die-offs or strandings of marine mammals, fish, and

sea birds; body condition of harvested game species; and others.

Such a system requires adequate funding for local observers as

participants in research or climate-monitoring projects.

To accomplish these and other goals, much joint

research as well as intense mutual interaction and knowledge/

data sharing is required. This future long-term effort should be

focused first and foremost on charting the way for mutual

adjustment of the two types of knowledge on Arctic climate

change, which would be the most significant legacy of the

Girdwood sea ice workshop of 2000.

Siberian Yupik hunter. Photo by A. Slapins
ASC Newsletter 17

C O L L E C T I O N S

EXPLORING THE NATION’S ATTIC

The ASC is committed to making the Smithsonian=s vast

holdings of ethnographic and archaeological materials

accessible to northern native peoples. Native American

internships and Community Scholar grants, administered by the

Office of Fellowships and Grants, provide a means by which

Native Alaskans and Canadian First Nations peoples can come

to Washington to pursue their special interests. Alaskan Native

scholars, educators and artisans are encouraged to contact

Stephen Loring (telephone 202.357-4842, fax 202.357-2684) to

help gain access to the Smithsonian collections.

DAVID J. ULROAN’S SMITHSONIAN VISIT,

February 14-26, 2000

By David J. Ulroan, Community Scholar Award Recipient.

Hello, my name is David J. Ulroan from Chevak,

Alaska. Chevak is located on the north bank of the Ninglikfak

River, seventeen miles east of Hooper Bay in the YukonKuskokwim Delta, not far from the shores of the Bering Sea.

The closest town of any size is Bethel which is about 120 miles

away.

Anyway, I went to Washington D.C. to do some

research at the Smithsonian Institution with the Yukon collections and artifacts that were gathered a long time ago. I had

received a two week Community Scholar Award to work there

in Washington with a new friend, Stephen Loring.

Coming all the way to DC was a tough challenge for

me to travel that far all by myself, especially if you are from a

small village and love subsistence hunting. It was a long ride

from Anchorage, Alaska all the way to St. Paul/ Minneapolis. It

was such a long flight that my heart started to pound because I

was worried that the plane was lost. Finally the flight attendant

told us that we were going to land in about 15 minutes. Then I

felt a whole lot better. Going all the way to St. Paul/ Minneapolis was tough because it is a HUGE airport. When I went inside

the terminal I followed the people that were leaving the jet, I

just tailed them because I thought they knew where they were

going. They ended up going to the restroom! Then I followed

another man until he went into a different restroom, and that is

when I knew I was really lost! But all I did was ask one of the

employees for directions and it was kind of a piece of cake. I

made my connecting flight and survived all the way to DC,

where I arrived at 1:30 in the morning without cuts and bruises.

 There I saw Stephen Loring for the first time. He

was waiting for me. We drove to Maryland and I was able to

finally relax when I got to his home. In the morning the sun

was shining and there was hot tea and toast for breakfast. There

was no snow in Washington even though I had left behind a

wintry village in Alaska. It almost felt like summer, it made me

want to go out boating to hunt for animals. But that wasn=t

possible since they don=t hunt animals in Washington, D.C..

I was looking forward to seeing the collection of

Cupi=k artifacts from the Yukon-Kuskokwim region that are

cared for at the

Smithsonian. Actually

seeing the many old tools

was fascinating. For some

reason I was really into

looking at all the different

things my ancestors made.

It made my spirit full of

joy to see what our

ancestors made, to see and

carefully examine the old

tools. We spent hours

looking at the collections

in a building that had no windows, but I was never bored,

although when we finally did take a break and went outside to

see the sunlight it felt really great! My research enabled me to

work with artifacts and crafts that I had never seen before. It

was exciting to learn so many new things, what the tools were

used for and how they were made. The old tools were beautiful

and I had lots of ideas about how they were made and how they

were used, and I looked forward to trying them out when I got

back home. I learned something new every day!

For much of the time that we were looking at artifacts.

Stephen and I took turns filming each other while we talked

about the different tools, artifacts and masks. This was so the

people back home in Chevak could see what our ancestors made

a long time ago. There were lots of things we were uncertain

about, so we filmed them so that the elders back home could see

the things which they would know the use for.

I didn=t spend all my time with the collections. One

afternoon I went to the building at the Smithsonian where the

new exhibits are prepared. Bill Fitzhugh had asked me if I

would be a model for a new exhibit about the Vikings. They

wanted to have a display showing when the Eskimos first met

the Vikings and they needed to cast an Eskimo face to put on

their mannequin. So I popped up and had my face cast in latex.

My face will be traveling all over the United States for the next

two years as the exhibit goes from city to city. The best thing is

that the exhibits people said they would send me a cast of my

face! I am looking forward to that!

Another time I was interviewed with Stephen for a

film on research at the Smithsonian. That was quite an experience; it made me feel famous. There was a camera crew and a

sound man who held a microphone above us. I was a little

nervous, but they said we did excellently.

I wasn=t doing anything but work all the time I was

there. I did some other activities on my own which were fun

while in the city and you have the chance that not too many

people from an Alaskan village get. My biggest dream while in

Washington was to go to an NBA game, and that dream came

true! A friend of Stephen=s, Keith Ward, took me to see the

Phoenix Suns play the Washington Wizards. The best part was

seeing Michael Jordan sitting behind us!

I would like to thank the Smithsonian Institution for

giving me a chance to do research on the things made by my

David J. Ulroan holding a dance mask
ASC Newsletter 18

By Terry Halifax

The Arctic Studies Center hosted a visit by a distinguished

group of Gwich’in seamstresses and their colleagues who came

to study Gwich’in clothing in the NMNH collection after

visiting the collections at the CMC. The Smithsonian’s

collection is an exceptionally early one, acquired by Hudson’s

Bay Company factors Roderick MacFarlane and Bernard Ross

from the Mackenzie River District beginning about 1862. Terry

Halifax, a journalist with the Northern News Services in

Yellowknife, NT, gave us permission to reprint her account of

the Gwich’in visit, adapted and condensed.

Delegation to Research 100-year-old Gwich’in Clothing

Seven Northerners will travel south to learn about

northern fashion from times gone by. They are members of a

group researching early clothing of the Gwich’in people. After

travelling to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull,

Quebec, they will go to the Smithsonian Institution in

Washington, D.C.. They will study the century-old articles in

the two museums and use what they learn to duplicate clothing

for displays in the North, said Ingrid Kritsch research director

for the Gwich’in Social Cultural Institute in Tsiigehtchic.

Among the delegation will be three Gwich’in elders: Rosie

Firth, Rosie Stuart and Renie Martin, along with seamstress

Karen Wright-Fraser, filmmaker Dennis Allen, Prince of

Wales Heritage Centre curator Joanne Bird and the executive

director for the Gwich’in Cultural Institute, Alestine Andre.

“The women we are taking along with us are very well

known in the art of sewing,” Andre said. “Hopefully they will

also be able to provide us with some background information on

the clothing -- information that they’ve heard from their

grandparents or parents.”

The project will consist of three phases. The first

phase will be the trip to examine clothing and making a pattern.

The second will be the actual replication of clothing. Andre

said the third phase will be repatriation, which involves a 30-

minute documentary film of the process, a tour of schools and

finally public display of the replicas. It’s hoped that a set of

clothing will be on display at the Prince of Wales Northern

Heritage Centre in Yellowknife.

A stitch in time: Seamstress works to mend a culture.

Karen Wright-Fraser’s brother brought a book home

17 years ago that changed her life. The book, from the Canadian

Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec, featured the traditional

dress of the Gwich’in. “In all my life, I’d never seen a

Gwich’in dress and I got really choked up,” said Wright-Fraser,

a seamstress and designer. “I thought, Wow! How come I

never saw anything like this? I grew up in an alcoholic home in

Inuvik and I didn’t see many positive things about my culture,

tradition and whatnot. There’s other children out there who

need to see this – something so beautiful that came from their

ancestors, instead of always seeing negative stuff.”

Wright–Fraser started Whispering Willows three years

ago. The home-based Yellowknife company specializes in

wedding and graduation dresses with a flair for traditional

design. While her business keeps her busy, Wright–Fraser

developed a passion to restore this part of her people’s culture.

She wanted to make a copy of a dress she saw in the book, but

didn’t know where to begin. From her interest sprang the idea

for the trip to the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the

Smithsonian Institution to study traditional dress. The trip was

very informative for the delegation and sparked a new interest

in the art.

