Mask Worn By Women At Dances
date: label: Accession Date
content: 23 Dec 1882
name: label: Collector
content: William J. Fisher
label: Donor Name
content: William J. Fisher
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Chi-na-chut. Large square blue mask with a square cut out in the middlew, red detail, 8 feathers. Forms a pair with E72506.
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=601, retrieved 9-2-2012: Mask, Sugpiaq (Alutiiq), Koniag. ggiinaquq "mask" - Language: Koniag Sugpiaq (Alaska Peninsula dialect) This woman's dance mask was designed to frame the face rather than to conceal it. The blue-painted board is decorated with hawk feathers, a feather plume, and beads. Its sinew head-cord ends in large blue beads that were probably imported from China by Russian fur traders. A crown and hood are sketched around the face in red paint, perhaps inspired by the crowned image of Mary on Russian Orthodox icons. This style of mask comes from the Alaska Peninsula, where Yup'ik artists also made them.
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: Alaska Peninsula / Bristol Bay / Ugashik River, 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: 012209
label: USNM Number
content: E72507-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Mask
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object, Top To Bottom Including Feathers
content: 85 cm