Dolls and

Human
Figurines
in
Alaska
Native
Cultures
second
edition
Not
Just
a
Pretty
Face
Edited by Molly Lee
Not Just a Pretty Face
Not Just a Pretty Face
Dolls and Human Figurines in Alaska Native Cultures
Edited by
Molly C. Lee
University of Alaska Press
Fairbanks
with contributions by
Angela J. Linn
Chase Hensel
James H. Barker
second edition
2006 University of Alaska Press
University of Alaska Press
PO Box 756240
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-6240
www.uaf.edu/uapress
First edition published 1999 by the University of Alaska Museum.
This publication was printed on paper that meets the minimum
requirements for ANSI/NISO Z39.481992 (Permanence of Paper).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Not just a pretty face : dolls and human gurines in Alaska native cultures / edited by Molly C. Lee ; with
contributions by Angela J. Linn, Chase Hensel.2nd ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-889963-85-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-889963-85-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Eskimo dollsAlaskaExhibitions. 2. Inuit dollsAlaskaExhibitions. 3. Indian dollsAlaska
Exhibitions. 4. FigurinesAlaskaExhibitions. 5. Small sculptureAlaskaExhibitions. 6. Dollmak-
ing AlaskaExhibitions. 7. University of Alaska MuseumExhibitions. I. Lee, Molly. II. Linn, Angela J.
III. Hensel, Chase.
E99.E7N69 2006 2005032846
All studio photographs are by Barry J. McWayne unless otherwise noted.
All measurements of museum objects are in centimeters (cm), length x width x height.
Front cover image: Statue of Liberty doll by Rosalie Paniyak. Photographer James H. Barker.
Back cover images: (Right) walrus-ivory carving from the site of Nukleet on Norton Sound; UAM 0470-0014.
(Left) Tlingit shaman gure, ca. 1888. Courtesy Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka, cat. no. I.A.34.
Cover design: Dixon J. Jones, Rasmuson Library Graphics.
Printed in China
v
Contents
Preface vii
Intimates and Efgies
Dolls and Human Figurines in Alaska Native Cultures 1
Angela J. Linn and Molly Lee
Playing for Real
Scholarly Perspectives on Alaska Native Play and Ritual 41
Angela J. Linn
Everything Old Is New Again
Interviewing Alaska Native Doll Makers 47
Chase Hensel
Rosalie Paniyak
A Portrait 59
Angela J. Linn and James H. Barker
References 65
Index 69
1
2
3
4
vi
I
n a village on the lower Yukon lived a man
and his wife who had no children. After a long
time the woman spoke to her husband one day
and said, I cannot understand why we have no
children; can you? To which the husband replied
that he could not. She then told her husband to go
on the tundra to a solitary tree that grew there and
bring back a part of its trunk and make a doll from
it. . . . When he returned [the husband] sat down and
carved from the wood an image of a small boy, for
which his wife made a couple of suits of clothing
in which she dressed it. . . . The man then carved a
set of toy dishes. . . . [His wife] then deposited the
doll in the place of honor on the bench opposite
the entrance, with the toy dishes full of food and
water before it.
When the couple had gone to bed that night
and the room was very dark they heard several low
whistling sounds. The woman shook her husband
saying, Do you hear that? It was the doll, to
which he agreed. They got up at once, and making
a light, saw that the doll had eaten the food and
drank the water and they could see its eyes move.
The woman caught it up with delight and fondled
and played with it for a long time. After this the doll
lived for a very long time. When his foster parents
died he was taken by other people, and so lived for
many generations. Since his death, parents have
been accustomed to make dolls for their children
in imitation of the people who made the one of
which I have told.
Adapted from The Origin of the Winds, recorded by
Edward W. Nelson between 1877 and 1881 on the
lower Yukon.
vii
Preface
Molly C. Lee
N
ot Just a Pretty Face was written to accompany
an exhibition by the same name. It was based
on the research of Angela J. Linn, who carried out
the project in partial fulllment of her master of arts
thesis requirements. In the eld of Alaska Native art
and material culture, there are numerous exhibition
catalogs focusing on dolls. Such catalogs are gener-
ally devoted to dolls that were playthings for children
and usually examine those of a single Alaska Native
culture. By contrast, Not Just a Pretty Face considers the
entire range of uses of dolls and human gures. For
some Native Alaskans, a human gure could stand
in for community members absent during an impor-
tant feast. Others employed miniature likenesses of
humans to promote the fertility of a barren woman.
In earlier times, human gures were used to inict
harm on another person.
Not Just a Pretty Face surveys these and other uses
of dolls. The contributors make use of the ethno-
graphic literature on Alaska Native peoples as well as
the oral traditions gathered from a group of Alaska
Native advisors who worked on the exhibition. This
comprehensive survey of the human gure in Alaska
Native cultures unites, in a single source, ethnographic
literature, twentieth-century oral histories, and pho-
tographic documentation of the doll-making process.
The second edition includes a photo essay on Rosalie
Paniyak, a Cupik doll maker from Chevak who is
one of the most inuential doll makers working in
Alaska today.
We would like to acknowledge the contributions of
the team who advised us about the museum exhibit:
Poldine Carlo, Martha Demientieff, Beckie Etukeok,
Eva Hefe, Chase Hensel, Christopher Koonooka, Vel-
ma Koontz, Jonella Larson, Phyllis Morrow, Rebecca
Petersen, and Glen Simpson. We also appreciate the
doll makers who consented to be interviewed: Dora
Buchea, Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy, Denise Hardesty,
Eva Hefe, Walton Irrigoo, Alice Johnnie, Caroline
Kava Penayah, Ruth Koweluk, Iva and Ken Lisbourne,
Rosalie Paniyak, Jackie Schoppert, and Lillian Tetpon.
We would also like to acknowledge the contributions
of museum staff who helped with the exhibit, speci-
cally Steve Bouta, Terry Dickey, and Wanda Chin, as
well as the student assistants and volunteers whose
hard work helped make the exhibit and catalog a
success. Now as then, we remember their hard work
with gratitude.
A young Aleut girl cradles a
doll at the Jesse Lee Memo-
rial Home, Unalaska, ca.
1889. Photographer unknown.
Sheldon Jackson Papers (RG 239-
14-27, #885), Presbyterian Historical
Society, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),
Philadelphia, PA.
viii
Siberian Yupik Inupiaq Aleut Tlingit Haida
Central Yupik Athabascan Alutiiq Tsimshian Eyak
Map 1.
This map shows the origin of many dolls and gurines in the
University of Alaska Museum collection and the home villages
of many doll makers. The Alaska Native language map (right)
shows the geographic distribution of Alaskas indigenous peoples.
Modied from the map Native Peoples and Languages of Alaska (1980).
Courtesy Alaska Native Language Center.
1
Intimates and Effgies
Dolls and Human Figurines in Alaska Native Cultures
Angela J. Linn and Molly C. Lee
For more than a thousand years, Alaska Native
people
1
have fashioned human gurines out of stone,
bone, ivory, rodent claws, trade cloth, and many other
materials. Children played with such gurinesusu-
ally called dollsbut their other uses in both everyday
and ceremonial life are less well known. In the ancient
cultures of the Bering Strait region, palm-sized walrus
ivory carvings of women holding babies were used
to promote fertility. Along the lower Yukon River,
Yupik Eskimo and Athabascan shamans hung human
gurines made of driftwood in trees to foretell the
location of game. In the Aleutian Islands, an ancient
ivory hermaphrodite with tusks suggests the mediating
role that shamans played between male and female
spheres. Today, Alaska Native women have broken
with the past by creating innovative examples that
belie conventional doll aesthetics. Thus, the term
doll, the only common English language collective
word for human miniatures, is woefully inadequate
to convey the widespread uses of human gurines in
Alaska Native cultures.
The Human Figure in Alaska Native Cultures of the Past
Our understanding of the roles of human gurines in
prehistoric Alaskan cultures is incomplete, not only
because of the unequal distribution of archaeological
sites, but because of the uneven degree of preservation
of the artifacts themselves. For example, one-piece
dolls of ivory or wood found in an archaeological con-
text may once have been dressed in skin clothing that
rotted away in the ground. Also, while human gurines
have been recovered from most areas now inhabited
by Alaska Native groups, the relationship between the
The collection of dolls and human miniatures from
Alaska Native cultures at the University of Alaska Mu-
seum of the North
2
includes several thousand gures
from Alaskas prehistoric and early historic periods and
is one of the largest and most representative public col-
lections of historic and modern Alaska Native dolls in
existence. All six ethnic groups in Alaskathe Inupiaq
and Yupik Eskimos, the Aleuts and Alutiiqs, and the
Athabascan and Northwest Coast Indiansare repre-
sented in the collection, although the Central Yupik
and St. Lawrence Island Yupik collections of human
gures are largest.
