Work-Bag, Intestines Of Sea Lion
date: label: Accession Date
content: 7 Apr 1882
name: label: Collector
content: Lucien M. Turner
label: Donor Name
content: Lucien M. Turner
notes: label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=145, retrieved 5-14-2014: Bag Up until the mid-20th century, Unangan women made strong, waterproof bags from the intestines of sea lions and the throats (esophagus) of seals. David Samwell, who visited Unalaska Island in 1778 with Captain James Cook, noticed small bags which, he wrote, "they [Unangan women] ornament very pretty with their needles." Mary Bourdukofsky and Maria Turnpaugh said that this 1880s Atka Island bag is made from sea lion intestine and sewn together with sinew thread. The decorative stitching is done with embroidery thread. Older bags were decorated with caribou or mountain goat hair, seal fur, bird feathers, and strips of black or brightly colored esophagus. Before Russian fur merchants brought iron needles in the 18th century, Unangan women sewed with bird or fish bone needles that had notches instead of eyes to hold the thread. Intestine bags had many uses and often held small tools or sewing materials. Bags filled with pieces of fur, feathers, and other sewing supplies were among the household goods that were placed in burial caves at Kagamil Island.
label: Notes
content: From Elders' discussions of the bag in 2003 with Mary N. Bourdukofsky, Vlass Shabolin, Maria Turnpaugh and Daria Dirks (Tanadgusix Foundation) at the National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian, 4/07/2003-4/11/2003. Also participating: Aron Crowell and Bill Fitzhugh (NMNH) and Suzi Jones (AMHA). This section includes comments from the discussion of a similar bag E65270, which was examined just before this bag. Mary Bourdukofsky: I figure they put their tools in there. This gut is really strong when it's brand new. It's not fragile the way it is now. It could hold heavy things, maybe their sewing kits or knives or scrapers. The one my mom made had a string like that. When they're new you could just gather them up [by drawstring at top], but right now it's brittle. Maria Turnpaugh: I think they might have a different thing for their sewing, smaller. That's a missuuka [bag]. [The word missuuka [bag] comes from the Russian word meshók [bag, sack].] Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes. Aron Crowell: Does that have the same kind of decoration [as E065270]? Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes, the same style stitching. Maria Turnpaugh: Probably the same person made them. Aron Crowell: Was it only women who sewed traditionally or today? Maria Turnpaugh: I've never heard of men sewing, but I know some did. Mary Bourdukofsky: I know my dad used to make his own packsacks like they're using now. Vlass Shabolin: For hunting we used a heavy twine and canvas to make a packsack, straps and all. And a little bag similar to that but out of canvas with a strap on it for your ammunition. The men did all the hunting and the womenfolk were indoors where they did all the preparing. If they needed esophagus or something, the menfolk would get it, and then the women would clean them up and then dry them up. Aron Crowell: Did you learn sewing from your mom? Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes. Aron Crowell: When did you start?
label: Notes
content: Mary Bourdukofsky: Eight or ten years old, after school and in the evening. After school she let us play outside for a while, and then after supper, how to do things as girl-to do as a woman's supposed to do. That was her way of telling us about embroidery, sewing, weaving, you name it. But weaving I had no interest in, it was just too much for me I think. Daria Dirks: Skin sewing is faster [laughs]. Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes, I love skin sewing. But, later on in years-why did I think was too hard-I learned [laughs]. Maria Turnpaugh: Well, the way I learned gut sewing was I taught myself, because my mother didn't do things like that. She was so busy working all the time. Aron Crowell: What other things did you have to learn to growing up? Mary Bourdukofsky: First she [mother] taught us how to clean, of course, clean the house and how it should be done. She taught us how to mend our clothes, patch them, because we didn't have too many clothes. Then darn, we call it choolkin stuuparan ag^kokin [I am going to darn my stocking], darn our socks. And then she taught us how to iron. She did all the laundry, so we did the ironing. The irons we used were run from the coal stove top. And then on a certain day we did embroidery. She taught us how to embroider. And there was a certain day we did sewing by hand, certain kinds of stitches by hand. Five days a week there were always different things. And there was a story night on a certain night too. My dad was the storyteller. He's the one I really learned a lot from, what they did outside of our house duties.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 9 Feb 2016
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Atka Island, Atka Quad / Aleutian Islands, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Aleut (Unangax^ ; Unangan; Unangas)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 82A00013
label: USNM Number
content: E65299-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Bag