Matching the design and method continues to be a

learning process for Wright–Fraser who has had to do a lot of

detective work to recreate the age - old methods. While at the

Smithsonian and the CMC Wright–Fraser said they had a

difficult time determining exactly how the clothing was crafted.

“The patterns were so sophisticated that we could hardly figure

them out. It took us a whole day just to find out how they made

these fringes,” she said. She was also amazed with the primitive

tools her ancestors used to craft the clothing, such as a bone

awl. “I even held one at the Smithsonian – I was so thrilled,”

she said with a smile. “It was made out of a loon’s leg – very

sharp at the end and extremely pointy, and the sinew was

threaded through a hole in the joint.”

Ancient seamstresses used a thin, thread-like sinew for

beading in a cut unknown to Wright–Fraser. “I’ve never seen

anything like them. The sleeves come forward like this,” she

said, hunching her arms to illustrate the look. “It took us

another half a day just to figure out how they did that.”

Traditional Gwich’in dress required the seams and

joints to be anointed with the medicine power of red ochre – a

mineral that can be pounded and mixed with water for painting.

“I had to go to Rock River to get the red ochre. It’s a spiritual

place and I had to leave tobacco for an offering,” she said. The

process of recreating the clothing will take about two years and

will begin with a series of workshops in the Beaufort Delta with

people from Inuvik, Aklavik, Arctic Red River and Fort

McPherson participating in the project.

Starting with the hunt, the communities will learn the

process step by step. Older men will teach the young how to

hunt, skin and flesh the hide. Women will instruct on how to tan

the hide and make tools, followed by porcupine quill techniques. The women will instruct on how to make patterns, cut

and sew pieces. When the project is completed, the Gwich’in

hope to have a man’s summer outfit, a woman’s summer outfit,

ancestors, especially to Stephen and his wife Joan for their

hospitality.

When I made it back to Alaska, it was a whole

different climate. When I came back to my home town, I told

my friends, “Man it feels good to feel the cold once again.”

Then I got invited for a steam bath and that sure was satisfying!

I showed the video tapes we made at a presentation to

the high school students which attracted a lot of attention. The

students were really impressed. Once the word got out, then a

lot of people in the village wanted to see the video as well.

They were happy to see the old things; it was great! I am

showing the tape and asking questions. I=ll send you more

information when I get it.

Quayana Cakneq to everybody!

PATTERNS FROM THE PAST: GWICH’IN TOUR
ASC Newsletter 19

a young girl’s summer outfit and a young boy’s winter outfit.

While some have grumbled for repatriation of the

century-old items held in the museums, Wright–Fraser is

thankful to the southerners who have maintained these clothes.

“Some of our people will get all angry about it and say, ‘What

are they doing with our things?’ But I’m glad they have them –

if they didn’t we’d have nothing now.”

Following Faded Footprints:

a Search for Lost Culture

Along with WrightFraser on the fact-finding

mission to the Canadian

Museum of Civilization and

the Smithsonian Institution,

searching for a lost piece of

Gwich’in culture in the

collections, were the elders or

the “three Rs” as they became

known to the rest of the

group: Renie Martin of

Inuvik, Rosie Stuart and

Rosie Firth of Fort

McPherson.

Firth has been

invited twice to the CMC but

this was her first trip to the

Smithsonian. “It was really

great, and I couldn’t believe

what I was seeing,” said Firth,

70, who has been working

needle and thread since the

age of 12, doing embroidery, beading, mitts and moccasins the

whole works. “I’ve been at it every day except Sunday--that’s

my day of rest,” she said laughing. “All my girls do it too. I’m

passing my work on.”

Although she’s been sewing Gwich’in clothing for

nearly 60 years, Firth has never seen the work which is displayed at some museums. “I never, ever learned how to sew

quill work, but I think if I try, I could do it,” she said. “I had

seen it, but my parents never let me do it; my dad was really

against it.” The trip has left a lasting impression on the elder,

who is very excited to carry on to the next phase of the project.

Stuart, 70, is a Fort McPherson elder who has been

sewing since age 10. Stuart was amazed by the quality and

style of the clothing they saw on the trip. “The beading was

very nice and the beads were really tiny and the quill work was

nice too,” Stuart said. “It’s really a lot of big work especially

with those small beads.” Stuart said the Smithsonian gave the

women gloves to wear, but she couldn’t figure out why. The

clothes were so old, and they were kind of dirty. “They gave us

white gloves so that we would not get the clothing dirty, but it

was our gloves that were dirty by the time we got finished,” said

the elder laughing.

“What we saw down there made me think of my

ancestors and what they wore. We don’t see that anymore.

Everything was done by hand and the stitching was so very

small and neat, you could hardly see it,” said Renie Martin of

Inuvik. “I started when I was a little girl – when I was a tiny

tot, you might say. I used to sit around the table with my

mother and she’d cut out something for me and I’d try to do the

beadwork like her. It made me feel like these things belonged

to our ancestors, and I felt honored to be around all those things

I’d never seen before,” said Martin.

Anthropologist

Welcomes Gwitch’in

Stephen

Loring, museum

anthropologist with the

Arctic Studies Center at

the Smithsonian

Institution in Washington, D.C., enjoyed

meeting the Gwich’in

elders. “I think the

women were delighted

to see these materials

because they are not

that well-known,”

Loring said. “The

Smithsonian is starting

to see more and more

First Nations peoples

come to Washington to

share in the wealth of

the past. A decade ago

we might have seen one

native visitor for every

ten scientists. I would say that’s reversed now.”

The Gwich’in collections at the Smithsonian are quite

unique, Loring said, because of their early acquisition from

around the 1840s to the 1860s. “While the Smithsonian does

have more elaborate clothing from other groups in the collection, the Gwich’in clothing is for the most part just day-to-day

stuff,” Loring said. “It’s not a totem pole; it’s not a shaman’s

outfit; it’s just the clothes that ordinary people might have been

wearing. We wouldn’t think anything of throwing away an old

pair of blue jeans, so it was relatively easy to acquire these

things. Over time, they have been transformed from day-to-day

things into these treasures that have tremendous historical and

cultural significance just by the virtue of having survived this

long.” He said the Smithsonian’s collection also includes

Gwich’in cooking utensils, hunting paraphernalia, cradles,

moccasins and snowshoes.

Specific to the Gwich’in clothing in the Smithsonian

collection were articles with red ochre markings along the

seams which Loring thought might have had spiritual significance to the wearer. “There are a lot of markings made with

iron hematite red ochre,” Loring said. “These markings were

made on the joint places, like the ankles, knees and wrists.

There has been, in the past, a very intricate knowledge that dealt

with protection and spirit power that perhaps has been lost-- but

maybe not,” he pondered.

Karen Wright-Fraser discusses details of Gwich’in clothing with Rosie Firth, Rosie

Stuart and Renie Martin at the Museum Support Center.
ASC Newsletter 20

INTERNS

The ASC welcomes students completing degrees ranging from

bachelors, to masters, to PhD’s, and sometimes even

highschool students, whose research fields dove tail with our

own. If interested, please contact either Stephen Loring or Bill

Fitzhugh using the information on page 30.

HISTORY REMEMBERS HENRY WOOD ELLIOTT

By Lisa Morris

A doctoral candidate at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks,

she received a short-term visiting scientist award to conduct

archival research at the Smithsonian.

History remembers Henry Wood Elliott (1846-1930)

as an eccentric character who helped save the Alaska fur seals

from probable extinction, but he was also one of the first

American artists to work in Alaska as far north as Point

Barrow. His images of the Pribilof Island fur seals assisted the

public in visualizing an animal and a way of life that most

people had never seen. They sparked conservation sentiment

that led to the recognition of the fur seal as a valuable renewable resource that needed protection (Elliott 1976 [1881]).

The fur seals, however, were not the only subjects

Elliott painted. Alaska=s Native people and their activities

spurred his imagination. Elliott expressed his views on Alaska=s

Native people in his best-selling travel book, Our Arctic

Province. Like many late 19th century artists, Elliott stereotypes

his Native subjects, using them as picturesque features to draw

attention to often spectacular landscape scenery, and focuses

primarily on the activities and cultural settings of his subjects in

an attempt to record a vanishing lifestyle (Moore 1997;

Woodward 1993, 1998).