This chapter
3
describes the various purposes that
dolls and human gurines have served in Alaska
Native cultures past and present. We have drawn on a
wide variety of sources: published, archival, and oral
history.
4
Some human gurines were used by religious
specialists such as shamans. While these practices were
sometimes feared, this information is included in the
hope that it will offer a more complete picture of life
in earlier times.
ancient and present-day cultures is not always clear.
Thus, even ethnographic analogy, the archaeologists
court of last resort, is problematic here.
Bering Strait Region
By far the largest number and oldest examples of hu-
man gurines from prehistoric Alaska have been exca-
vated on and near St. Lawrence Island. Those from the
Okvik period (200 BC to AD 100; also called Old Bering
Sea I) are perhaps the best known. Female gurines
1
2
Map 2.
Important archaeological sites where dolls and human gurines
were excavated.
Intimates and Efgies 3
Figure 1. Old Bering Sea Figurines
These two walrus ivory gurines were excavated on the Punuk
Islands, southeast of St. Lawrence Island. They are about 2000
years old and of unknown use. The Okvik Madonna (right)
holds a gure on her belly. It is probably a child or, perhaps,
a bear cub. Both gures are attributed to the Okvik culture as
determined by their decorative surfaces. Researchers are unsure
whether these are tattoo designs, represent clothing, or perhaps
are skeletal motifs like those found on Dorset culture gurines
of the Canadian arctic. The Dorset period was contemporane-
ous with Okvik. (Left) 17 cm, UA71-009-0001; (right) 18 cm,
UA4-1934-0607.
Figure 2. St. Lawrence Island Wooden Figures
Whether these gures are play dolls or human gurines is
unknown. Otto Geist mentions that similar ones were used as
house guardians on St. Lawrence Island, but elders from the
island have also suggested that they were toys for playing house.
St. Lawrence Island Yupik. From left to right: 2.3 x 1 x 0.7, 1-
1933-8426; 2.8 x 1.1 x 0.5, 1-1933-8416; 6.4 x 2.4 x 1.3, 1-1933-
8408; 7.5 x 3 x 1.5, 1-1933-8403; 4.5 x 2 x 1.2, 1-1933-8406; 2.3
x 1 x 0.5, 1-1933-8436; 1.4 x 0.6 x 0.4, 1-1933-8440.
ranging from three to 20 centimeters tall predominate
(Fig. 1). Stylistically, the heads are pointed ovals, and
facial features consist of curved eyebrows, straight
ridge-like noses, and small mouths (Ray 1961:14).
Genitalia are often exaggerated. If arms or legs are
present, they are generally either nubs or long and bent
at the joints. Most Okvik gurines are engraved with
diagonally oriented, deeply etched parallel lines; these
may represent clothing, tattoos, or may be skeletal
referents (Fair 1982).
The purpose of the Okvik gurines is uncertain.
They were possibly made as childrens toys, but their
full breasts, distended abdomens, and pronounced
genitalia suggest that they were used in fertility ceremo-
nies (Rainey 1941:521). This is further suggested by
their putatively skeletal motifs, which are generally as-
sociated with shamans (Taylor and Swinton 1967:33).
Headless dolls, as well as detached doll heads, are
frequently found in Okvik sites, which also suggests
this association. The relationship of Okvik people to
present-day residents of the same area is a matter of
conjecture, but early twentieth-century St. Lawrence
Islanders are reported to have broken dolls on the death
of shamans or children (Ray 1977:10).
Human gurines are also found in Old Bering Sea
II
5
sites from the same area. Dating from AD 100 to
300, these are usually more accurately depicted than
the earlier Okvik examples. Changes in facial features
include broad, at noses and slit-like eyes (Wardwell
1986:6579). Punuk sites from the nearby Punuk
Islands (AD 500 to 1200) yield gurines whose body
style is similar to those of the Old Bering Sea cultures
(Wardwell 1986:9697), but the heads are broader
and rounder (Giddings 1964:88). Round-headed dolls
are also found in the early historical period from St.
Lawrence Island and Alaska.
Thule Period (AD 900 to 1700)
Thule human gurines, unlike the preceding styles
from the coast of Siberia and St. Lawrence Island,
are found across the North American Arctic from the
Bering Strait to Greenland. Thule sites are the earliest to
4 Chapter 1
Figure 3. Nukleet Figures
Eighteen whole and fragmentary human gurines and related
objects of wood or bark were found at the Nukleet site on Norton
Sound. Reprinted from Giddings (1964, plate 32).
which present-day Eskimo populations can reliably be
traced. Examples from the Thule sites, such as Nukleet,
on Norton Sound, are abundant (Giddings 1964:89)
(Fig. 3). Their purpose is unknown (Bandi 1969:154),
although ethnographic analogy with the Eskimos of
the historic period suggests that the gurines were used
as charms, amulets, or childrens playthings.
To summarize, the existence of miniature human
gurines in the prehistoric Bering Strait suggests that
they played an important, if undetermined, role in
these cultures. The more widely spread and later Thule
nds from across the Arctic yield plentiful numbers of
human sculptures, suggesting that they were also im-
portant to the more recent arrivals in Alaska. Further-
more, Thule gurines from Alaska to Greenland show
more stylistic similarity with each other than they do
with those from the more localized Bering Strait cul-
tures that preceded them (Giddings 1964:91).
Intimates and Efgies 5
Figure 4a (front) and b (back). Ivory Carving
The function of this object is unknown. It is made from walrus
ivory, has a hole drilled into the top of the head, and has a small
human form carved on the back. There is no information to
indicate whether it was excavated at Nukleet on Norton Sound
or was a twentieth-century piece collected during the dig. 10 x
2.5 x 2, 0470-0014.
Human Figurines in
Aleut and Alutiiq Prehistory
Human gurines of wood and ivory have also been
excavated in the Aleutian Islands, on the Alaska and
Kenai peninsulas, and Kodiak Island. Because the
Aleutian archaeological record is less complete than
that of Bering Strait and St. Lawrence Island, these
gurines are less well known. Laughlin and Marsh
(1951) excavated the earliest known Aleutian human-
oid from Chaluka Mound on Umnak Island, the oldest
reported site in this vicinity.
6
The gurine, which is
at least three thousand years old, was made of ivory
and is about twelve inches tall, with a thick trunk and
neck, straight-hanging arms, and some kind of hat on
the back of its head. The gurine had hung by a string
inside the house where it was found; apparently, the
head of the household prayed to it before going to sea
(Laughlin and Marsh 1951:82). The gurine has no
ethnographic parallel (Laughlin and Marsh 1951:75
ff; Ray 1981:24). One of the most common types of
artifacts at Chaluka were images of deities of bone
and ivory (Laughlin 1963:7779).
Two important human gurines were found on
Amaknak Island. One known as the Jowly Man has
arched eyebrows, a mouth represented by a slash, and
a chin incised with lines that may be either a tattoo or
a beard (beards were worn by Aleut shamans) (Black
1982:8). From this same site is a female gurine made
of walrus ivory, wearing a tall, ritual hat and missing
what appear to have been articulated arms (Black
1982:810). Waldemar Jochelson excavated amulets
and charms in human form on Umnak Island in the
eastern Aleutians. He reports that the rudely carved
gurines of stone, volcanic tufa, and slate were used
in divination (Jochelson 1925:95, g. 79ab). Jochelson
found crudely executed carvings of human faces on
bone weapon fragments on Umnak as well. Evidently,
these were intended as guardians of the weapons, and
their presence was thought to increase the accuracy of
the hunters aim (Jochelson 1925:95) (Fig. 5).
William H. Dall, who excavated in the Aleutians in
the 1870s, also found a number of small-sized human
efgies made of wood and painted red. Some were
found in association with wooden cylinders, which
Figure 5. Aleut Harpoon Head
This harpoon type was used in warfare and hunting. Made of
bone, they are carved with human faces. The faces may represent
helping spirits, who guarded the weapons and helped them in
striking animals. Reprinted from Jochelson (1925, g. 83).
