Alaska Author and publisher, Yvonne Young Merrill, lived in Anchorage, Alaska for almost thirty years. Her work with the Anchorage Museum of History and Art and Native groups acquainted her with the remarkable traditional art of the Alaska Natives. Crafting useful objects with beautiful forms and surfaces has been an Alaska Native tradition for hundreds of years. Today s practicing artisans continue to work in traditional mediums but have also incorporated plastic, glass, synthetic fibers etc. into their work.
Many individual pieces rank with the finest art from any culture in the world.
This is the best-known object of these coastal people. The tall, easily-cut trees in the region created impressive visual records of ancestry, an event, to tell a story or sometimes to embarrass someone. The totem pole has become the best-Known single image of the Northwest Coast Indians. Ceremonial Rattle Medicine men, called shamans, were believed to have supernatural powers including the ability to communicate with other realms. A shaman could control the weather, predict the future, bring success in warfare or hunting, cure disease, and find those who were lost.