Hunting Hat
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1872
name: label: Donor Name
content: Vincent Colyer
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Wooden hat used formerly in Bidarkas [kayaks]."
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=29, retrieved 7-17-2013: Hunting hat. Hunting hats were symbols of accomplishment and prestige in classical Unangan society. Glass trade beads, an ivory seam plate, and the whiskers of large, old sea lions decorate this hat. Fine lines and rosettes were painted on the hat with traditional pigments. From Elders' discussions of the hat in 2003 (see web page cited above for the full entries) 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). Mary Bourdukofsky: Unangam saleeg^uu. (Aleut hat.) According to Mary Bourdukofsky and Vlass Shabolin, this type of highly decorated hat is also called an angnakg^um saleeg^uu [chief's hat] or tuukg^uum saleeg^uu [head-man's hat]. Saleeg^uu means "hat" of any kind, including a hunting hat, hunting visor, stocking hat or baseball cap. Angnakg^ux^ means "chief, leader, head man." Tuukg^uu originally meant "government agent" and later came to mean "head man, chief, leader, boss." Maria Turnpaugh: Those are the hunting hats. Only the hunters that caught the most could wear them. They had visors that the others wore, but these were special for the best hunters. The ones that were mostly decorated were for the best hunters. Mary Bourdukofsky: It's so fancy. I think after the hunting is done, when they start their ceremonial dances, maybe that's when he puts this on. All that rough sea with these fancy things - wonder if they still wore them like that [such decorated ones when they were on the water]. Maybe they did. Maria Turnpaugh: Yes, they did. Vlass Shabolin: Mm-hmm. Aron Crowell: Was there any sense that these hats actually helped the hunters to be more successful? Maria Turnpaugh: Well, it could make them see better, because it cut the glare from off the water. Daria Dirks: I think someone told me they painted inside red, so it would help with the reflection problem. What's this on the side? Mary Bourdukofsky: A string for where they tie it under their chin.
label: Notes
content: Decorations Vlass Shabolin: Inglakuun athog^kaluu. (Long whiskers.) Daria Dirks: Is that seal [whisker]? Vlass Shabolin: Yes, each whisker indicates how many seals he got at the seal hunt. Mary Bourdukofsky: They decorated it with feather too or hair. Vlass Shabolin: Fox hair or reindeer. Mary Bourdukofsky: These are Russian beads. Vlass Shabolin: We still have those blue ones on St. Paul, too. By the hospital, when we were building, we dug some out. Maria Turnpaugh: This is ivory [down seam at back]. Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes, those hats always have ivory, either on the back or the sides, as decoration. This one has it in the back. And always decorated with sea lion whiskers and beads. Daria Dirks: No [volute] on this one. One of my cousins at home found a volute in a dig. It's an ivory piece that they put in the back or the side I think. Mary Bourdukofsky: Usually you have it on the side. That must have had it, something fancy, but it's gone. Maria Turnpaugh: It was probably a special thing that they were allowed to use, because some of them don't have that. Mary Bourdukofsky: Maybe they earned it.
label: Notes
content: Paints Mary Bourdukofsky: That's the Aleut colors-red, black and there used to be yellow too. Maybe it was yellow someplace but it faded. Daria Dirks: Did your dad ever say anything about how they made the colors? Maria Turnpaugh: They'd use plants and- Vlass Shabolin: Berries, salmon berries, anything that- Mary Bourdukofsky: Blueberries. Vlass Shabolin: Anything that they could get color out of they used. Maria Turnpaugh: A lot of the flowers, irises. Vlass Shabolin: Yes, a lot of the flowers, they boil them. Mary Bourdukofsky: You know that volcano ash, it's reddish-brown. I think they used that. I bet they used quite a bit of that on there. Vlass Shabolin: Grind it, make it like paste, and then use it for paint. Aron Crowell: Are you talking about red ocher? Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes.
label: Notes
content: Making Aron Crowell: How about the process of making them-how are they shaped? Maria Turnpaugh: I'll tell you. I make them. You get a piece of wood about that thick [approximately half an inch], and you wet them, steam them-they're really soaking. Then you lay them down, and you have a pattern, the whole pattern flat, and then you saw that out. Then you get the chisel and start chiseling, and you get it down to that thin [quarter of an inch]. You have to be really careful when you get it that thin, because my daughter bumped one like that, and it just split. It happened before it was painted, it's really fragile. Daria Dirks: Before they paint it, I remember seeing them putting it in boiling water, how long do you- Maria Turnpaugh: They do put them in boiling water and steam it. Daria Dirks: For how long? Mary Bourdukofsky: Overnight. Maria Turnpaugh: No, you do it for about an hour or so. Mary Bourdukofsky: In Fairbanks they did it overnight. They said if you don't soak it enough, it cracks. Maria Turnpaugh: But if you've got it thin enough, you don't have to soak it that long. It has to be wet when you start, but when you get it done it's about that thin, and you put it back in the water and steam it and then we have these forms, it takes two people to put them on there. Daria Dirks: It has to be done fast too, I remember. Maria Turnpaugh: Fast and clamp it. You let that dry overnight. Mary Bourdukofsky: In Fairbanks they use a bowl [as a mold], a stainless steel bowl and clamps.
label: Notes
content: Maria Turnpaugh: We had just wooden molds that Andrew Gronholdt made. Mary Bourdukofsky: You drill a hole in the back and you lace it up to hold it like that after you bend it. How did you put yours together in the back? Do you glue it? Maria Turnpaugh: We didn't lace ours together, we just overlapped them and glued them like that. But there's another band. You put on the inside where you put it together, and then the seam is really tight. And then you could put this [ivory brace on seam at back]. Aron Crowell: So the seam is underneath that ivory plate. Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes. Maria Turnpaugh: And then this one, there's a little piece that goes around the edge there [of bill] on the inside, probably to keep its shape. Aron Crowell: A reinforcing piece on the inside? Maria Turnpaugh: In the front rim. Daria Dirks: After they dried it then they put the colors on right after? Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes, it has to be dry. Aron Crowell: The hats that people are making now, that's just come back in recent years? Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes. Aron Crowell: Do you recall seeing any of the really old hats in the villages? Mary Bourdukofsky: I can't recall.
label: Notes
content: Maria Turnpaugh: This man that made them, he studied for a long time trying to figure out how to do it. He'd read and read. Andrew Gronholdt. He's not living now. He made just beautiful hats. Aron Crowell: Was he the first person to bring back this tradition? Mary Bourdukofsky: No, I don't think so. They started in Chignik and Fairbanks. Maria Turnpaugh: Andrew Gronholdt started a long, long time ago, before he started teaching. He made his own, he'd experiment. He really studied a long time. He had given them to the Unalaska people, but there's certain people that keep them. Daria Dirks: Ann May Corker, she learned from my cousin in Unalaska how to do this, and she teaches kids. Usually the higher grades like sixth, seventh and up. Maria Turnpaugh: That's where I took my class, when she was teaching.
label: Notes
content: Listed on page 26 in "The Exhibits of the Smithsonian Institution at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, California, 1915", in section "Family Group of the Western Eskimo, Alaska".
label: Record Last Modified
content: 16 Oct 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: 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: 002478
label: USNM Number
content: E11377-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Hat
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 36 cm