6
Figure 6. Miniature Ivory Carvings
It is nearly impossible to determine the functions of many
archaeological pieces. This large group of miniature gures
could have been used for any number of purposes. Some re-
searchers have suggested that they were charms to be worn to
promote fertility (many of the gures seem to be female and
have distended bellies and pronounced breasts). Others think
they may have been toys. They also could have had ceremonial
uses, or perhaps they illustrated now-forgotten stories. Many
of the gures have interesting topknots that resemble those
worn by Greenlandic Eskimo women. Some have hoods that
look like the hoods on Canadian Inuit parkas (amautiks). Most
of these gures date to the Thule period, which, in Alaska, lasted
from approximately AD 9001700. 1-1933-8330; 1-1926-0802;
UA74-066-0011; 1-1935-8435; UA84-052-0006; 0198-1872;
1-1933-8338; 1-1933-8332; 1-1933-8331; 1-1933-8345; 1-1933-
8339; 1-1933-8333; 1-1935-8772; 1-1935-8771; 1-1933-9240;
1-1933-9241; 1-1935-8770; UA79-053-0097; UA69-037-0010;
UA66-002-0090; 1-1935-4986; 1-1935-4772; 1-1935-4983;
1-1935-4017.
Figure 7. Prehistoric Ivory Carvings
The ivory gure on the far left, collected near Nome,
may be a charm or amulet. A small hole pierces the
hollow where the clavicles would meet. This depres-
sion is known as the spirit access point, the place
where a spirit would enter the object and endow the
wearer with its protection. The gure would also be
ritually fed through this hole. The second object,
also of unknown purpose, was excavated at the
Nukleet site on Norton Sound. It was made between
AD 900 and 1700. The two headless gures may have
belonged to a St. Lawrence Island shaman. The heads
of a shamans gurines were broken off after his or
her death. Both of these pieces are made of ivory and
are from excavations on St. Lawrence Island. 9 x 3,
UA76-277-0001; 15 x 3.5, UA67-080-0567; 12.5 x 7,
1-1931-0307; 6.5 x 2, 0223-2551.
Intimates and Efgies 7
Figure 8. Alutiiq Kayak Model
Like many kayak models, this example with three cockpits was
collected as a souvenir of Alaska. However, there also is a long-
standing Aleut and Alutiiq cultural tradition of using miniature
suggested to him that they might have been part of
a shamans rattle (Dall 1878:30). He also mentioned
another roughly made gurine found in a cave near a
mummy. The small humanoid had been deposited in
a basket along with other artifacts. It lacked arms and
legs and was covered with a sticky, resin-like substance,
suggesting that it may once have been inserted into
something such as a model baidarka of the type com-
monly found in collections of Aleutian material from
the early historic period (Dall 1878:24).
William H. Dall and Alphonse Pinart found broken
parts of life-sized efgies in a number of locations
across the Aleutiansfor example, in association
with masks and other cultural and human remains
on Unga Island. Their broken condition may indicate
that these gurines were used in religious ceremonies
(Dall 1878:30; Lantis 1947:19). At the time that Dall
was in the Aleutians, his informants remembered that
gurines had been used in earlier times during reli-
gious festivities held in December on several Aleutian
Islands. Made of wood or grass-stuffed skin, the gu-
rines were carried from island to island in ceremonies
that appear to have been conned to one gender or the
other. During such festivities a spirit was thought to
inhabit the life-sized efgies, and anyone who looked
directly at them was sure to die. Thus, participants wore
large masks. To reduce eye contact with the efgies, eye
holes were cut in the nostrils of the masks enabling
participants to look down, but not directly ahead or
upward (Dall 1878:45).
Conrming Dalls information and bridging the
gap between the prehistoric and historic periods, in-
formants of Father Ivan Veniaminovrst Christian
missionary in Alaska, who was in the Aleutians from
1825 to 1834told him that in earlier times winter
festivities had included reenactments of legendary feats
of bravery. Two puppet-like gurines of size made out
of grass, splendidly dressed and operated from within
by a man were used in the reenactments. One, with
a terrifying face and long beard, represented a giant,
and the other, an even larger puppet, was the offspring
of the devil. The performances also included actors,
who feared and obeyed these larger-than-life gurines
(Veniaminov 1984:199). Finally, a hermaphroditic
gurine with tusks and breasts but lacking articulated
genitals was found on Unalaska Island in the early
1900s by Nikolai Bolshanin (Black 1982:7). The gurine
may represent the Walrus Man, who is not otherwise
reported in the Aleutians but is known in the historic
period throughout the Inupiaq area (Kaplan and Bars-
ness 1986:154, g. 146).
There have been numerous nds of small wood,
ivory, and bone anthropomorphic gurines in the Alu-
tiiq region of Kodiak Island, northeast of the Aleutian
boat models in ceremonial contexts. Collected around 1877;
62.2 cm, UA0823-0001.
8 Chapter 1
Islands. At the Karluk and Monashka Bay sites dating
from about AD 1500 to 1750, archaeologists found
forty-one carvings of three different types: those with
detailed heads and bodies, those with heads and tor-
sos but only facial detail, and miniature kayak men.
The head and body carvings, which have exaggerated
sexual organs, have been interpreted as fertility dolls
(Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988:13, g. 165). The head-
and-torso carvings resemble the gurines that Kaj
Birket-Smith described as shamans helpers (Birket-
Smith 1953:126128).
The kayak men, found at all levels of the site, may
have been connected to a whale cult. In 1871, Al-
phonse Pinart explored a cave on Kodiak Island that
contained a small lake on which a miniature carving
of a whale and a tiny man in a kayak oated. It is not
widely known if the miniature kayak models, popular
as souvenirs since the ninteenth century (Fig. 8) existed
before European contact. If so, they probably had a
ceremonial use connected with whale hunting (Donta
1993:293295, 302305). In her Cook Inlet and Prince
William Sound excavations, Frederica de Laguna traced
the development of Alutiiq culture from about 700 BC
to the present. In three culture periodsKachemak Bay
I, II, and IIIshe uncovered a few human heads skill-
fully rendered in ivory. These and other nds suggest
an afliation with the Karluk nds on Kodiak Island
(Collins et al. 1973:14).
Athabascan and Northwest Coast Figurines
in the Prehistoric Period
In the Alaskan Interior, human gurines appear to be
absent in the archaeological assemblages, which con-
sist mainly of microblades and other stone tool types.
Here again, the relationship between the prehistoric
residents of this area and the present-day Athabascan
Indian culture is uncertain, although descendants of
late prehistoric inhabitants have been able to recon-
Historic Period
The literature of the early historic
7
period is witness
to the fascination that miniature human replicas
held for foreign visitors (Phillips 1999:72102). Early
travelerssuch as Lt. Lavrentii Zagoskin and Edward
W. Nelson in the Central Yupik and Bering Strait
Inupiaq areas, John Murdoch around Barrow, Father
Ivan Veniaminov in the Aleutians, and the Krause
brothers along the northern Northwest Coastall
struct some aspects of the past by ethnographic and
linguistic analogy (Clark 1981:128129). An early his-
toric period grave site on Yukon Island in Cook Inlet,
an area now inhabited by the Tanaina Athabascans,
yielded an ivory bust that had been buried along with
splitting adzes and a slate knife. According to Tanaina
informants in this region, grave goods consisted of
objects that were either the most prized possessions
of the deceased or those that were feared by his or her
descendants. These same informants thought that
the bust might be part of a shamans puppet, which
would have represented the shamans guardian spirit
(de Laguna 1934:114 and pl. 52).
