Skin Scrapers
date: label: Accession Date
content: 18 Dec 1886
name: label: Collector
content: James W. Johnson
label: Donor Name
content: James W. Johnson
notes: label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027. # 1 of 2 only is on loan.
label: Notes
content: From card: "Slate blades. (one) [# 2 of 2] Illus.: Hndbk. N. Amer. Ind., Vol. 5, Arctic, fig. 9, pg. 230. Wooden handle with separate wooden crosspiece at one end & stone blade bound with root. Skin scraper."
label: Notes
content: BW neg. # 83-3860 is photo of # 2 of 2. Color digital neg. # 2008-6678 is photo of # 1 of 2.
label: Notes
content: This information applies to E127636, # 1 of 2. Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact https://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=225 , retrieved 11-3-2021; see web page for additional information: Skin scraper, Yup'ik. Length 34.5 cm. This stone scraper with wooden handle is a traditional tool for cleaning, softening, and stretching animal skins to make them ready for sewing. Scrapers with iron blades are used today. Viewing this tool, elders were reminded of the work that women and men did together to make new sealskin covers for kayaks. To prepare animal skins for clothing and boat covers, men and women of the lower Kuskokwim River, Norton Sound, and the Bering Sea coast used long-handled scrapers with stone blades. This one has a slate blade and spruce root lashings. Today in the region, similar scrapers with metal blades are used. Skins are put away damp until they soften and then placed between the knees for scraping, which removes fat and unwanted tissues at the same time that it stretches and softens the hide. Larger skins such as caribou, wolf, wolverine, bear, seal, and walrus are traditionally prepared by men, while women work with hare, muskrat, fox, marmot, waterfowl, and other smaller animals.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 8 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 2
place: label: Place
content: Fort Alexander (Nushagak), Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Yup'ik
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 018416
label: USNM Number
content: E127636-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Scraper