page_title: Yup'ik clothing
section_title: Parka
hierarchical_section_title: Yup'ik clothing / Bodywear / Parka
caption_attribution_description: English: Image title: Eskimos woman and girl ice fishing Image from Public domain images website, http://www.public-domain-image.com/full-image/vintage-photography-public-domain-images-pictures/eskimos-woman-and-girl-ice-fishing.jpg.html
context_page_description: Yup'ik clothing refers to the traditional Eskimo-style clothing worn by the Yupik people of southwestern Alaska. Also known as Cup'ik clothing for the Chevak Cup'ik-speaking people of Chevak and Cup'ig clothing for the Nunivak Cup'ig-speaking people of Nunivak Island.
  The traditional clothing system developed and used by the Yup’ik, Inuit and Nuniwarmiut peoples is the most effective cold weather clothing developed to date. Yup'ik women made clothes and footwear from animal skins, sewn together using needles made from animal bones, walrus ivory, and bird bones such as the front part of a crane's foot and threads made from other animal products, such as sinew. The multi-functional ulu is used to process and cut skins for clothing and footwear. Women made most clothing of caribou and sealskin. Yup’ik clothing tended to fit relatively loosely.
  Wastefulness being disrespectful, Yup'ik elders made use of every last scrap from hunts and harvests: seal guts, skins of salmon fish, dried grasses such as Leymus mollis. Traditionally, skins of birds, fish, and marine mammals such as seal and walrus, and land mammals were used to make clothing.
context_section_description: Parka (atkuk sg atkuuk dual atkuut pl in Yukon-Kuskokwim, Bristol Bay and Hooper Bay-Chevak dialects, atekuk in Unaliq-Pastuliq dialect, atkug in Nunivak dialect) is the most common Yup'ik clothing. Parkas were made from a wide variety of materials including reindeer, squirrel, muskrat, bird, and fish skins, as well as intestines. Yup'ik men from the Yukon Kuskokwim area wore knee-length (or longer) hooded parkas with straight hemlines. Women wore slightly shorter parkas with U-shaped front and back flaps.
  The researchers had previously shown that there were differences in parka design between Akulmiut (in the present-day tundra villagers of Nunapitchuk, Kasigluk, and Atmautluak), the coast (Caninermiut), lower Kuskokwim (Kusquqvagmiut) and lower Yukon (Pastulirmiut, Kuigpagmiut) river areas, and natives could identify villages that shared a design. The Akulmiut woman's parka typically featured a design along the bodice or culuksugun (also known as culuksuk; hanging decoration on a parka; spine, backbone) or qemirrlugun (piece of calfskin in the middle of a traditional Yup’ik parka with three tassels hanging from it, often having a “drawn bow and arrow” or a fish-tail design stitched on it; smaller plate below the large front and back plates on parka) which represented the tail of an Alaska blackfish (Dallia pectoralis). Occasionally the blackfish tail design in the early part of the 20th century was seen on women's parkas of the Nelson Island people (Qaluyaarmiut) and lower Kuskokwim but were never seen, as one elder woman reported, for example, on parkas of Hooper Bay (Naparyaarmiut) or Chevak (Qissunarmiut) women.
  Another Akulmiut design, less commonly used, was the "bow and arrow" design. The parkas of lower Kuskokwim women were also distinguished by the use of the "pretend drums" (cauyaryuak) design across the bust or the qaliq part of the parka. Men's parkas were distinguished as well by the pattern but did not have the decoration detail of the women's parkas.
  Women's parkas in the Yukon River area were longer than men's, with rounded hems and side splits that reached almost to the waist. Farther south along the Kuskokwim River, parkas of both sexes extended to the ankles and were usually hoodless, requiring that a separate fur cap or hood be worn. Kuskokwim styles of parka decoration were far more elaborate.
  A characteristic feature of Yup'ik parkas was elaboration of the ruff on the hood framing the face, on the cuffs, and, in recent times, the border around the bottom of the garment.
  Sleeve (aliq sg aliik dual aliit pl in Yup'ik and Cup'ik, amraq in Egegik Yup'ik, alir in Cup'ig) is the part of a garment that covers the arm.
  Parka ruff (negiliq, atkuum negilia, asguruaq in Yup'ik, legiliq, ayguruaq in Cup'ik, amraq in Egegik Yup'ik;, ulganaqin Cup'ig, but negili in Cup'ig, as means "edge of hood where ruff is attached; edge of kuspuk hood; halo around the sun") is parka's ruff, but not Western style ruff collar. The kumegneq is parka ruff edging near the face. Yup'iks use wolverine skins for parka ruffs.
  Fancy parka (atkupiaq sg atkupiak dual atkupiat pl, literally "real parka, genuine parka") is a fur parka made of ground squirrel, muskrat or mink pelts with traditional fancy decorations (such as one style that has a band across the chest area and eight tassels hanging front and back). The tassels, it is said, represent fingers. Among the Yup'ik, traditional style women's parkas are still made and worn on festive occasions. Men's fancy parkas are no longer made, although a few elders still recall their forms and decoration. The atkupiaq is the most popular type of woman's parka among the Yup'ik living along the Kuskokwim River and in the Kuskokwim Bay area. This parka is very long by comparison with Canadian Inuit parkas, with an even lower edge. The border is decorated with a geometric design of black and white pieces of calfskin. On older parkas, the border was lined with a band of calfskin with fine decorative stitching, symbolizing footprints on snow. The hood with its beautiful ruff is much smaller than on
caption: Kuspuk worn by Eskimo woman and girl ice fishing.
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