Evidence of human gurines in Northwest Coast
cultures of the prehistoric era is sketchy. In the
Yakutat Bay excavations, de Laguna recovered two
gurines. One is a broken, charred bone carving of
a mans torso with a round face, large eyes, and a
large mouth. The second, a charred wooden gurine
of unspecied gender, is armless and nude, and the
face is without features. The gurines broken state
suggests that they may have been shamans gurines
(de Laguna et al. 1964:172). Southeast of the Alaska-
Canada border, bone pins with human heads have
been recovered from sites dating between AD 500 and
1000. In the same area, anthropomorphic slate mirrors
with well-dened heads and bodies and abstract legs
and arms have been excavated dating from between
AD 1000 and historic contact. At the same site, bone
pins with crude human faces were found, and these
may have been used as fasteners for cedar bark capes
(MacDonald 1983:103, 109). Finally, a human gurine
carved of stone was found in a midden at Metlakatla
in 1879, the only one of its type known for this area
(MacDonald 1983:118119). An early historic site on
Admiralty Island yielded slate plaques incised with an-
thropomorphic designs, which an informant hesitantly
identied as scratchers or amulets for pubescent girls
(de Laguna 1956:204205).
mention dolls and gurines (Krause 1955; Michael
1967:229; Murdoch 1892:380381; Nelson 1899:343;
Veniaminov 1984:vii). These reports are uneven, but
they suggest that in the early contact period Alaska
Native groups used human gurines in three general
ways: (1) miniatures were attached to the body or
clothing of children and adults as charms or amulets,
(2) larger gurines were made either for use in more
9
Figure 9. Standing Inupiaq Figure
This gure was found by the chief engineer of a ship on the
beach at Nome during the gold rush of 1900. Whether it was a
shamans doll or intended for a child is unknown. Childrens
dolls were often armless to facilitate the changing of clothes. The
dark burnt surface could suggest that it was used in ceremonies.
Wooden objects were often burnt after their ritual power was
used up. 19 x 5 x 3, UA94-009-0033.
Figure 10. Yupik Play Dolls
Young girls in southwestern Alaska played with rag dolls just like
girls everywhere. Once trade cloth was obtainable, a girl only
had to wrap a bundle of cloth and dress it to have an instant
playmate. This selection shows the integration of other trade
materials and the dress style of the early 1920s. Left to right,
Top row: (1) wooden head piece, 5 x 2 x 2, UA64-021-0871; (2)
ivory-headed doll, 7.5 x 4 x 1, UA64-021-0094; (3) rag doll, 5.5
x 5 x 1, UA64-021-0868. Bottom row: (4) rag doll, 16 x 7.5 x 2,
UA64-021-0872; (5) rag doll, 9.5 x 4 x 2, UA64-021-0192A; (6)
rag doll, 8.5 x 3.5 x 1.5, UA64-021-0192B; (7) rock-faced doll, 23
x 10.5 x 5, UA64-064-0079; (8) rag doll, 11 x 9 x 2, UA64-021-
0869; (9) wooden-headed doll, 13.5 x 8 x 1.5, UA64-021-0189;
(10) rag doll, 10.5 x 8 x 2, UA94-001-0091.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10 Chapter 1
Figure 11. Doll Clothing and Sewing Tools
Represented here are some of the miniature replicas of clothing
worn by adults early in the twentieth century. There is also
an Inupiaq sewing kit and housewife, which women used for
storing sewing implements. Women used these tools for mak-
ing the Yup ik miniature gut parka and loon-skin parka, the
St. Lawrence Island doll boots, and the Athabascan beaded
mittens. Clockwise from top left: gut parka UA68-018-0009;
loon-skin parka 0900-0086; housewife UA70-053-0046; sew-
ing kit UA80-022-0055; mittens UA86-010-0005AB; boots
1084-0009AB.
formalized ritual and ceremony, or (3) childrens
playthings.
Play Dolls in Alaska Native Cultures
The information about play dolls within Alaska Native
cultures is sporadic. As is so often the case in early
museum collections, it is difcult to distinguish dolls
made for play from those made for ritual. According
to Ray, there are some general principles that help in
making the distinction: In the nineteenth century,
she says, dolls that had removable clothing, or that
had a hard torso and legs of skin or cloth, were usu-
ally made as playthings, and the unclothed gurines
of wood or ivory were usually amulets or shamans
dolls (1981:71).
8
According to Ray, the soft-bodied
doll with a skin body stuffed with fur or other mate-
rials was invented during the Nome gold rush of the
1890s and soon became the norm throughout Alaska
Native cultures.
It is possible to distinguish Central Yupik human
gurines from Inupiaq examples on the basis of facial
features. Yupik gurines have a distinct brow line,
shaped like two crescents joined at the center by the nose,
whereas Inupiaq gurines lack this brow line and have
more pronounced noses and tiny eyes that look as though
they had been poked in by the tip of a pencil or pen. The
mouths of Yupik gurines mirror the crescent shape of
the brows, whereas the Inupiaq dolls have small, straight
mouths. Overall, the features of the Inupiaq examples are
more crudely carved (Nelson 1899:344) (Fig. 9).
Play Dolls of the Historic Period
Central Yupik Play Dolls
Play dolls from the Central Yupik area were made of
wood, bone, or ivory and measured from one to twelve
inches in height or more (Fienup-Riordan 2003:40
47). Male and female dolls were often distinguished
Intimates and Efgies 11
anatomically and can be told apart by the addition of
ivory labrets for males and chin tattooing for females.
The construction of the Central Yupik play dolls
that Nelson collected from villages between St. Michael
and the lower Kuskokwim River is fairly consistent.
9

Most had round wooden, ivory or bone heads, ovoid-
shaped eyes and mouths, short necks, solid torsos,
and arms that were formed but not separated from the
body (Fig. 10). They also lacked legs (Nelson 1899:343;
Ray 1981:99102, 169, 171). The faces of female dolls
were frequently tattooed. Other decoration, including
hairdressings and nose- and earrings, was represented
by hair and beads placed in the correct positions. Some
even had bracelets and bead necklaces. The male dolls
had labrets made from beads or bead pieces.
Girls often had a number of play dolls of different
sizes and several changes of clothes (Fig. 11). The latter
were patterned after adult wear and included boots,
mittens, and parkas made of lemming or mouse skin.
Sometimes the dolls were provided with miniature
household furnishings such as bedding and grass mats.
Girls appear to have been solicitous of their small
companions, lavishing attention on them as though
they were alive (Nelson 1899:343344).
The centrality of play dolls in the lives of Central
Yupik girls is evident from the role they assumed as
the markers of seasons and life cycles. In the winter,
dolls could not be taken outside for play unless they
were covered up.
10
If dolls were taken outside before
the return of the geese, it was believed that summer
would not come. (See Fienup-Riordan 2005:284 for a
story illustrating the severity of the punishment for
doing so.) The strictness of this prohibition can be
inferred from the consequences that were thought to
result from breaking the taboo: a story from Yukon
River villages tells of a winter that did not turn into
spring because one little girl had secretly played with
her dollsoutside and uncoveredbefore the geese
returned (Akaran 1975).
Dolls also mediated the transition between child-
hood and adulthood in the Central Yupik region.
According to the Moravian missionary John Kilbuck,
a girls rst menstruation was referred to as putting
away the dolls. She was conned for a period of time,
during which her movements were restricted, and she
was forbidden to engage in either childhood or adult
activities. At the end of this isolation, she distributed
her dolls to younger girls (Fienup-Riordan 1991:60).
St. Lawrence Island Yupik Play Dolls
St. Lawrence Island dolls of the early historic period
were simple images of wood, without clothing or facial
details, and often lacking arms. Nelson criticized the
workmanship of the St. Lawrence Island dolls, nding
them rudely made. He felt that their makers displayed
little skill or artistic ability, which he attributed to
their general lack of culture in this direction compared
with the people of the adjacent American coast (Nel-
son 1899:342). Whether he was referring to playthings
or gurines used in other contexts is unknown. One
type of play doll from this area is the so-called yoke
doll, which may be simple but is by no means crude.
Young girls were given the lower jaw of a walrus to
dress or simply anthropomorphize by the addition of
a happy face. Set on a girls shoulders and peeking out
from beneath her parka hood, this jawbone was trans-
formed into a baby in the normal carrying position
(Figs. 12, 13). Earlier, such yoke dolls were sometimes
carved from driftwood (Fig. 14, far left).
Inupiaq Play Dolls
In the vicinity of Point Barrow, play dolls appear to
have been less common than farther southwest around
Bering Strait. John Murdoch, who was at Point Barrow
from 1881 to 1883, collected several human gurines
but none that were used for play. [Dolls] do not appear
to be popular with the little girls, he wrote, and I do
not recollect ever seeing a child playing with a doll
Figure 12. A Yoke Doll From a Walrus Mandible
Young girls on St. Lawrence Island dressed a walrus jaw bone
in scraps of cloth and placed the bone on the back of the neck
to imitate their mothers who carried their babies this same way.
Here, Velma Koontz of Savoonga demonstrates the technique.
12 Chapter 1
Figure 13. A Young Mother Carries Her Baby, Ca. 1926.
