Wooden Mask
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1879
name: label: Collector
content: Edward W. Nelson
label: Donor Name
content: Edward W. Nelson
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "16 WHITE FEATHERS, ROUNDED TRIANGLE WITH 4 HOLES EDGED IN RED-CONVEX HUMAN FACE IN CENTER ENAMEL TEETH AND BLACK TRIM. INVENTORIED 1977."
label: Notes
content: The catalog card gives Starikwikhpak as the provenience but this database record says Rasboinsky, based on William Fitzhugh research with Nelson field number records. The site Nelson identified as "Starikwikhpak" is actually Kuigpalleq -- located near the head of Kashunuk River (i.e., at the Kashunuk Slough-Yukon River confluence, across from present-day Pilot Station). The site Nelson identified as "Rasboinsky" is actually Anqercaq -- formerly located on the right bank of the Yukon River about 21 km northeast of (upstream from) Pilot Station. Calista Corporation applied for this site pursuant to ANCSA Section 14(h)(1); however, a 1982 field investigation determined (through on-ground survey and oral history research) that the site had been entirely lost to erosion. (Note: Nelson's 1899 monograph [Plate LXXXII (facing p. 247)] includes a winter scene of this village.)
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=93 , retrieved 10-23-2021; see web page for additional information: Mask, Yup'ik. If a shaman bent down over a nepcetaq, it was said, the mask would rise from the floor and stick to his face. These and other dancing masks were worn during Kelek, a winter festival held in the communal house to invite, honor, and feed the spirits of game animals. The purpose was to ask the spirits to return in spring and to give their bodies to the hunters. Masks portrayed animals, animal spirits (yuit, or "inner persons") or tuunrat (helping spirits) that assisted the shaman in his communications with other worlds. Yup'ik Elders from the lower Yukon River remember that this type of a mask was called nepcetaq [shaman mask] and that it was used only by an angalkuq [shaman]. If a shaman bent down over a nepcetaq that lay on the floor, it was said, the mask would rise and stick to his face, even if weighted down with a pile of heavy parkas. Nepcetat and ordinary kegginaqut [masks] were used during Kelek, a late winter dance festival held in the qasgiq [men's community house] to invite, honor, and feed the spirits of game animals. The purpose was to ask the spirits to return in spring and to give their reincarnated bodies to the hunters. Kelek is also called Itruka'ar, Agayuyaraq and, in historical sources, the Inviting-In Feast or Masquerade. Paul John of Nelson Island, like many contemporary Elders, views the old ceremony as a kind of prayer: "Our ancestors used masks, calling it Agayuliyaraq [way of making prayer], as resolutions to petition God for the things they needed." Masks were used for other Yup'ik and Cup'ik ceremonies as well, including Qaariitaaq, Kevgiryaraq [the Messenger Feast, also called Kevgaq], and Nakaciuryaraq [the Bladder Festival]. Masks often portrayed animals, their spirits (yuit or inner "persons"), or sometimes tuunrat [helping spirits] who assisted the shaman in his communications with the spirit world. Some tuunrat, it was believed, held animal yuit in the sky world until the shaman flew to the moon to release them. Songs, masks, and dancing-all composed and directed by the shamans-brought these stories and spiritual beings to life in the qasgiq. The faces of nepcetaq masks, like this one with its wide toothy grin, may represent the controlling tuunraq moon spirit, while the holes that surround it may be openings or star-holes in the sky through which the yuit pass on their journey to earth.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 30 Jan 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Rasboinsky (Razboinski, Anqercaq), Yukon River, Lower, 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: 008133
label: USNM Number
content: E38812-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Mask