A collection of Elliott’s works at the Smithsonian

National Anthropological Archives amply illustrates his

handling of his Alaska Native subjects. MS 7119 includes

fourteen photographic enlargements of Elliott watercolors.

Elliott renders his Native figures as specific types;

within them his subjects generally look alike. For instance, in

an approach characteristic of the late-nineteenth century belief

in the validity of physical types, he describes his drawings of

the Tlingit Indian groups near Sitka in Our Arctic Province by

stating that all the various tribes share the same physical

characteristics. Indeed, everyone seems so much alike that

“...the margin of distinction up here between the ten or eleven

clans which ethnologists enumerate is so slight that only a

practised eye can declare them” (Elliott 1897[1886]:44). For

each Native group Elliott lists general features “all” the

members of that culture share.

“Fishing from Kayaks” (1872), an image of three

Aleut men halibut fishing, illustrates this type casting. All of

the fishermen share the same Mongolian-like facial characteristics and resemble one another so much that they could be

mistaken for triplets. What seems to have interested Elliott

most in this image is the action; he has a marked tendency to

pay scant attention to his figures and focus on their activity or

their cultural settings. Elliott also habitually places his figures

back in the middle distance with either their backs or sides to

the viewers. When these figures do face forward, they rarely

look directly at the viewer but have their eyes cast down, intent

on some activity. The halibut fishermen are a fine example.

This treatment of the human figure also allowed Elliott to

somewhat mask his lack of formal art training. Objects in the

middle distance do not require as much detail and by averting

his subjects’ faces, he neatly avoided having to deal with the

difficulty of drawing the human figure.

Elliott may not have paid much attention to the

individual in his work but he missed little else. In an attempt to

record the cultural life of Alaska’s Native people for posterity,

he lavished attention on his subjects’ subsistence lifestyle,

clothing, dwellings, and the tools needed for everyday living.

“Fishing from Kayaks, Captains Harbour” (1872) shows an

Aleutian man cod-fishing. The man has his back turned to the

viewer as he hauls in his catch and stores it in the front hatch of

his kayak. The kamleika or gut parka, the shape of the kayak,

the oar, the fish, and the rope are all beautifully rendered and

highly detailed. The Unalaska coastline with its steaming

volcano is also richly defined. The absence of figure-to-viewer

interaction and the spectacular setting combine to create a

timeless and almost spiritual quality.

Concentrating on everything but the figure, Elliott=s

Native persons seem to lose a portion of their humanity and

transform into exoticized landscape elements. Elliott believed

that nature formed an integral part of the Native=s physical and

spiritual being. As he explained:

...these savages were created for the wild surrounding

of their existence, expressly for it, and they live happily in it.

Change this order of their life, and at once they disappear, as

do the indigenous herbs and game before the cultivation of the

soil and the domestication of animals (Elliott 1897[1886]:42).

That Elliott seems to depict a world set apart from the

ordinary may be an unconscious reflection of his emotive state.

Prior to 1890 Elliott=s images of Alaska, especially the Pribilof

subjects have a Garden of Eden quality to them. Potentially

disturbing topics such as the seal harvest in “Natives Clubbing

and Skinning Seals” do not perturb the viewer. The men go

about their various tasks in a calm, still and almost luminous

atmosphere.

Henry Wood Elliott’s “Fishing from Kayaks” NAA
ASC Newsletter 21

The frequent use of “God=s light” in Elliott’s images

also suggests a landscape paradise. “Aleutians Striking

Humpback Whales: off Akootan (sic.) Island, Bering Sea”

depicts several Aleut hunters in double-hatched kayaks

pursuing a pod of humpback whales. At least two hunting

teams prepare to harpoon their quarry. As with the sealing

image the whale hunt is not a disturbing image. The sun sends

streamers benevolently down upon the sea and its occupants.

The Native people appear to be acting as props to draw more

attention to the landscape as in a timeless world.

In short, art often reveals more about the artist than it

does the subject. Henry Elliott could not escape the tenets,

thoughts, and morality of the Victorian culture in which he

lived. His images of the Native people of Alaska are rich in

ethnographic detail but also reveal his thoughts about these

cultures. As such, the images are important sources for learning

about our own culture’s development over time as well as the

Native lifestyles.

FINDING CONNECTIONS IN HEBRON, LABRADOR

By Beatrix Arendt

A graduate from Emory University, she conducted a one year

research internship with Stephen Loring.

In May 1999, I met Stephen Loring, and thus began

my relationship with the Moravian Missionaries and the Inuit

from Labrador. I would come to know the story of the Inuit and

their long-time visitors through cataloging artifacts and reading

German diaries of the missionaries. Having spent the previous

fall in Germany and recently graduated from Emory University,

I thought I was fluent and prepared. However there was a twist

– the diaries were written in an old Gothic German where one

could barely distinguish between s, h or f.

Ready for the challenge, I returned to Washington that

fall after having spent the summer working on an archaeological

excavation of the homes of African-Americans slaves at the

Hermitage in Nashville, TN. Dr. Loring welcomed me with box

loads of artifacts to measure, draw and catalog. I worked with

Laurie Burgiss daily at the Museum Support Center discussing

white-ware decoration, architectural objects and glass beads in

order to better understand the types of artifacts found in Hebron,

Labrador. With a primarily historic background, specializing in

African-American slave culture, I started learning a new

language of artifacts that included Ramah chert, bone sled

runners, and Dorset bifaces. There was more to the work than

cataloging. Dr. Loring gave me the opportunity to use my

German language skills to translate the Moravian’s trade lists,

diaries and letters that flowed back and forth across the Atlantic

Ocean. I was grateful for those summer months that I practiced

writing my German Gothic letters instead of studying for my

GREs, because my eyes started to recognize letters then words.

Before long, I was reading the diaries and trade lists easily. The

many days spent at MSC proved to be instrumental in understanding the Inuit situation at Hebron. A thesis emerged for a

paper! Dr. Loring and I asked questions about the Inuit’s

impression of these European Christian Crusaders. Until now,

Moravians portrayed much of the history, projecting a biased

view of the Inuit. Social relations were dictated through the

economics of trade. In the archaeological record European

influence could clearly be identified with porcelain and pocketwatches. Were the Inuit encompassing the new wooden houses,

hunting styles, and Christian holidays, or were they forced to

alter their own living to accommodate these visitors? What did

the Inuit verses the Moravians deem important, and how was

that presented in the archaeological evidence?

A paper discussing these questions was presented at

the Canadian Archaeology Association meetings this spring in

Ottawa. Dr. Loring and I formulated possible answers that

looked at the social and economic relationship of the Inuit and

Moravians. The presentation was a success and provided a

wonderful final setting for this intriguing saga of control and

manipulation in Hebron. I am off to work at Mount Vernon for

the summer and then down to North Carolina in the fall where I

will meet the Moravians again at an African-American site with

Leland Ferguson. Hopefully I will return to the D.C. area, but

until then...auf wiedersehen!

Henry Wood Elliott’s “Aleutians’s Striking Humpbacks..” NAA

A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

By Karen Kramer

I recently graduated from The George Washington University

with a Master’s degree in Anthropology. Part of my

coursework involved a semester-long internship, working under

Dan Odess in the Arctic Studies Center. When I first met with

him, I told him that my background is in Native American art,

and not stone tools, but that I prefer having too much to do, like

to work independently, and love coffee. I was in. The main

project I worked on was describing, inventorying, and packing

collections from Labrador in anticipation of their return to the

Newfoundland Provincial Museum. In the process, I learned

about the culture history of Labrador, lithic techonology

analysis, and also about collections management policies and

practices more generally. I encountered some problems that

exposed some real-world, long-term curation issues regarding

archaeological collections. For example, when looking for

artifacts from a specific site, you can’t count on the outside

label of a storage drawer to be correct! I therefore set about

updating the labels and inputting that information into a

database. In addition to the Labrador collections, I also

inventoried artifact photographs and measured ethnographic

objects that will be used in curriculum development by a

museum in Alaska (see page 8). My internship was a wellrounded and worthwhile experience that will definitely prove

useful in my future career.
ASC Newsletter 22

P U B L I C A T I O N S

VIKINGS CATALOGUE HITS THE BOOKSTANDS!

