Knife
date: label: Accession Date
content: 16 Mar 1897
name: label: Collector
content: Edward W. Nelson
label: Donor Name
content: U.S. Department of Agriculture
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "WOOD-WORKING KNIFE, WITH CASE. LOAN: U.S.I.A. INUA JUN 24 1988. ILLUS.: INUA CATALOGUE (USIA 1988); PL.85, P.58. LOAN RETURNED DEC 28 1990."
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: Native Consultation: 9 -12 October, 2007 Yup'ik artist and scholar Chuna McIntyre and Yup'ik linguist Vernon Chimegalrea visited the NMNH-ACL to view and discuss the objects selected for the Arctic Studies Center Loan. The notes from this consultation are stored in the permanent ACL files. During the consultation the knife was discussed. Per Chuna McIntyre, the "sheath" is actually used to protect your thumb. It would be placed over the thumb when the knife was used. It is made from two pieces of seal skin stitched together with sinew. The flesh side of the hide is oriented toward the outside of the sheath. When worn on the right hand the sheath would cover the first, and possibly the second joint on the thumb. The side of the sheath facing the palm has a slightly longer tab with a hole pierced through the bottom corner through which a seal skin thong has been threaded; this was originally attached to the handle but has subsequently been detached for exhibition and handling purposes
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 https://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=274 , retrieved 10-23-2021; see web page for additional information: Curved knife, Yup'ik. The curved, or "crooked," knife is an old tool still used by contemporary carvers. The knives were used for shaping masks, boxes, trays, tubs, harpoon shafts, bows, arrows, boat frames, and many other items. With its curved edge, a mellgar can sculpt grooves and concave interiors as well as flat or convex surfaces, and the sharp tip lends itself to the carving of fine details. The blade is scrap metal or a piece of steel knife or file. It is lashed to a handle made of wood, bone, or antler. The curved or "crooked" knife is a traditional tool that contemporary wood carvers all across Alaska still use. Men employed them in the past to fashion masks, boxes, trays, tubs, harpoon shafts, bows, arrows, boat frames, and many other items. Because of its curved edge, the crooked knife can sculpt grooves and concave interiors as well as flat or convex surfaces, while the sharp tip lends itself to carving fine details. The blade-made from scrap metal or a piece of steel knife or file-is bent to form a curve and fastened onto a wood, bone or antler handle with a lashing of root, sinew or sealskin. Alaska Natives had crooked knives with metal blades from before the time of direct contact with Western explorers and traders. Captain James Cook, who met a group of Yup'ik kayakers in Kuskokwim Bay in 1778, wrote that: "They appeared to be wholly unacquainted with people like us, they knew not the use of Tobacco, nor was anything foreign seen about them, except a knife may be looked upon as such.This indeed was only a piece of common iron fitted into a wooden handle, so as to answer the purpose of a knife; they however knew the value and use of this instrument so well that it seemed to be the only thing wished for." Zagoskin reported that the earliest Russian fur traders in Norton Sound found that the people there already possessed knives and other metal goods, probably obtained through trade from Siberia. Before metal was available, carvers used sharpened beaver or porcupine incisor teeth with wooden handles.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 9 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 2
place: label: Place
content: Unalakleet, Norton Sound, 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: 031796
label: USNM Number
content: E176120-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Knife / Thumb Guard
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 25.718 cm
label: Length - Object
content: 26 cm