Black Bear Inua Mask
date: label: Accession Date
content: 9 Feb 1882
name: label: Donor Name
content: Edward W. Nelson
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "LOANED BUENOS AIRES, MARCH 25, 1954 AND RETURNED. LOANED: OSAKA EXPO-70 JULY 69 - JAN 71 RETURNED TO THE COLLECTION DECEMBER 7, 1970. ANIMAL SPIRIT MASK. PAINTED RED, WHITE AND BLACK. SIMILAR TO 48985. 1/83 SITES INUA LOAN INVENTORIED 1977. LOAN: CROSSROADS SEP 22 1988. ILLUS.: CROSSROADS OF CONTINENTS CATALOGUE; FIG.347, P.256. LOAN RETURNED: JAN 21 1993." Crossroads catalogue caption identifies as: "Black Bear Inua Mask, Bering Sea Eskimo. Alaskan native peoples, like Siberians, believed that animals and objects possessed souls that could change into human and other forms. This concept is seen most clearly in inua masks made by Bering Sea Eskimos. This mask represents a black bear with its semihuman inua appearing in its right eye, partly obscured by human hair. Hunters often told of seeing inuas in the fur, feathers, or eyes of animals they were hunting. An encircling red-painted groove gave the mask spiritual life. One of a pair of two similar masks, perhaps used in a paired dance performance, this mask has lost its original white paint, its tongue, and its arcing array of white feathers."
label: Notes
content: Illustrated and described in Fienup-Riordan, Ann. 1996. The Living Tradition of Yup'ik Masks: Agayuliyararput, Our Way of Making Prayer. University of Washington Press Seattle and London. p. 104
label: Record Last Modified
content: 7 Jul 2021
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Sabotnisky, Yukon River, Lower, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 82A00003
label: USNM Number
content: E48986-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Mask