page_title: Yup'ik
section_title: Clothing
hierarchical_section_title: Yup'ik / Culture / Art / Clothing
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Schneehasenfell? / Vogelfell?- (Kindermantel der Uyowutcha auf der Insel Nunivak im Beringmeer, 1930). Français&#160;: Uyowutcha - Nunivak, 1930.
context_page_description: The Yup'ik or Yupiaq and Yupiit or Yupiat, also Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Central Yup'ik, Alaskan Yup'ik, are an Eskimo people of western and southwestern Alaska ranging from southern Norton Sound southwards along the coast of the Bering Sea on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and along the northern coast of Bristol Bay as far east as Nushagak Bay and the northern Alaska Peninsula at Naknek River and Egegik Bay. They are also known as Cup'ik by the Chevak Cup'ik dialect-speaking Eskimos of Chevak and Cup'ig for the Nunivak Cup'ig dialect-speaking Eskimo of Nunivak Island.
  Both Chevak Cup'ik and Nunivak Cup'ig Eskimos are also known as Cup'ik. The Yup'ik, Cup'ik, and Cup'ig speakers can converse without difficulty, and the regional population is often described using the larger term of Yup'ik. They are one of the four Yupik peoples of Alaska and Siberia, closely related to the Sugpiaq ~ Alutiiq of south-central Alaska, the Siberian Yupik of St. Lawrence Island and Russian Far East, and the Naukan of Russian Far East. The Yupiit speak the Yup'ik language. Of a total population of about 21,000 people, about 10,000 speak the language.
context_section_description: The traditional clothing system developed and used by the Eskimo peoples is the most effective cold weather clothing developed to date. Yup'ik clothing tended to fit relatively loosely. Skin sewing is artistic arena in which Yup'ik women and a few younger men excel. Yup'ik women made clothes and footwear from animal skins (especially hide and fur of marine and land mammals for fur clothing, sometimes birds, also fish), sewn together using needles made from animal bones, walrus ivory, and bird bones such as front part of a crane's foot and threads made from other animal products, such as sinew. The semilunar woman's knife ulu is used to process and cut skins for clothing and footwear. Women made most clothing of caribou (wild caribou Rangifer tarandus granti and domestic reindeer Rangifer tarandus tarandus) and sealskin. The English words kuspuk (parka cover or overshirt) and mukluk (skin boot) which is derived from the Yup'ik word qaspeq and maklak. Before the arrival of the Russian fur traders (promyshlennikis), caribou and beaver skins were used for traditional clothing but subsequently, the Eskimos were persuaded to sell most furs and substitute manufactured materials. Everyday functional items like skin mittens, mukluks, and jackets are commonly made today, but the elegant fancy parkas (atkupiaq) of traditional times are now rare. Today, many Yup'ik have adopted western-style clothing.
caption: Nunivak Cup'ig child wearing bird skin clothing (parka?) and wood knot-like beaded circular cap (uivqurraq), photograph by Edward Curtis, 1930
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