The infant wears a unisuit, a garment unique to St. Lawrence
Island. As a child, the mother may have played with a yoke
doll that was carried in this same way. John Brooks Collection, acc.

no. 68-32-1151, Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Department, Rasmuson
Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Athabascan Play Dolls
Among the Tanaina, little girls played with carved
wooden dolls, dressing them in doll clothes and
blankets made of arctic ground squirrel (Osgood
1937:124). Like the nearby Yupiit, Deg Hitan (Ingalik)
girls were subject to prohibitions involving play dolls.
11

Wooden examples of the kinds found elsewhere were
uncommon because the Deg Hitan feared them, be-
lieving that when the dolls were put away for the night,
evil spirits could enter them (Osgood 1940:390391).
Thus, little girls were sometimes forbidden to take their
dolls to bed. These superstitions could be overcome,
however, by summoning a shaman to banish any evil
spirits lurking nearby (Osgood 1940:390391).
Instead, Deg Hitan girls had dolls made out of ma-
terials such as a rabbit skin rolled and tied to resemble
the human gure. Mothers made primitive dolls from
pieces of moss or bundled grass. During an advisory
committee meeting for the doll exhibit at the University
of Alaska Museum in 1999, Poldine Carlo, who grew
up in Nulato, said that girls used to pull up grass by
the roots, bundle it, and let the roots hang down
like hair, which they sometimes washed. Other girls
made dolls for themselves out of tanned-skin cutouts
sewn into human forms and stuffed with rabbit skin.
Sometimes the faces were marked, and clothing mod-
eled after real prototypes was added along with beads
for nose- and earrings. Family members made doll-
sized furniture and birch bark food baskets (Osgood
1940:390391).
Aleut and Alutiiq Play Dolls
Early in the historic period the Alutiiq populations
of Prince William Sound made wide use of dolls and
human gurines: whether for ritual or play or both
is unknown. According to Captain James Cook, who
explored the sound in 1784, [There were] a good
many little images, four or ve inches long, either of
wood or stuffed, which were covered with a bit of fur
and ornamented with pieces of small quill feathers,
in imitation of their shelly [dentalia] beads, with hair
xed on their heads. Whether these might be mere toys
or held in some veneration we could not determine
(quoted in de Laguna 1956:223).
Northwest Coast Play Dolls
Among the northern Tlingit of Dry Bay and Yaku-
tat, mothers made play dolls for their daughters, or
obtained them already made from the Interior. The
dolls had round stone heads, made either of beach
(Murdoch 1892:380). This is puzzling given the con-
siderable number of dolls that Nelson collected from
the Bering Strait Inupiaq at about the same time. The
most common type of ivory play doll in the Nelson col-
lection has its arms hanging down at its sides (Nelson
1899:344). Unlike Murdoch, Nelson saw the dolls in
use. He described one endearing incident in which two
little girls on Sledge Island placed their dolls standing
in a semicircle before us upon the oor, while they sat
quietly behind as though permitting their dolls to take
a look at the strangers (Nelson 1899:345).
Intimates and Efgies 13
stone (de Laguna 1960:107) or from a powdery white
marble obtained from the Interior, purportedly from
a mountain near the headwaters of the Alsek River
in Canada. The marble was easy to carve when fresh
but hardened rapidly. The bodies were made of rags.
Girls also had small wooden food dishes for their
dolls, which were sometimes carved out of a species
of fungus (Fomitopsis pinicola). One informant told
de Laguna that little girls rocked the dolls to sleep as
their mothers rocked babies and that her own father
had made a toy canoe for her dolls, which she played
with in a small, fenced-in wading pool on the Situk
River (de Laguna 1972:515).
Like the Central Yupiit, the Northwest Coast
Indians marked the boundary between childhood
and adulthood by the ceremonial renunciation of
play dolls. After a girls rst menstruation, when she
emerged from her requisite period of isolation, the
girls family held a feast at which she gave away her
dolls. In accordance with the Northwest Coast Indi-
ans emphasis on kinship and social relations, the
recipients of the castoff dolls were rigidly proscribed.
Only prepubescent female cousins on the girl s
fathers side could receive them. The distribution was
organized by the girls mother (de Laguna 1972:520).
The latest date for the collection of the stone-headed
Figure 14. Playing as Learning
This photo illustrates many of the ways that play helps children
to learn adult behavior. Girls learned mothering and sewing
skills by using the yoke doll, the baby dolls, a birchbark baby
carrier, and beaded baby belt. Boys learned hunting and kaya-
king skills by playing with the miniature bow and arrow and
the kayak model with its attached hunting implements. These
miniatures were made with as much detail and precision as were
their full-sized counterparts. Left to right, back row: yoke doll,
St. Lawrence Island Yupik, 29 x 21, 1-1927-0496; baby doll, St.
Lawrence Island Yupik, maker: Miriam Kilowiyi, 31 cm, UA66-
023-0002; baby doll, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, 20 cm, UA64-
021-0194; baby carrier, Athabascan, 41 x 26, UA95-017-0015.
Front row: model kayak, Yupik, 39.4 cm, UA70-028-0001AH;
miniature bow and arrow, Canadian Inuit, 65.4 (bow), 40.6
(arrow), UA68-052-0008AB; baby belt, Athabascan, maker:
JoAnn Beaver, 4.1 x 38.1, UA90-007-0011.
14 Chapter 1
amulet had a specic purpose (Ray 1977:17), people
often wore many of them. Eskimos attached charms and
amulets to their clothing or strung them on thongs worn
around the neck or wrist (Fig. 16).
13
One early visitor to
the Mackenzie Delta reported that the womens parkas
were frequently ornamented with festoons of carved
ivory pendants (Colecleugh 1876:8). The Danish sea
captain Adrian Jacobsen, who collected in the Yupik area
between 1881 and 1883, also remarked on the prevalence
of charms and amulets in the village of Tununak, not-
ing: An unusual sight is the young girls, many of whom
attach wooden gurines to their fur hoods (Jacobsen
1977:176). According to Edward M. Weyer, on Little
Diomede and St. Lawrence islands, men sported enough
charms and amulets to warrant the wearing of amulet
straps, which were worn bandolier style, diagonally over
the chest and one shoulder (Weyer 1932:316).
Figure 16.
Amulets and charms were worn by Alaska Natives to promote
health and to ward off evil spirits. Often, so many were worn
that special belts were made to accommodate them. This young
girl is wearing a single charm around her neck while aboard
the Revenue Marine Steamer Corwin in 1884. Reproduced from

Healy (1889:13).
Figure 15. Tlingit Doll
Tlingit girls played with dolls that had soft bodies and heads
carved from a soapstone-like marble. This doll wears clothing
made of leather and has a head that was probably carved by the
childs father out of marble or other white stone. It was collected
by George Emmons at Klukwan, ca. 1885. Courtesy of the Burke

Museum of Natural History and Culture, cat. no. 1526.
dolls appears to have been about 1885, when George
T. Emmons collected one (Fig. 15). Their disappear-
ance apparently coincided with the importation of
china and wax dolls, which soon replaced them (de
Laguna 1972:515).
Human Figurines in Ritual and Ceremony
Charms and Amulets
Many of the small wood or ivory human gurines
of Alaska Native origin found today in museums,
antique shops, or private collections probably started
out as personal charms or amulets. Rarely exceeding
three to four inches in length, charms and amulets
have been reported from the Northwest Coast and the
Aleutians, although Yupik and Inupiaq Eskimos appear
to have made the greatest use of them. Because each
Intimates and Efgies 15
Figure 17. Possible House Guardians
Otto Geist reported seeing human gurines on St. Lawrence
Island that were used as house guardians, to discourage the
entrance of evil spirits. This practice was also documented by
Karl H. Merck in 1791 on the Seward Peninsula. Many of the
Native people of Siberia also use anthropomorphic guard-
ians to protect their homes, and these gures were fed with
the best food the family could afford to show their respect for
the gures spirit and to nourish it for continued protection.
The gouges around the mouths of these gures suggest that
they were ritually fed in the past. The objects here are from St.
Lawrence Island. During the historic period, the islanders have
maintained close connections with their Siberian relatives.15 x
4, 1-1929-NN; 18 x 7, 1-1935-7700; 6.4 x 3, 1-1935-8779; 15 x 3,
1-1935-8513; 15 x 4.3, 1-1935-2185; 15 x 3.6, 1-1926-1048.
