Hunting Hat
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1884
name: label: Collector
content: William J. Fisher
label: Donor Name
content: William J. Fisher
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Woven spruce root, with blue, green, red and black pigment, seal whiskers, dentalium, trade beads and fabrics, fiber and modern thread (Eskimo/Tlingit). Illus. in The Far North catalog, Nat. Gall. of Art, 1973, p. 200." Illus. Fig. 406, p. 292 in Fitzhugh, William W., and Aron Crowell. 1988. Crossroads of continents: cultures of Siberia and Alaska. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Identified there: Decorated spruce-root hat, Koniag. "Koniag spruce-root hats of the 19th century often carried a spectacular array of beads, dentalia, and sea lion whiskers, arranged in symmetrical patterns right over, and seemingly without regard to, teh painted designs on the crown. The spruce root and whiskers were local products, the beads and probably the shells were acquired in trade. Dentalia grew here and there off the coast, but the best-known fisheries were on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Nootka and west coast Kwakiutl harvested the shells and sold them to traders, who spread them over western North America. No doubt many were traded intertribally before teh Euro-American fur trade, and they were highly prized everywhere." Illus. Fig. 151, p. 157 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=174, retrieved 8-28-2012: Hunting hat, Sugpiaq (Alutiiq), Koniag. awirnaq "spruce root hat" - Language: Koniag Sugpiaq (Kodiak Island dialect) A creature with oval eyes, erect ears, and a toothy mouth is painted on the crown of this spruce-root hunting hat, probably representing a helping spirit that attracted sea otters. The hat is ornamented with glass trade beads, dentalium shells, sea lion whiskers, and red cloth. Hunting hats were valuable family heirlooms, passed down through the generations.
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: On July 24, 2004 Bill Billeck, a bead specialist working in the Repatriation Office identified the faceted black, green, brown/gold and clear beads as of Bohemian origin. They are fabricated in faceted molds as long columns, then chopped apart in to smaller beads. The brick red beads have a green core and are wound beads, possibly Venetian, produced as early as 1630 and still in production today.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 3 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Kodiak Island / Karluk, Kodiak Islands, 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: E74720-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Hat
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 40 cm