Model Of Umiak Or Angyak
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: "RIGGED, HAS 6 PADDLERS. 1/83 SITES INUA LOAN. ILLUS. FIG. 68, P.44 IN A GUIDE TO WEFT TWINING BY DAVID W. FRASER. PHILADELPHIA: UNIVERSITY OF PENN. PRESS, 1989. USNM. BULL. 127, P. 211, FIG. 62. REFER: COLLINS' MS. P. 794. USNM BULL.127, P. 211, FIG.62. BAE AR 18 PT.1, P.217, PL.77. SEE DESCRIPTION P.217. LOAN: CROSSROADS SEP 22 1988." Illus. Fig. 34, p. 64 in Fitzhugh, William W., Susan A. Kaplan, and Henry B. Collins. 1982. Inua: spirit world of the Bering Sea Eskimo. Washington, D.C.: Published for the National Museum of Natural History by the Smithsonian Institution Press. Identified there: "Umiak Model. angyaq. St. Michael. [Edward W.] Nelson had no way to transport a large umiak to the Smithsonian Institution, so he commissioned this model of a Norton Sound vessel, accurate to the smallest detail of its frame and lashing, and quipped with marked paddles and a [twined] grass mat sail. European introductions of the period are evident in its square rig, halyard blocks, and oars. Care had to be taken on long voyages to dry and oil the umiak every few days or its skin and lashings would stretch and collapse from the frame. Long-distance travel was therefore potentially hazardous, especially for island dwellers in stormy seas."
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027. Loan includes four paddles mounted separately to model.
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=567 , retrieved 10-21-2021; see web page for additional information: Boat (model), Yup'ik. Paddles were used to propel a Yup'ik angyaq, or large skin boat, along with oars that were adopted after European contact; on this model both are shown. The boats had sails, in ancient times made of grass matting or skins and after contact sewn from trade cloth. Men built an angyaq's driftwood frame and lashed it together with seal thong; women sewed the seal or walrus hide cover and stretched it on the frame so that when dry it became drum-tight. People traveled, fished, and hunted in the boats, which once plied the Bering Sea and rivers of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 10 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 8
place: label: Place
content: St. Michael, Norton Sound, 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: E38882-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Umiak Model / Paddle Model / Sail
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 117 cm