Larger Human Figurines in Ritual and Ceremony
In addition to charms and amulets, Alaska Native groups
made larger human gurines for ritual purposes and as
play dolls for children. Without documentation, there
are no absolutes for distinguishing a ceremonial gu-
rine from a play doll. However, as already mentioned
above, Dorothy Jean Ray observed that the material out
of which the gurine is made is a strong indication of
its purpose. Her research suggests that gurines made
of wood were intended for ritual purposes (Fig. 17) and
those made of ivory were usually childrens playthings
(Ray 1977:10). This distinction serves as a good general
rule, although there are many exceptions.
In the case of excavations of historic period sites,
another indicator in some localities is whether the
dolls head is attached to its body. Dolls with severed
heads seem to have served ritual or ceremonial pur-
poses. On St. Lawrence Island, where many headless
bodiesand bodiless headshave been recovered, the
heads were broken off the dolls of children who died
(Ray 1977:10). In the Inupiaq village of Shishmaref,
however, the heads of both childrens and shamans
gurines were broken off at death (Jones 1982:4). No
explanation for this practice is given. In the case of
children, if the doll was a symbolic representation of
its personhood, breaking off the head may have been
thought to release the gurinesand therefore the
childsspirit from its body so that it would be free
to travel to the spirit world; in the case of a shamanic
gurine, the ritual killing may have neutralized the
gurines potential for evil (Fig. 18).
St. Lawrence Island and Central Yupik Figurines
Larger wood or ivory gurines were used for a variety
of shamanic purposes in most Alaska Native cultures.
On St. Lawrence Island, gurines of a different type
were used to cure infertility. According to Otto William
Geist, rather than carving a single gurine of a child
as was common in the Central Yupik area, shamans
carved mother-and-child gurines for this purpose
(Geist n.d.). The lifelike wooden sculptures of a par-
ent and child carved by the great St. Lawrence Island
16
Figure 18. Ivory and Clay Heads
On St. Lawrence Island, the heads of shamans dolls were often
broken off upon his or her death. This practice also was common
when children died. The reason for this practice is not known,
but some think it was a way to prevent the helping spirit that
had inhabited the doll from returning and working evil. Left to
right: ivory head from Hillside site, 7.8 x 1.7 x 1.2, 0223-2551;
ivory head with tattooing, 4 x 3 x 3, 1-1926-0819; ivory head
from Kukulik site, 6.4 x 4 x 3.4, 1-1931-0961; clay head from
Camp Collier, 4.6 x 3.4 x 3, 1-1926-0818.
Figure 19. Nemayaq Wooden Carvings
Nemayaq, the carver of these wooden gures, was a great artist
and legendary culture hero on St. Lawrence Island in the early
twentieth century. He was probably born in Siberia and im-
migrated to the island later. Nemayaqs descendants remember
that some of the carvings had pet names. Front center: 10 cm,
1-1927-NN; 9.5 cm, UA94-001-0138; Back from left to right: 14
cm, 1-1927-0492; 14 cm, 1-1927-0491; 15 cm, 0199-1927; 9 cm,
1-1927-0490; 11 cm, UA74-066-0005.
Intimates and Efgies 17
Figure 20. Yupik Wooden Figures
This group includes gures from three different Yupik regions.
Such gures were used as amulets, appendages to masks, and
were inserted into kayak models. The objects illustrated here
may have been used in any of these ways. Left to right, top row:
Old Togiak partial gures, 12.1 x 3.1 x 2.3, UA65-011-1144;
8 x 1.6 x 1.3, UA65-011-1608; 9 x 2.6 x 1.9, UA65-011-1172; 9.1
x 1.9 x 1.7, UA65-011-1638; Nunivak Island gure, 10.1 x 3.4 x
2.2, 1-1927-0394. Bottom row: Old Togiak full gure, 6.3 x 1.5
x 1.1, UA65-011-1606; Hooper Bay gures, 4.6 x 2 x 1.1, 1-1950-
0187; 3.3 x 1.1 x 0.9, 1-1950-0198.
artist and culture hero Nemayaq may have been cre-
ated for this purpose (Fair 1982:52; Geist and Rainey
1936:34)
14
(Fig. 19).
In the Central Yupik area a gurine could be carved
to stand in for someone absent from a settlement during
an important ritual (Michael 1967:288289). In the
same area, shamans, like those on St. Lawrence Island,
prescribed the carving of gurines as a cure for infer-
tility. The husband of the infertile pair was instructed
to carve the gurine and to perform secret rites with
it. Afterward, his wife was instructed to sleep with the
gurine under her pillow (Ray 1961:17).
15
In the mens
house, human gurines, sometimes wrapped in an
eider duck skin, hung from a centrally placed circular
framework that could be raised and lowered (ellanguaq)
(Fienup-Riordan 1996:126; Michael 1967:129; Nelson
1899:382383, 494). It should be remembered that,
because of the animistic nature of Eskimo religion,
people believed that gurines used in ritual contexts
actually lived (Fair 1999). Along the upper Kuskokwim,
for example, so absolute was this belief that such gu-
rines were thought to walk, talk, and wear out their
clothes (Fienup-Riordan 1996:131).
Among the Central Yupiit and neighboring Deg
Hitan Athabascans, whose territory abutted the Yupiit
on the upper Yukon River, human gurines were used
in a number of contexts (Fig. 20), the most important
of which were the mid-winter doll festivities and as
grave markers.
In the Central Yupik area people erected wooden
memorials to the dead that often included human
efgies (Fienup-Riordan 1996:98, 2003:41).
16
Accord-
ing to Nelson, full-body gurines were erected at Big
Lake (between the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers) in
honor of people whose bodies were lost (1899:318).
In Crow Village, abandoned in the nineteenth century,
18 Chapter 1
Oswalt and VanStone found a memorial pole with a
bird at the top and a life-sized carving of a young girl
at its base. The pole had been erected by a community
leader in memory of his daughter, who died during
childhood. The neck of the carving was encircled by
a bead necklace, and its face was grease-stained from
ritual feedings (Oswalt and VanStone 1967:92). Little
specic information about the context of these mark-
ers is recorded, and there are conicting opinions as
to whether they represented specic or generalized
portraits of the deceased (Ray 1981:3738; 1982).
The best-documented ritual use of human gurines
among the Central Yupiit is the so-called doll festival.
In early spring, many communities held ceremonies,
during which they consecrated a human gurine in
the mens house. For that next year, the consecrated
human gurine was used to divine the presence of
game. According to Nelson, the festival was held in
settlements along the lower Yukon, as far inland as the
largely Athabascan settlement of Anvik, and according
to William J. Fisher, it was held on the Alaska Peninsu-
la and on Kodiak Island (Donta 1993:188189; Osgood
1940:423425). A wooden doll or human gurine
17

was placed in the community house
18
where it was the
focus of a ceremony. Afterward, the shaman wrapped
the doll in birch bark and hung it, along with some
masks, in a tree at a secret location. There it served as a
kind of oracle, and it was fed and consulted throughout
the year to foretell the availability of game. The next
spring the gurine was removed and returned to the
ceremonial house, and its birch bark coverings were
removed. If caribou were to be abundant, the shaman
would nd caribou hair in the gurines birch bark
wrap; if the salmon were to return in large numbers,
sh scales would be found in the folds instead. In some
places, the disclosure of human hair was thought to
foretell the death of community members. Each year, a
new doll replaced the old, which was brought in from
its secret tree, consulted, and disposed of (Fienup-
Riordan 1991:188189; Nelson 1899:494).
19
Athabascan Figurines. The Deg Hitan Athabas-
canswho lived upriver from the Yupiit, frequently
intermarried with them and appear to have bor-
rowed many Yupik cultural adaptations (de Laguna
1973:133)held a similar doll festival. Thanks to the
Deg Hitan informants of anthropologist Cornelius
Osgood, who worked among them in the late 1930s, we
have a detailed picture of the Deg Hitan version of the
ceremony, the outlines of which may be roughly similar
to the one sketched out by Nelson fty years earlier.
According to Osgood, the dolls used in the Deg
Hitan festival varied in height from eight to twelve
inches. Their heads were of realistically carved spruce
wood, painted red, and their bodies were of bundled
grass or caribou hair (which was considered inferior
to grass). Unlike the Yupik ceremony, which appears
to have used a single doll, the Deg Hitan festival used
a male and female pair. The male doll was distin-
guished by a pair of labrets and the miniature drum
and drumsticks he held; the female doll had chin
tattoos; both were clothed in everyday dress (Osgood
1940:423425).