By Elisabeth Ward

Last year, the Arctic

Studies Center published its

first book, Ainu: Spirit of a

Northern People, without

the assistance of a commercial press. This year, we

found ourselves again in the

publication business with

Vikings: the North Atlantic

Saga this time with the

constant support of the SI

Press to produce it on time.

Their assistance, especially

that of Caroline Newman,

coupled with a distribution

agreement with the

Smithsonian Contributing

Membership Program, allowed us a large print run. So far, the

efforts of the SI Press to sell the book have gone extremely well

and we are having to run a reprint! If you would like to order a

copy, please call 1-800-782-4612.

This success is due in part to the tremendous talent of

Leticia O’Connor and Dana Levy of Perpetua Press, who also

produced Ainu. Their team of editors worked tirelessly to

transform the 35chapters into a readable and informative

volume. Dana’s design incorporated into those 424 pages over

500 color illustrations, including numerous maps, B&W

drawings, and charts. The efforts of Carl Hansen’s photographic services team, of artist Marcia Bakry, and of Sarah

Ganiere in photo acquisition, brought home the illustrative

‘bacon’. Dan Odess was a constant resource for map research

and drafting captions relating to Native American archaeology.

The catalogue is organized into six sections: Viking

Homelands; Viking Raiders in Europe; Vikings in the North

Atlantic; Viking America; Norse Greenland; and Viking

Legacy. Each section begins with a short introductory essay,

followed by more in-depth essays. Authors include scholars

from disciplines such as history, archeaology, literature,

environmental science, cultural anthropology, and physical

anthropology. Like the exhibit, the book traces the Vikings

from their Scandinavian homelands, into Europe, across the

North Atlantic, and to the shores of North America. This

geographic spread is coupled with a chronological span of over

1000 years, starting with the historic routes of the Vikings in the

7th century to the modern day impacts the Vikings have had on

popular culture and local environments of the North Atlantic.

This breadth of treatment is not unique for Viking

publications, but ours is the first to set the western expansion on

equal footing with Viking raids in Europe. Since that western

migration shaped life in the North Atlantic, and led to the first

contact between Europeans and Native Americans, this focus is

long overdue!

AINU: SPIRIT OF A NORTHERN PEOPLE

STILL AVAILABLE!

By Sarah Ganiere

Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People describes and

illustrates the Ainu people=s rich cultural heritage. Japanese,

Ainu and Western authors unite to create the first comprehensive English-language edition celebrating both the contemporary expression of Ainu ethnicity and the experiences of the

Ainu past, providing both a historical and modern view of this

vibrant culture. This beautifully-illustrated book features

discussions of Ainu origin theories, museum collections,

spiritual links, contemporary art, political adversities, modern

renewal, and the Ainu future.

We are hoping the book will interest art-, social-, and

cultural- historians; anthropologists; linguists; private collectors

and all those who appreciate historical, object, and modern photography. The in-depth discussion of Ainu struggles through history should resonate with students of northern cultural studies.

The editors are William Fitzhugh, and Chisato

Dubreuil, an art history doctoral candidate at the University of

British Columbia who centers her studies on Ainu and Northwest Coast contemporary art, specializing on the works of

Bikky Sunazawa. Chisato was also the co-curator for the Ainu

exhibition, which was developed along with the catalogue.

Published in 1999 by the Arctic Studies Center in

association with University of Washington Press; the final

product of the ASC’s multi-year Ainu project consists of 415

pages; 897 illustrations (419 in full color) including historical

and modern photographs of Ainu, object photography, Japanese

Ainu-e paintings, maps, and modern Ainu art. With the

cancellation of the exhibition tour, this book is the only product

remaining to extend the message of the Ainu culture, though a

website is in the works.

The paperback is available from the Arctic Studies

Center for $49.95 and the hardback and paperback is available

from the University

Washington Press. All

proceeds from books

purchased through the

ASC benefit its publication series on northern

cultures.

To order

books: Arctic Studies

Center, NHB-307 MRC

112, Smithsonian

Institution Washington,

D.C. 20560-0112. Fax

inquires or institutional

purchase orders to:

202.357.2684. Make

checks payable to:

Arctic Studies Center,

Smithsonian Institution.
ASC Newsletter 23

A REVIEW OF ESSAYS ON KHANTY TRADITIONAL

LAND USE AND HISTORY (Materials to Atlas)

[Ocherki istorii traditsionnogo zemlepol’zovaniia khantov

(Materialy k atlasu)]

By Igor Krupnik

Many Western northern anthropologists may miss out

on this excellent 200-page paperback volume filled with

contemporary and important information on Khanty land use

practices and historical-cultural ecology of the Khanty area.

Essays on Khanty Traditional Land Use and History has been

published in Russian in Ekaterinburg by one of the small private

presses, Thesis. Because of that the book will probably not

make it to major international library catalogs. It has no cover

title editor and no English summary. The larger Khanty Atlas it

advances is not available yet, and may never be fully published,

a victim of the lack of academic funds which is so typical for

present-day Russian science.

Despite all these factors, this is a valuable collection

and its readers will be fully rewarded with many

pleasant surprises behind the black and white cover

displaying the image of a traditional Khanty village.

The collection reports the results of a long-term

anthropological research , The Khanty Traditional

Land Use Atlas Project, funded by the MacArthur

Foundation and also supported by the World Bank,

the Russian State Committee of the North, and the

local government of the Surgut District. It has a

mixed team of contributors: archaeologists from the

Ekaterinburg Institute of History and Archaeology,

ethnologists from the Ekaterinburg University,

American anthropologist Andrew Wiget from the

New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, and

his wife, Russian ethnologist Olga Balalaeva. In fact,

it was Wiget and Balalaeva who masterminded the

whole Atlas project and the Essays collection, for

which Wiget also wrote an introduction and the

largest contribution, which was translated by

Balalaeva. The Khanty Atlas effort itself grew out of an earlier

project ran by Wiget and Balalaeva, Sacred Trust, that was

aimed at developing an understanding of Khanty sacred places

necessary for planning for their preservation.

For these and many other reasons the materials for

Atlas presented in the Essays volume are worth exploring. The

study region, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area is located in

Western Siberia, to the south of a former ASC field project,

Living Yamal in 1994-1997 (ASC Newsletters, Nos. 4,5,6 and

7). This is the Russian “Kuwait,” the area that for decades

provided the bulk of Russian oil and gas output and one that

supplied the core of the all-important flow of hard currency to

the Russian economy. It is hard to find any other area across the

Russian North that suffered as much damage from industrial

expansion, oil development, and destruction of traditional

subsistence patterns of its local population. This same area,

nevertheless, is currently pioneering some of the most interesting projects and legislative initiatives on behalf of the local

people and their cultural heritage.

The Essays collection is made of five individual

contributions. The first two are solid overviews of the available

knowledge and published records on local archaeology (“Ancient History of the Surgut Portion of the Ob River Basin” by

archaeologists Yuri Chemiakin and Konstantin Karacharov),

and on the colonial and Soviet-era history of the Khanty people

(“The Khanty Within the Russian State”, by ethnologist Elena

Glavatskaya). The third contribution by linguist Tatyana

Dmitrieva, “Structure and Semantics of the Khanty Place

Names” offers an extremely detailed typology of traditional

place names across the vast Khanty area, with several hundred

local examples and illustrations. It is last section of Dmitrieva’s

paper that alters the volume from a handbook-overview to an

exploratory and inspirational journey. Its title, “The Sacred

Sites of the Khanty People of the Kazym River” piques the

readers interest for the upcoming chapter. This piece offers a

map and a list of some 90 sacred sites divided into four

categories: kin-group ritual sites with ritual objects and places

for sacrificial offerings; former ritual sites; present-day sacrificial places with minimal offerings;

and non-ritual sites with symbolic

and/or mythological significance for

the Khanty people. Nothing of this

kind and level of detail has been

produced in the decades of Russian

northern research nor does anything

comparable exist for areas elsewhere

in the North.

There are even more

surprises in the next paper by Olga

Balalaeva, “Sacred Sites of the

Khanty People of the Middle and

Lower Ob River.” This study lists and

maps some 70 more ‘sacred sites’ for

three areas in the Middle Ob River

Basin: along the Yugan, the Tromyugan, and the Pim and Lyamin

Rivers. Balalaeva offers a far more

detailed typology of traditional ‘sacred sites,’ particularly of

those she names ‘natural sacred sites’ following the UNESCO

definition. This designation refers to rivers, lakes, hills,

streams, standing rocks, and other natural objects that have

sacred and/or ritual value to local native people. Again, this is a

pioneer study and one with a very broad value for research in

documenting northern ‘ethnographic landscapes’ that goes far

beyond the Khanty area and Siberia, in general.

