Headdress
date: label: Accession Date
content: 10 Oct 1913
name: label: Collector
content: Riley D. Moore
label: Donor Name
content: U.S. National Museum
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=679 , retrieved 7-31-2018; see web page for additional information: Headdress. "The women always wore this when their husbands had killed a whale; they took that ceremonial pail down to the beach filled with water." - Estelle Oozevaseuk, 2001 When a successful whaling boat returned to camp, the captain's wife brought food and water to the crew. She greeted them and the whale, dressed in a snow-white intestine parka and wearing a reindeer hair headdress. If her husband had killed ten whales or more she wore the headdress on top of her head and if fewer she tilted it to the side. Women of some clans twisted reindeer hair into their braids as "as a symbol of the whale taken" (Lincoln Blassi, Lore of St. Lawrence Island, 1985).
label: Record Last Modified
content: 12 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: St. Lawrence Island, Bering Sea, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 055962
label: USNM Number
content: E280150-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Headdress
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 78 cm