As among the Central Yupiit, the purpose of the
Deg Hitan dolls and doll ceremony was to foretell the
availability of game. For the ceremony, which was prob-
ably held in the fall, the dolls were wrapped in wood
shavings and birch bark and brought into the mens
house, where they were unwrapped and examined
for the presence of certain omens (possibly caribou
hair or sh scales as among the Central Yupiit). They
were then tied to a vertical supporting rod, which was
pegged into a table. During the ceremony the shaman
who had commissioned the dolls persuaded them to
speak, which they did in low whistles. At the end of the
performance the dolls were rewrapped and returned
to a hiding place in a spruce tree outside the village,
known only to the shaman. If anyone accidentally
stumbled upon them, the person quickly retreated for
fear of being struck blind (Osgood 1940:423425).
20
In addition to the Deg Hitan, several other Athabas-
can groups also used human gurines in their rituals.
Among the Tanaina Athabascans, for instance, the so-
called devil doll was employed as a means of removing
the evil spirit from an aficted person (Fig. 21). Devil
dolls were carved by shamans and were sometimes
clothed in complete suits of caribou skin. To remove
the evil spirit, the sick person was brought into the
darkened ceremonial house, where the shaman danced
to the beat of a drum, holding the doll close to him. The
performance sometimes lasted several evenings, the
climax occurring when the exhausted shaman thrust
the doll at the patient and sank to the ground. Then
the doll disappeared and the patient arose, weak but in
better health (Osgood 1937:179).
Inupiaq Figurines. Early travelers reported a wide
variety of ritual uses for human gurines among the
Inupiaq Eskimos of the Arctic coast. In 1791, Karl H.
Merck observed at Cape Rodney on the Seward Pen-
insula that the local Inupiaq Eskimos hung small gu-
rines inside the house near a lamp or in summer, near
Intimates and Efgies 19
the smoke-hole of a tent;
21
he also observed the same
kind of small human gurines tied on stakes near the
house (Ray 1977:17). The University Museum, Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania collection includes a jointed ivory
gurine collected on King Island. The gurine, which is
engraved with drawings of whales ukes and caribou,
may have been a shamans puppet and possibly repre-
sents a wolf-man, another example of the permeability
of the spiritual and human realms and of the ability
of humans and animals to transform into one another
(Kaplan and Barsness 1986:154, g. 146).
Three examples of human gurines used for ritual
purposes have been recovered from caves on Sledge
Island, near Cape Rodney. This example (Figs. 22a,
22b), found by Dave Walluk in 1956, may have been
found guarding the entryway to a cave that contained
a large number of objects considered to be a whalers
ritual paraphernalia.
Figure 21. Male Figurine
This Tanaina Athabascan doll was collected by Russian scientist
I. G. Voznesenskiy on the Kenai Peninsula in 1841. Its purpose
is unknown, but the elaborate decoration suggests that it was
not a childs toy and might have been a so-called devil doll.
Collection of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera),
St. Petersburg, Russia no. 2667-15; 35 cm.
Figures 22a (top) and 22b (bottom). Sledge Island Float
This wooden carving represents both a human when standing
(top) and a whale when laid down (bottom). The Inupiat be-
lieved the spirit of the whale was female. Found on Sledge Island,
this gure was probably part of a whaling kit that contained
oats, harpoon heads, a charm kit, and other objects required
for a successful whale hunt. The eyes are made of quartz crystal,
a material believed to have magical powers. 11.5 x 10.5 x 33.5,
UA90-001-0031.
20 Chapter 1
Figure 23. Flying Puguqs
These two ying puguqs were carved in Point Hope by Agaveksina
in 1940. They represent two shamans, one from Alaska, the
other from Siberia, who met while in ight over the Bering Sea.
Traditionally, a puguq was carved and hung in the ceremonial
house to represent the actions of legendary ancestors. These
replicas were carved for archaeologist Froelich Rainey. Left:
Inupiaq shaman, 20 cm, 1-1940-0144. Right: Siberian shaman,
34.3 cm, 1-1940-0143.
place as part of the fall whaling ceremonies. It featured
a model skin boat complete with a whaling crew that
could be animated to paddle the boat. One example
was deposited at the University of Alaska Museum by
Froelich Rainey, who commissioned it in 1940 (Figs.
24a, 24b). This cleverly constructed mechanical toy was
brought out at the end of one of the nal rituals held in
conjunction with the fall sitting ceremony, which has
been described by both Rainey (1947:250) and Knud
Rasmussen (1927:332).
24
The third major gurine appearing in the annual
ceremonial cycle at Point Hope was a nearly life-sized
puppet, which was the focus of one of nine dances held
on New Years Eve.
25
The UAM example is about three
feet tall and is clothed in a traditional Point Hope-style
beaver and sealskin suit
26
(Fig. 25). The gurine, which
was operated by strings of cotton twine, danced in time
with the drumming and appeared to sing along with
the human singers, its mouth opening and closing
along with theirs. A ball (possibly made of sealskin)
was dangled in front of the gurine, which tried fruit-
lessly to snatch it with its mouth, only succeeding at the
end of the performance (Tundra Times 1964:1).
John Murdoch returned from the three villages
around Point Barrow at the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury to deposit at the Smithsonian Institution a number
In 1912, William VanValin found two nearly identi-
cal gurines under strikingly similar circumstances.
In this case, most of the paraphernalia were collected
along with the gurine and eventually deposited at
the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania
(Kaplan, Jordan, and Sheehan 1984:1623). These
gurines, and presumably the UAM gurine as well,
apparently doubled as oats that could be attached to
a dead or dying whale so that it would not sink before
reaching shore. When performing this function, the
gurines would roll over with their whale-like backs
exposed (Fig. 22b). The quartz crystal
22
of which the
gurines eyes were made was thought to have magical
properties that helped the whalers locate their prey and
compelled the prey to come within striking distance
(Kaplan and Barsness 1986:142, g. 120). All three
gurines appear to be female, and Kaplan, Jordan and
Sheehan point out that the powerful taboos governing
female behavior during whaling season reect their
strong symbolic associations with whales (Kaplan,
Jordan, and Sheehan 1984:19, Fig. 120; Zumwalt 1987).
The date of the gurine at the University of Alaska Mu-
seum is unknown, but the examples in Philadelphia
have been dated by associated objects to the rst half
of the nineteenth century, and it is likely that the one
at the University of Alaska Museum is about the same
age (Kaplan, Jordan, and Sheehan 1984:19).
Farther north, in the village of Point Hope, numer-
ous types of human gurines, especially puppets,
23

were used in rituals and entertainments held in the
ceremonial houses and were connected to whaling.
Before the turn of the century, the most important part
of the fall whaling rituals was the four-to ve-day sit-
ting, during which the men who wanted to be great
hunters carved small gurines, many of which were
human in shape. Carved out of driftwood, these small
gurines (puguqs) were hung by thongs of sea mam-
mal hide from the rafters of the mens house during
the sitting ceremony and were burned at its conclu-
sion. The gurines commemorated legendary feats of
ancestors. In the winter of 1940, a Point Hope man
named Agaveksina carved two human gurinesone
representing his uncle, who had been a shaman, and
the second a shaman the uncle had met while on a
spirit journey over Siberia. One gurine was carved
with a leg drawn up because the Siberian shaman had
own in this curious manner. Replicas of the original
puguqs were carved for archaeologist Froelich Rainey,
and both are now deposited at the University of Alaska
museum (Rainey 1947:248249) (Fig. 23).
Another Point Hope ceremony, the great thanksgiv-
ing feast dedicated to the souls of dead whales, took
21
Figures 24a (below) and 24b (detail). Point Hope Umiak
Model with Breathing Tube
Umiak models like these were used during ceremonies in Point
Hope. On the back of the whaling captain is a seal intestine tube
that was inated during the ceremony to give the impression of
breathing. 84 x 26, 1-1940-0134.
Figure 25. Point Hope Marionette
This marionette was the main character of a dance held during
the New Years celebrations in Point Hope. The dance is called
Choyaqluqa in Inupiaq. UA64-013-0001.