Andrew Wiget authors the last paper “Economy

and Traditional Land Use of the Eastern Khanty,” a classical

subsistence-budget study and the most detailed analysis of

the transitions under the pressure of acculturation and oil

industry ever done for native communities across Siberia.

This chapter covers subsistence strategies and annual

budgets of six individual Khanty families or family groups:

those of boreal forest reindeer herders, mixed herders-trappersfishermen, successful commercial trappers, and marginalized

trappers on the verge of economic breakdown who move to
ASC Newsletter 24

town. All statistical data as well as maps and subsistence

budget tables were based upon Wiget’s field research during

1992-97. Wiget’s study also relied heavily upon field methods

familiar in North America but unusual in Russia (such as

ethnohistorical contextualization, GIS mapping, etc.) and so his

models and perspectives on native cultures and subsistence

activities are new to Russian ethnography. In contrast to the

many generalized and government-sponsored observations that

support the official claims of the need for “progress” (that is,

regular employment and sedentarization) for the Khanty people,

the extensive, in-depth field research represented in this study

suggests that traditional subsistence economy continues to

provide an economically viable, even rich, way of life in some

areas still relatively unaffected by oil development (like the

Upper Pim and Yugan Rivers).

The last section of Wiget’s paper has a darkly

symbolic title, “The Black Snow: Oil and the Eastern Khanty

People.” It reinforces the conclusions of an earlier World Bank

environmental assessment study and Wiget’s own field

observations. There are dozens of publications full of dread and

apocalyptic scenarios for the native Siberian people. But there is

hardly any other study so compelling in its proof of the ruinous

impact of industrial expansion and environmental pollution on

native traditions. It is tough and sorrowful reading: the Siberian

snow seething with oil becomes Wiget’s symbol of the ultimate

threat of destruction that the unlimited and unmitigated

industrial development brings to the Khanty community and its

age-long boreal forest subsistence and culture. As Wiget hopes,

there are still policy options on all sides. Whereas some Khanty

communities are being destroyed (especially on Trom-Yugan

and Agan Rivers), others are still quite capable of successfully

negotiating a passage to a new, viable cultural formation.

Nothing though will be delivered for free by a ‘benign hand’ of

the oil industry, in Siberia or elsewhere. I wish more people will

read this section, in Russian as well as in English – the sooner

the better, as public awareness is the best

vehicle to any speedy action.

THE LABRADORIANS APPEARS IN CANADA AND

AMAZON.COM

Lynne

Fitzhugh’s book, The

Labradorians: Voices

from the Land of Cain,

was published by

Breakwater Books, Ltd.

in St. John’s Newfoundland, in December, 1999.

The book has been a

great hit in Labrador and

Newfoundland, and since

its appearance Lynne has

had many positive

comments and radio

interviews. The jacket

copy explains, “Labrador

is one of North America’s best-kept secrets and last uncorrupted

wilderness areas, a land until recently hidden from the modern

world...This is the story of the people who settled there,

Aboriginal and European...the story-tellers are the Labradorians

themselves, and they are masters of the craft...the author has

woven these [tales] into profiles of Labrador’s dominant mixedrace communities and their seminal components – the Innu,

Inuit, and European Settler peoples whose first New World

encounters took place on the shores of Labrador a millennium

ago.” The many stories presented have been exerpted and

edited from the famous Labrador journal, Them Days, founded

in 1975 and published since then by Doris Saunders of Goose

Bay, Labrador. Copies may be obtained from Amazon.com or

from the publisher for $39.00 (US$30.00), 100 Water Street, St.

John’s, Newfoundland, Canada A1C 6E6. Currently Lynne is

working on a new book, an historical novel set in 18th century

Labrador.

RAVEN’S SAGA:

AN ARCTIC ODYSSEY

After hearing about a fictional work one of our

Viking curators, Peter Schledermann, had

been working on, we were thrilled to see it

finally completed. The novel Raven’s Saga:

an Arctic Odyssey was just published by

Corvus Press, Suite 704, 2010 Ulster Rd.

N.W., Calgary, Alberta T2N 4C2 (phone 403-

220-4008; fax 403-282-4609; email

schleder@ucalgary.ca). The story was inspired

by a site in northern Ellesmere where Peter has

excavated Norse objects in a Thule village.

Peter weaves a compelling story of the

Norsemen who left these objects behind

during a daring voyage farther north than any

Norsemen had gone. Price: Can. $15, US $12

plus postage and handling.

JUST RELEASED!

Yamal Antiquities (v. 1) has

just been received in the the mail from

Editor-In-Chief, Andrei Golovnov.

Published this year by the Institute of

History and Archaeology and the

Ethnographic Bureau, this wonderful

volume of 247 pages (in Russian with

English summaries) holds a wealth of

new information on recent ethnographic

and archaeological studies of the Yamal.

Princeton University Press has

just released a new book by Marjorie

Mandelstam Balzer titled The Tenacity

of Ethnicity: a Siberian Saga in Global

Perspective.($19.95, PUP c/o California/

Princeton Fulfillment Services, 1445

Lower Ferry Road, Ewing, N.J. 08618.)
ASC Newsletter 25

B E R G Y B I T S

Opening Week Excitement!

Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, the highlight millennium

exhibition for the Natural History Museum, opened on April

29th, 2000 with a burst of memorable events. The first was a

Nordic press preview on Wednesday night, and then one

with all the trimmings Thursday morning, April 27th. In

attendance were Prince Joachim of Denmark, Crown

Princess Victoria of Sweden, King Harald V and Queen

Sonja of Norway, President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland,

and newly elected President Tarja Halonen of Finland.

We were extremely honored to have so many heads of state

present. Speakers at the press conference included King

Harald representing the five Nordic Countries, Elsebeth

Garner Nielsen, Cultural Minister of Denmark, speaking on

behalf of the Nordic Council of Ministers, Leif Johansson,

CEO of the Volvo Group, speaking for Volvo, our main

corporate sponsor, Robert Fri of NMNH, and newly

appointed Smitsonian Secretary, Lawrence Small. Among

all these official statements, Bill

Fitzhugh also managed to say a

few words about the content of the

exhibition. Following the press

conference Secretary Small hosted

a special lunch.

That evening, more than

800 gathered for a “black tie” gala

reception hosted by the Natural

History Museum, Volvo and the

Nordic Council of Ministers. This

event was a smashing success, with

an ice sculpture of a Viking ship,

simulated snow fall, greeters

decked out in Viking costume, and

a “Viking camp” — all organized

NMNH’s Diana Brinkman and Tina Karl. Other than

being a bit crowded, everyone enjoyed themselves. The

exhibition was declared

opened following an enthusiastic aquavit toast and

“skoal” led by King Harald V

and the summoning of Viking

spirits with a blast from Odd

Lund’s huge birchbark horn!

After the Museum reception,

many left for other parties

throughout Washington.

Those who exited promptly at

9pm received a complementary hard bound copy of the

exhibition catalogue from

Volvo, our main sponsor.

Those of us

on the curatorial side

had to restrain our

celebration as we had

a scholarly symposium to conduct

Friday and Saturday.

These proceedings

began with eloquent

introductions from

Icelandic Minister of

Culture and Education

Bjorn Bjarnason,

Elsebeth Gerner

Nielsen, and Queen

Sonja of Norway,

who officially opened

the symposium and introduced its most honored guest, Dr.

Helge Ingstad, the Norwegian explorer and writer who

discovered the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows.

He and his daughter, Benedicte

Ingstad, gave the first talk of the

day.

At noon on Friday, The

White House honored the Nordic

Heads of State, the exhibition

(which had been a key event in the

activities of the White House

Millennium Council), and its

organizers, the Smithsonian,and

sponsors with an elegant luncheon

hosted by President and Mrs.

Clinton. Both the President and

Mrs. Clinton and King Harold of

Norway spoke eloquently about

Viking achievements and of the

new recognition of Nordic contributions to America. Equally

memorable was the appearance for dessert at each table of a

fleet of huge chocolate Viking ships filled with ice cream!

