Ivory Needle Case
date: label: Accession Date
content: 10 Sep 1876
name: label: Collector
content: Lucien M. Turner
label: Donor Name
content: Lucien M. Turner
notes: label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
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=56 , retrieved 12-29-2021; see web page for additional information: Needle case, Inupiaq. A northern Iñupiaq style of needle case, complete with all of its parts and ornaments. Bone or iron needles were tucked into the leather strip and pulled inside the tube for safe-keeping. At the ends of the leather fringes a woman attached her husband's small "starter" labrets, or lip ornaments, that he began wearing at the age of puberty. He wore larger labrets as he grew up. In Norton Sound and north along the Alaskan coast, Iñupiaq women used open-ended, tubular needle cases made of bone, metal, or walrus ivory. This example, collected in the 1870s by Lucien Turner, has an engraved copper tube and a complete set of sewing implements attached to a fringed sealskin strap. A hook (shown here) or loop was attached as a belt fastener. Needles were stuck into the strap, which was drawn into the tube to cover them. Small sewing tools such as thimbles, thimble holders, boot-sole creasers, awls and small whetstones were attached to the ends of the needle case strap. Women also hung pendants of small animal and human carvings (possibly charms or amulets), animal canine teeth, and their husbands' starter labrets. South of Bering Strait, in the Norton Sound Iñupiaq, Yup'ik, Unangan, and Sugpiaq regions, a different style of sewing kit was customary. There, women stored their needles in tubular cases with wooden stoppers at the ends These tubes were tucked inside roll-up sewing bags, along with the thimbles and other small sewing implements that in the north were attached directly to the needle case strap.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 19 Jan 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: St. Michael, Norton Sound, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Inupiaq
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 76A00100
label: USNM Number
content: E24496-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Needle Case / Charm / Labret
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 46 cm