Wooden Mask
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1884
label: Collection Date
content: 1884
name: label: Collector
content: William J. Fisher
label: Donor Name
content: William J. Fisher
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "CARVED OF ONE PIECE OF WOOD. OLD, MUCH WORN, SURFACE CHIPPED. COLLECTED AT DOUGLASS (KAIAYAKAK OR KAGUYAK, ALASKA PENINSULA, ON SHELIKOF STRAIT, OPPOSITE KODIAK ISLAND.) Illus. in The Far North Catalog, Nat. Gall. of Art, 1973, p. 101." Illus. Fig. 182, p. 191 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=172, retrieved 8-29-2012: Mask, Sugpiaq (Alutiiq), Koniag. ggiinaquq "mask" - Language: Koniag Sugpiaq (Alaska Peninsula dialect) Sugpiaq masks represented ancestors, supernatural beings, and the personified spirits of game animals; all were ritually summoned to the qasgiq (ceremonial house) during winter festivals. The visitations of mask spirits were dramatized by dance, drumming, song, oratory, and enactments of hunting expeditions. This large mask, in appearance part human and part bird, may have been suspended from the ceiling of the qasgiq with a rope so that performers could dance behind it or send it flying across the room.
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: Douglas (Opposite Kodiak Island), Alaska Peninsula / Shelikof Strait / Cape Douglas, 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: 015687
label: USNM Number
content: E74694-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Mask
physicalDescription: label: Height - Object
content: 51 cm