The Friday symposium, supported by the embassies

and NMNH and organized by Elisabeth Ward and Debbie

Rothberg, was well attended and included talks by Sigrid

Kaland, Torsten Edgren, Colleen Batey, Astrid Ogilvie,

Birgitta Wallace, Kirsten Seaver, Peter Schledermann,

Joel Berglund, Jette Arneborg, and Tom McGovern, all of

whom presented overviews of various subjects treated by the

exhibition and catalogue. Patricia Sutherland reported on

new findings of Norse yarn discovered in a Baffin Island

Dorset site excavated by the Late Father Mary-Rousseliere,

indicating contact between Norse and Dorset Paleoeskimos.

A Native American perspective on Vikings in the New

World was presented by Pamela Ward Levi from the

Mi’kmaw Red Bank First Nation. Her presentation painted a

From the second story balcony of

our rotunda, Odd Lund sounded

his Viking style birchbark horn

during the opening festivities.

Helge Ingstad with his daugter, Benedicte

President and Mrs. Clinton with President Grimsson

enjoying Viking ice cream!

VIKING FESTIVITIES
ASC Newsletter 26

vivid picture of

daily life of her

people 1000

years ago at the

time when they

probably met

Vikings

exploring and

perhaps settling

briefly in the

Vinland region.

On

Friday night a

less formal

opening was

hosted by the

Smithsonian

Associates,

including

popular lectures from Carin Orrling and Bill Fitzhugh and

demonstrations of “possible” Viking Age music performed

by Odd Lund, a Norwegian wind instrumentalist who has

been experimenting with the types of horns that would have

been available to the Vikings. After the talks, we enjoyed a

reception with visiting scholars, members of the public, and

exhibition co-workers who could not attend the previous

night’s affair.

By the time opening day, Saturday, April 29th, came

around, we were all feeling a bit worn out, and there was still

a half day of symposium talks to go, including talks by Arne

Emil Christensen on Viking ships, Gisli Sigurdsson on the

Vinland Sagas, and Birgitta Wallace on Viking fakes.

However, we were all instantly buoyed by the sight of

people lined up across the rotunda waiting to get into the

exhibition. This enthusiastic reception was thanks in no

small part to our publicity team of Randall Kremer and

Michele Uire of NMNH, and Nord Wennerstrom of the

Fertelli Group who effectively got the word out. Vikings as

a topic is extremely popular, so were were hoping for a big

opening, but we never imagined lines to get in! An exhibition is for the public, so when an exhibition finally opens

and is received as warmly as Vikings has been, then it seems

as if all the hard work has been worth it, more so than fancy

dinners and receptions. The public also gave an enthusiastic

reception to the Viking re-enactors and performers who

displayed Viking culture throughout the opening weekend.

The efforts of Laura McKie and her staff, together with the

Nordic embassies, made Vikings come alive indeed!

Since the opening, we have continued to enjoyed

fabulous media coverage. This included the cover of Time

Magazine, a story in Newsweek, numerous articles in the

New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio,

and many specialized Scandinavian studies and archaeology

publications, as well as international press not only in the

Viking Ship to

Arrive – Again!

One of the

highlights of the

millennium

summer will be the

arrival of the

Viking ship

Islendingur built

and skippered by

Captain Gunnar

Eggertsson of the

Westman Islands

in Iceland.

Gunnar’s voyage

begins in Iceland

and takes him to

Brattahlid, Erik the

Red’s homestead

in Greenland, before following Leif Eriksson’s voyage to

Vinland. Islendingur arrives at L’Anse aux Meadows in

mid-July and then sails on to Halifax and New York, reaching

the latter by Leif Eriksson day on 9 October.

Gunnar Eggertsson readies Islendigur for

2000 crossing from Iceland to North America

Nordic countries but in

Italy, Portugal,

and Brazil.

The real mark

of success is

that the news

has not only

been about the

exhibition and

the royalty that

attended the

opening, but

also about the

Vikings and

Viking history.

In addition to

the Ward

Television

documentary running on 185 PBS stations nationally (Leif

Eriksson — the Man Who (Almost) Changed History), a

NOVA special and a cover story in National Geographic

Magazine, all capitalized on the ASC’s Viking team and the

inherent popularity of the Vikings. All this bodes well for

the show’s impact and its forthcoming tour to New York in

the fall of 2000, Denver in early 2001, Houston in summer

2001, Los Angeles in late 2001, early 2002, Ottawa in the

spring of 2002, and perhaps Minneapolis. Skoal! to an

auspicious beginning for the Viking Millennium, and

continued success!

Symposium participants and curatorial advisors to the Viking exhibit made opening week intellectually

rewarding. Left to right: Jette Arneborg, Elisabeth Ward, Patricia Sutherland, Colleen Batey, Sigrid

Kaland, Tom McGovern, Carin Orrling, Joel Berglund, Kirsten Seaver, Arne Emil Christensen, Birgitta

Wallace, Peter Schledermann, Lilja Arnadottir, Gisli Sigurdsson, Sigurgeir Steingrimsson, Bill Fitzhugh
ASC Newsletter 27

VISITORS

Viking Web

As part of our efforts to mark the millennial anniversary of Leif

Erikson’s arrival in the New World with a major exhibition, we

are also working to develop a website about the exhibition and

about Vikings generally. The Smithsonian’s Educational

Outreach Fund and the American

Scandinavian Foundation both awarded

grants to aid in development, and these

contributions are being supplemented by

the Natural History museum’s Office of

Public Programs. After reviewing a

number of proposals, a contract has been

awarded to Ted Timreck and S2N Media

to design and develop the site in collaboration with ASC and other Smithsonian

Staff. The initial launch of the site was

timed to coincide with the opening of

Vikings in late April, and the final

substantive parts scheduled to go online

during July. The site can be viewed at

http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/ or linked

to directly from the ASC’s website: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/

arctic. The site features a ‘virtual tour’ of the exhibition, and

when finished will include an interactive ‘virtual voyage’ across

the North Atlantic from Viking Homelands in Europe to the

shores of North America.

ASC Website

After a brief hiatus caused by an “improvement” in the

Smithonian’s email system, we are again monitoring and

responding to questions that come to us through the website.

Typically we receive five to eight queries per day on topics

even more diverse than the content of the site itself. Those

sending questions come from all over the world, though North

Americans predominate, and include elementary school students

Newfoundland’s Viking Show Opens

Full Circle/First Contact: Vikings and Skraelings in Newfoundland and Labrador opened at the Arts and Culture Center in St.

John’s, Newfoundland on June 5. Curated by Kevin McAleese

with many Canadian and Scandinavian scholars, the show will

move to Corner Brook, Newfoundland, and later to the Museum

of Civilization in Ottawa and other cities in Canada and the

United States during the next two years. Full Circle is indeed a

“full sweep,” featuring human origins and the reconnection of

humanity’s eastern and western migrations in Eastern Canada at

1000 A.D. The show includes Scandinavian Viking artifacts

and provides a strong representation of Newfoundland’s Native

Indian and Inuit cultures at the time of the Viking voyages to

North America. A catalogue and website (www.gov.nfld.ca/

fullcircle/index.htm) are available. Festivals and cultural events

mark the arrival of Vikings in Newfoundland from July to

September, culminating in a roving conference, Viking Millennium International Symposium , from September 15–23 in St.

John’s, L’Anse aux Meadows, L’Anse aux Clair (Labrador),

and Corner Brook.

Maria Berglund from the Greenlandic National Museum

(Nuuk) took advantage of a visit to Washington and spent time

examining the Pre-Dorset collections from Labrador which are

temporarily housed in the Arctic Studies Center. She is in the

aesthetics” in Greenlandic Pre-Dorset and Sarqaaq cultures.

Along with her husband Joel

Berglund, she was struck by

the strong similarities between

Pre-Dorset tools from Labrador

and Greenland.

Robert Shaw from Anchorage

Alaska spent a few days

studying and drawing Yupik

wooden artifacts, which he

might replicate in the future.

Bob has become a proficient

woodcarver, and uses replica

items for educational projects

in the state of Alaska.

Vladamir Pitul’ko, an archaeologist from the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersberg who was part of Bill

Fitzhugh’s Siberian Odyssey, and who has worked with Dennis

Stanford and Dan Odess in Alaska, dropped in to touch base

on the ongoing Alaskan research, and to work on formalizing

arrangements with Fitzhugh and Odess for a return to Zhokov

Island (see Zhokov p. 8).

