Dance Mask
date: label: Accession Date
content: 9 Feb 1882
name: label: Donor Name
content: Edward W. Nelson
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "ILLUST. IN BAE 18TH AR, PT. 1, PL. C-1, P. 408. HUMAN LIKE FIGURE WITH FREE ENCLOSED TORSO OUTSTRETCHED ARMS AND LEGS, PAINTED WHITE AND RED, SINGLE FEATHER. 1/83 SITES INUA LOAN. INVENTORIED 1977. LOAN: CROSSROADS SEP 22 1988. ILLUS.: CROSSROADS OF CONTINENTS CATALOGUE; FIG.435, P.306. LOAN RETURNED: JAN 21 1993." Crossroads of Continents catalogue identifies as a Bering Sea Eskimo Transformation mask. "Theatrical surprise enhanced the transformational aspect of this mask figure, whose hinged belly opens to reveal a thumbless, semihuman tunghak, framed by fleeing, defecating caribou."
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=599 , retrieved 11-23-2021; see web page for additional information: Mask, Yup'ik. This transformation mask depicts a human figure with outspread arms and legs. The limbs are also mouths, painted red inside and studded with peg teeth. A semi-human face is carved on the outside of the doors, which opened dramatically when a dancer pulled on the sinew cords. The face revealed inside is the yua, or inner person, of the creature. It has goggled eyes and a mustache. Two seals are painted inside one door, two caribou on the other. The mask originally had feathers inserted around the body and a fringe of caribou hair on the head.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 3 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Kuskokwim / Kuskokwim River, 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: 82A00003
label: USNM Number
content: E64260-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Mask
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 43 cm