Woman's Bead Headdress
date: label: Accession Date
content: 8 Feb 1884
name: label: Collector
content: William J. Fisher
label: Donor Name
content: William J. Fisher
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: na-dshak. Illus.: Hndbk. N. Amer. Ind.. Vol. 5, Arctic, fig. 11, pg. 193. Varied sizes of opaque, faceted & clear glass beads in red, white, blues, black, gold, & green are strung on sinew between horizontal leather separator strips. There is a circle of leather at the crown & dangling fringe over the forehead & ears as well as the tail at the back." Illus. Fig. 195, p. 207 in Crowell, Aron, Amy F. Steffian, and Gordon L. Pullar. 2001. Looking both ways: heritage and identity of the Alutiiq people. Fairbanks, Alaska: University of Alaska Press.
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=199 , retrieved 8-31-2012: Beaded headdress, Sugpiaq (Alutiiq), Koniag. nacaq "headdress" - Language: Koniag Sugpiaq (Alaska Peninsula dialect) The beaded headdresses and jewelry that women and girls wore during the 19th century ceremonies were symbols of wealth and social position. In Prince William Sound, chiefs' daughters dressed in bead and dentalium-shell headdresses that reached down to their ankles. This headdress has a cap of small to medium-sized beads and a long tail of heavier beads that widens at the bottom, an Alaska Peninsula style. Beaded headdresses are an important part of contemporary Sugpiaq (Alutiiq) dance regalia.
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: Reference: Crowell, Aron. “Postcontact Koniag Ceremonialism on Kodiak Island and the Alaska Peninsula: Evidence from the Fisher Collection.” Arctic Anthropology 29, no. 1 (1992): 18–37. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40316240. Copy of this article is attached to accession record.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 11 Feb 2025
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Ugashik, Alaska Peninsula / Ugashik River, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Alutiiq (Sugpiaq), Koniag
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 014024
label: USNM Number
content: E90453-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Headdress
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 51 cm