Dosia Laeyendecker, who identified our wood and charcoal

specimens from Labrador and the Frobisher project during the

80s and 90s, and conducted driftwood studies on Baffin Island

stopped in for a brief visit in March. Dosia has agreed to come

out of retirement to work on sample identification with materials recovered from Zhokov Island this summer.

Maria Berglund studies Labrador Pre-Dorset collections

to retirees. Not unexpectedly, now that the Viking exhibit is

open with much media attention, the number of questions about

the show and the catalog have increased dramatically.

Labrador Geographical Information Systems

Efforts to employ Geographical Information Systems to analyze

and manage the substantial body of archaeological data from

Labrador and elsewhere accumulated over the past 30+ years

have moved forward slowly over the past year. Now that

Vikings will be occupying less of our energies, we hope to

devote more time to this long-term project in the coming

months. We hope to develop a model for how best to take the

disparate types of data – computer files, artifact photographs,

field notes, and paper site and excavation maps – and integrate

them into Arc/Info and Arc/View. Having the Labrador data

available in this fashion will represent a significant step forward

in terms of data management, analytical and modeling capabilities, and our ability to report on the results of the Torngat and

other Labrador archaeological and paleoenvironmental projects.

TECHNOLOGY
ASC Newsletter 28

Around the Globe

Igor Krupnik participated in a workshop on the “Impacts of

Changes in Sea Ice in the Arctic”, due to Recent Climate

Warming, held by the Marine Mammal Commission at

Girdwood, Alaska on February 15-17th, 2000. The workshop

brought together some 50 participants. Half of those were

scholars in environmental and economic research and the other

half consisted of native hunters and community leaders from

Alaskan marine hunting villages. After the workshop, Igor

made a trip to Nome, where he chaired a training session in

using historical genealogies and electronic name databases

under his NSF - sponsored project on St. Lawrence Island and

Siberian Yupik cultural heritage programs.

In January, Igor made a trip to Halle, Germany, to the

newly-established Max-Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. There he lectured on the prospects for modern cultural

research in Siberia. In March he made another trip to Moscow

and St. Petersburg, where he lectured at the St. Petersburg

European University and worked with ASC partners at the

Moscow Institute of Cultural and

Natural Heritage of Russia. In

May he traveled to the University

of Vienna, Austria to give the

keynote address at a conference

entitled “Siberia and Circumpolar

North: New Approaches to

Siberian Studies.”

Subarctic Maine

Bill Fitzhugh spent an enjoyable

weekend lecturing on the Vikings

at the University of Maine,

Presque Isle, hosted by JoAnne

Putnam, Dean, and her husband

David Putnam, who until last year

had been working in Barrow,

Alaska, with the Inupiat Heritage Center. Along with Ron

Brower, he helped us get our mini Inua exhibit organized at the

IHC. The whole family had moved up to Barrow and their

boys got a great Inupiat-flavored education. Also presenting a

lecture at the University’s subarctic-themed weekend was Tony

Williamson, formerly of Memorial Univerity in St. John’s, who

spoke on the comparative geography and cultures of Labrador

and Alaska. We also visited the Maine School of Science and

Math, a magnet high school where the kids were practicing

their knowledge of culture and environment, by, among other

things, building snow houses! The environment and culture

program here is being directed by Mark Tasker, an educator

and field program director who has been busy with Newfoundland field trips and sea kayaking. Mark worked with Laura

McKie at NMNH to develop a great Family Guide for the

Vikings show. While we were looking at the snow houses who

should emerge from one but Arthur Spiess, who had been

providing tips and labor. Art’s daughter is a senior at MSSM,

and is headed to become a sea mammal veternarian! While in

MEETINGS AND TRAVEL

Canadian Archaeology Conference

Stephen Loring helped organize and chaired a symposium at

the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Canadian Archaeological

Association, Ottawa, Ontario in May, Neoeskimo Archaeology

in the North American Arctic. Stephen co-authored two papers:

“Inaugurating a community–archaeology project on the central

Labrador coast - 1999 fieldwork at the Adlavik Harbor site (with

Leah Rosenmeier)” and “An archaeological reconnaissance at

Hebron, Labrador (with Beatrix Arendt).” In the session 75

Years after Jenness: Dorset Archaeology in Arctic Canada, Dan

Odess presented a paper entitled, “One of These Things is Not

Like the Other: Typology, Chronology, and the Concept of

Middle Dorset.”

Library Donated

In January, Bill Fitzhugh, Igor

Krupnik, Elisabeth Ward and

Sarah Ganiere traveled to Bryn

Mawr, PA to pack and collect

Frederica de Laguna’s library,

which she donated to the Arctic

Studies Center last year. The trip

was a success, filled with memories and reminiscence of arctic

research completed decades ago,

and Freddy’s plans for future

publications to keep her busy well

into her second century. The

books will be inventoried in

Washington D.C. and then sent to

the Anchorage office as part of its

growing library.

Ben Fitzhugh in the Kurils

Expanding his research area across the North Pacific this July

and August, Ben Fitzhugh (University of Washington) is

beginning an archaeological survey in the Kuril Islands, Russia.

Russian archaeologist Valerii Shubin, Japanese archaeologist

Kaoru Tezuka and volcanologist Yoshihiro Ishizuka, and

American scholars including geoarchaeologist Carole Mandryk

of Harvard, Ben and three UW students will gather

archaeological, geological, and paleoclimatic data to better

understand the role of humans on the evolution of island

ecosystems and the reciprocal effects on human settlement. This

information in turn will be used to clarify the role of maritime

contacts between Japan, northeastern Siberia and possibly North

America, expanding on the biological survey of the Kurils led

by UW Fisheries biologist Ted Pietsch, who is documenting

contemporary biodiversity. Fitzhugh and Peitsch both have

support from the NSF Biotic Surveys and Inventories program.

Presque Isle Bill met some of the Micmacs, and enjoyed a

basket-making demonstration from Donald and Mary Sanipass.

Later Don, Mary, and Marline Sanipas and David Putnam

helped make a replica of the birch bark container that was found

at the L’Anse aux Meadows site, for use in the Vikings exhibition. In the future we hope to collaborate with UMPI and

MSSM on education programs.

Arctic Archaeologists: Bill Fitzhugh and Frederica de Laguna

flank photos of Alfred Kroeber (r) and Franz Boas (l). 2000
ASC Newsletter 29

Oleg Bychkov

Oleg Viktorovich Bychkov, a well-published Russian

anthropologist, died on December 27, 1999

while working on his house in the outskirts of

his native town Irkutsk in southern Siberia.

After graduating from Leningrad University in

1983, Bychkov begun his anthropology career

as a curator of the ethnographic collection in

Irkutsk Regional Museum. He conducted

ethnographic research in Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk,

and Kemerovo provinces. In 1988, he served as

Science Director for the Irkutsk Regional

Museum. Then in the following year he

completed a thesis on descendent communities

of early Russian settlers for an advanced degree

from the Institute of Ethnography, Soviet

Academy of Sciences.

The later part of his career was spent bridging the gap

between Russian and American communities, with traveling

exhibits such as “Russian America: Forgotten Frontiers,”

research comparing Oregon coastal communities with his

Siberian homeland and participating in United States anthropology conferences and Russian- American scholarly exchange.

He resigned as Science Director in 1991 to establish a small

ethnographic research organization where he facilitated

government and documentary research.

He was a member of the Communist party for a short

time before converting to the Russian Orthodox Church, who

took pride in his Russian and Siberian heritage. His untimely

death robs us of a vigorous and productive scholar.

IN MEMORIAM

Dan Odess, Elisabeth Ward, and Sarah Ganeire with Bill in “ASC

central” during Viking catalogue production madness!

With the ASC budget still low, this year’s comings and goings

have been less than usual. Sarah Ganeire’s employment with

the Center has been in a constant state of flux as we scrambled

to secure funds to keep her here during the hectic Viking

production period. After editing the newsletter, she’ll be

working with Igor Krupnik to design a report for the Yupik

communities he’s been working with. Later this summer, Sarah

will be moving home to California before embarking on a

missionary tour with her church. We’ll miss her good-spirited

help. Thankfully, Dan Odess is now a Research Associate

appointed for three years. The Zhokov project will require most

of his attention, but we hope he continues to lend his talents to

other duties as well. A less certain future awaits Elisabeth

Ward, who is currently with the Center until September. But

with the Viking

tour planned to

last into 2002, and

with lots to do at

the Center, we’re

hoping to keep her

on board at least

for a year, before

she heads off for

her PhD.

Sven Haakanson

just completed his

PhD from Harvard

on ethnoarchaeology of the Yamal Nenets, and will become the director of

the Alutiiq museum in Kodiak, Alaska. We wish Sven the best

of luck!

Dennis Stanford recently stepped down as Chair of the

Anthropology Department, and is now free to explore his

Solutrean hypothesis more fully, including a sabbatical in

Colorado. He leaves the Department in the very capable hands

of Carolyn Rose. Carolyn’s administrative savvy will certainly

come in handy with the changes coming down the line from

Secretary Larry Small. Both promise to make the Smithsonian

“ship-shape!” Dan Rogers is the Chairman Elect, similar to

Deputy Chairman.

Paper Presentations

In addition to Viking programs, Bill Fitzhugh has managed to

attend a few research meetings. In April he delivered talks on

contact between Vikings and Native Americans to a symposium

at the Society for American Archaeology meeting in

Philadelphia organized by James Woollett and Susan Kaplan,

and another paper, “The Ainu: Japan’s Northern Native People”

at the Japan Society’s series, Inside Outsiders, in New York

City. In mid-May he took part in a conference at the Department

of Ethnography of the British Museum, organized by Jonathan

King and Phillip Taylor, Boundaries in the Art of the

Northwest Coast of America and spoke on “Transformations: the

Decline of Spirits in North Pacific Art.”

COMINGS AND GOINGS Motoko Ikeda-Spiegel

Motoko Ikeda-Spiegel

On February 14, 2000, artist

Motoko Ikeda-Spiegel passed

away unexpectedly of a

massive stroke. Motoko, a

Japanese-American who felt

the official discrimination of

the American government by

being wrongly imprisoned

during World War II, spent

much of the rest of her life

fighting to correct institutional

prejudice. An Ainu advocate

through her art and visits to the

Ainu homelands, we first

became friends during my capacity as co-curator of the Exhibition, Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. In her own way, she

fought for my people for more than 20 years. As an Ainu

person, I felt the same pain of institutional prejudice during the

exhibition development and often turned to her for counsel, and

strength. Motoko, a woman of enormous passion for life, her

family, her art, and social justice, became more than my role

model, she became my mother in the spirit of the Ainu family. I

will always miss her. - Kitty Dubreuil

[The ASC extends its sympathy to her husband, Cy Spiegel and

to the many friends we shared at the Brooklyn Museum of Art]
ASC Newsletter 30

Aron Crowell

1999 Maritime Cultures of the Gulf of Alaska. Journal of

American Archaeology, Vol. 16.

2000 Smithsonian Institution. In U.S. Arctic Research.

Journal of the United States Interagency Arctic Policy

Committee. (with Daniel Odess, Igor Krupnik,

Stephen Loring, Aron Crowell)

William Fitzhugh

2000 Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. 425 pp.

Washington DC:Smithsonian Institution Press.

(Edited with Elisabeth I. Ward).

2000 Watch Out Columbus! The Vikings Are Coming! NYT

News. Magazine of the Danish National Museum.

2000 Vikings Arrive in North America – Again! Scandinavian Review. Pp. 50-56. Winter 2000.

2000 Puffins, Ringed Pins, and Runestones: The Viking

Passage to North America; Skraelings: First Peoples

of Helluland, Markland, and Vinland (with Daniel

Odess and Stephen Loring); Celebrating the Viking

Millennium in America (with Elisabeth Ward);

Stumbles and Pitfalls in the Search for Viking

America (with Birgitta Wallace). In Vikings: The

North Atlantic Saga., edited by W. W. Fitzhugh

and E. I. Ward. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.

2000 Vikings in America: Runestones, Relics, and Revisionism. Minerva, Summer 2000. 6 pp.

2000 Smithsonian Institution. In U.S. Arctic Research.

Journal of the United States Interagency Arctic Policy

Committee. (with Daniel Odess, Igor Krupnik,

Stephen Loring, Aron Crowell)

Igor Krupnik

2000 Reindeer Pastoralism in Modern Siberia: Research and

Survival During the Time of Crash. Polar Research 19(1).

Special issue from the Symposium, Human role in the

Reindeer/Caribou Systems, Rovaniemi, Finland, February

1999.

2000 Review: Franz Boas among the Inuit of Baffin Island, 1883-

1884 (Ludger Muller-Wille, ed.). Polar Record 36(196): 57-

58

1999 Power, Politics, and Heritage: Undercurrent Transformations

in the Post-Soviet Arctic - The Case of Chukotka (with

Nikolai Vakhtin). In: Frank Sejersen, ed. Changes in the

Circumpolar North. Culture, Ethics, and Self-Determination.

1999. Topics in Arctic Social Sciences 3: 27-42.

Copenhagen: IASSA.

Stephen Loring

2000 Skraelings: First Peoples of Helluland, Markland, and

Vinland (with Daniel Odess and William Fitzhugh). In

Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga., edited by W. W.

Fitzhugh and E. I. Ward. Washington: Smithsonian

Institution Press.

2000 Smithsonian Institution. In U.S. Arctic Research.

Journal of the United States Interagency Arctic Policy

Committee. (with Daniel Odess, Igor Krupnik,

William Fitzhugh, Aron Crowell)

Daniel Odess

2000 “Skraelings: First Peoples of Helluland, Markland, and

Vinland” (with Stephen Loring and William Fitzhugh). In

Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga., edited by W. W.

Fitzhugh and E. I. Ward. Washington: Smithsonian

Institution Press.

2000 Smithsonian Institution. In U.S. Arctic Research.

Journal of the United States Interagency Arctic Policy

Committee. (with William Fitzhugh, Igor Krupnik,

Stephen Loring, Aron Crowell)

Elisabeth Ward

2000 Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Washington DC:

Smithsonian Institution Press. (Edited with W. Fitzhugh).

2000 Reflections on an Icon: Vikings in American Culture. In

Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, W. Fitzhugh and E. Ward,

eds., 365-373. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.

2000 Celebrating the Viking Millennium in America (with W. W.

Fithzugh). In Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, W.

Fitzhugh and E. Ward, eds., 351-353. Washington:

Smithsonian Institution Press.

2000 Vikings in America. Muse Vol. 4, Num. 5, Pp. 30-36.

2000 Objects Going Places. The Smithsonian Material

Culture Forum’s Grapevine Vol. 37, Pp. 5-6.

ARCTIC STUDIES CENTER

Department of Anthropology

National Museum of Natural History

Smithsonian Institution

Washington D.C. 20560-0112

(202) 357-2682

(202) 357-2684 (fax)

or visit our web site at www.mnh.si.edu/arctic

 ARCTIC STUDIES CENTER STAFF:

William Fitzhugh, Director: fitzhugh.william@nmnh.si.edu

Aron Crowell, Anthropologist: acrowell@alaska.net

Stephen Loring, Museum Anthropologist: lorings@nmnh.si.edu

Igor Krupnik, Ethnologist: krupnik.igor@nmnh.si.edu

Daniel Odess, Research Archaeologist: odess.daniel@nmnh.si.edu

Elisabeth Ward, Curatorial Specialist: warde@nmnh.si.edu

Sarah Ganiere, Research Assistant: ganiere.sarah@nmnh.si.edu

 RESEARCH ASSOCIATES:

Noel Broadbent Ernest Burch, Jr.

Anne Fienup-Riordan Joan Gero

Norman Hallendy Douglas Siegal-Causey

 STEERING COMMITTEE:

Douglas Anderson Ted Birkedal

Ernest Burch Anne Fienup-Riordan

Jana Harcharek Charlotte Heth

Aldona Jonaitis Susan Kaplan

Gordon Pullar Steven Young

William Workman Patricia Wolf

Rosita Worl Miranda Wright

All photos unless otherwise noted are SI Staff photos. Sarah Ganiere

has been the Managing Editor for this issue of ASC Newsletter.

STAFF PUBLICATIONS

CONTACT INFORMATION

ANCHORAGE OFFICE

Arctic Studies Center

at the Rasmuson Center

121 West 7th Avenue

Anchorage AK 99501

(907) 343-6162

(907) 343-6130 (fax)
ASC Newsletter 31