22 Chapter 1
of miniature dolls and human gurines, most of ivory
but a few of wood, bone, or soapstone. The purposes
of these are unknown, although Murdochs observa-
tions about the absence of play dolls suggests a ritual
context (1892:380). Four of these gurines warrant
mention. There are several full-body representations
of humans made of driftwood with the usual nubs
for arms; Murdoch illustrated a male and female pair
(Murdoch 1892, g. 388). Another gurine, made of
a fragment from an old soapstone lamp (Murdoch
1892, g. 391), probably represents Walrus Man. The
Eskimo belief system included a mythological past
during which animals and humans could transform at
will, and the theme of a walrusman transformation
was widely expressed in the folklore and legends of
northern Alaska (Kaplan and Barsness 1986:117, 154).
Murdoch also collected several ingeniously engineered
puppets, one of which paddles a kayak (Murdoch
1892:380381, 395).
Aleut Figurines. The most outstanding examples of
historic period ritual gurines from the Aleutians
are small likenesses of human beings carved from
ivory and attached to hunting hats as charms (Black
1991). Usually about an inch tall, the gurines were
generally represented in a seated position with their
hands resting on their knees (Fig. 26). The bodies are
schematic, but the heads are carved in great detail.
27

Acting as guardians of the weapons, these gurines
also helped the hunter to aim accurately (Black 1991).
Such gurines were considered idealized portraits of
the wearer of the hat, and were thought to assist the
Figure 26. Aleut Visor
Aleut leaders wore visors for hunting and ceremonial occasions.
The gurines adorning the hats depicted an idealized view of
the hunter to please his prey. Sometimes entire hunting scenes
were depicted on the hats. Eighteenth-century observers noted
that similar gures were found near barabaras (underground
houses) as protection against evil spirits. Few old hats still have
their original carvings. This contemporary visor was made by
Gertrude Svarney, 1990. UA90-022-0001.
Intimates and Efgies 23
Figure 27. Tlingit Shaman Figure
This wooden carving holds sticks in each hand with deer dew
claws attached. This gure was identied by Elaine Ramos as
belonging to her uncle, a shaman. Ramos father remembered
seeing the gure dance at a contest between two shamans, ca.
1888. From the TeiKweidee clan of Yakutat. 63.75 cm. Courtesy

Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka, cat. no. I.A.34.
wearer by presenting the best possible depiction of
him to prey animalsto show his respect for them
and thereby convince them to offer themselves to
him. This may relate to the earlier practice of carving
human faces on bone weapons, reported by Walde-
mar Jochelson (1925:95). According to S. V. Ivanov,
Aleut hats of the eighteenth century had such ivory
miniatures, which were used in more elaborate scenes
illustrating a number of themes: hunters pursuing land
animals with arrows, throwing spears and harpoons,
sitting in boats wearing wooden hats and armed with
spears, and hunting sea mammals and mythical ani-
mals (Black 1991).
Also from the Aleutians is an unusual collection of
fty miniature ivory carvings in the National Museum
of Finland. The gurines are engaged in a number of
activities; some, such as a drummer, are recognizable,
but others are not. Whether the gurines were made
for a ritual purpose or for sale is unknown (Varjola
1990:198199).
Northwest Coast Figurines. Among the Tlingit
Indians of the northern Northwest Coast, human
gurines were a fulcrum of ceremonial life and social
practice. The creation of moieties, for example, was
traced back to a mythological ancestors relations with
a crest animal. Thus, a complete list of the depictions
of these and other culture heroes in Northwest Coast
Indian art and ritual would require a whole essay in
itself. We will limit ourselves here to mentioning a
few shamanic uses and concentrate on the play dolls
used by children.
A gurine called a yake, or spirit guard, was placed
at the head of a shamans grave to ward off evil spirits
(Johnson 1973:18) (Fig. 27). Some shamans dolls were
painted red, which symbolized the power to restore
the dead to life. They are believed to have previously
stood on seal-like bases because they were thought
not to walk, but to glide through the air as easily as a
seal through water (de Laguna 1960:229). These gu-
rines were thought to be so powerful that only those
who had converted to Christianity dared approach
them on pain of death. Tlingit shamans also had
small wooden carvings of yake that they attached to
headdresses and costumes. When the shaman began a
healing sance, he called the spirits into their images,
thus transforming art into a potent supernatural force
(Jonaitis 1986:110115).
Shamans often used charms in human form for
curing illness and dispelling evil. These small carv-
ings of ivory or bone depicted supernatural beings
who could help the shaman in his responsibilities.
Sometimes the shaman would leave a charm with his
patient as a healing amulet (Jonaitis 1986:97). As with
the closely related Eyak Indians of the Copper River
Delta, Northwest Coast Indian shamans dolls were
tangible representations of shamanic dreams or spirit
visitations. Usually clad in a miniature dance apron
and blanket and often embellished with real human
hair for a more lifelike appearance, Eyak shamans
dolls could be used to ward off evil spirits, witches,
or another shaman intending bodily harm (Johnson
1973:910, 18).
Among the Eyak, Kaj Birket-Smith recorded detailed
information on human gurines, which seem to have
occupied a prominent position in Eyak shamanic
contexts (Birket-Smith and de Laguna 1938). When
a young man undertook the spirit quest required to
become a shaman, he made a doll from the skin of the
rst animal to appear to him in a vision, an example
of the widespread belief among Alaska Natives of the
24 Chapter 1
interchangeability of human and animal forms and
spirits. The doll was stuffed with grass and embodied
his most powerful helping spirit (Birket-Smith and de
Laguna 1938:209).
28
Shamans made wooden dolls for other purposes.
Evidently such dolls were thought to be capable of
magical ight and could be dispatched on journeys of
as much as a thousand miles to do a shamans bidding.
These dolls could be handled by women without any
ill effects. For example, the aunt of one shaman found
such a gurine in his bedding and, perhaps out of fear,
threw it on the oor. The shaman rebuked her, but the
power of the gurine was not diminished (Birket-Smith
and de Laguna 1938:210). A human gurine appears
Figure 28.
This portrait illustrates the blending of Christianity and indig-
enous belief. The infant wears a Catholic medal (perhaps a St.
Christopher medal) on its cap, just as the childs ancestors may
have worn other amulets and charms. This medal may have been
attached to protect the child from harmful spirits or inuences.
Alaskan Sheperd Collection, acc. no. 88-117-80N, Archives, Alaska and Polar
Regions Department, Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
in the Eyak legend of a shaman who made his daugh-
ter come back to life by implanting a wooden doll in
her, later born as her human child (Birket-Smith and
de Laguna 1938:226). Only one instance of a ritually
used human gurine has been reported for the Prince
William Sound Alutiiq more recently. According to an
informant of de Lagunas, a powerful shaman from the
south shore of the Kenai Peninsula made a wooden
doll for his childless wife, and through his powers, he
made the doll walk. The shamans wife dressed the doll
in pearls, beads, and sea otter skins and fondled and
suckled it until she died. She was buried with the doll
(de Laguna 1956:221).
Modern Dolls and Doll Makers, 1950 to 1990
The onset of the modern period of doll making can be
correlated with several profound changes in the Alaska
Native way of life. After 1890, Christian missionar-
ies turned their attention to Alaska as one of the few
remaining colonial outposts for saving heathen souls
(Fig. 28). Whether gentle or harsh, the end result of
conversion was the suppression
29
of indigenous belief
systems and with it, the making of the human gurines
that brought these religions to life.
Christian missionaries were central not only to the
abandonment of idolatry but also of Native-made
play dolls. Most of the missionary schools across Alaska
were founded as part of the churches efforts to con-
vert Alaska Natives to Christianity. In the classroom,
children were exposed to Western imagery both sacred
and secular and perhaps also to actual Western play
dolls. As trading posts and stores sprang up in rural
Alaska to service the fur trade, play dolls
30
of Western
manufacture gradually became available (Fig. 29). In
many areas, children continued to play with cloth
dolls. However, by the 1920s and 1930s, Western-made
dolls were growning in desirability and Natives were
occasionally replicating bisque-faced dolls out of ivory
in the Central Yupik and St. Lawrence Island Yupik
areas (see Fig. 41).
On the other hand, from the mid-1800s onward,
Native-made dolls were a popular souvenir item to
trade with Euroamerican visitors. In the Aleut and
Alutiiq areas, with the exception of basketry, artists
abandoned traditional arts,
31
including kayak models,
by the early nineteenth century. The Aleuts and Alu-
tiiqs apparently never made souvenir dolls for outsid-
ers, probably because of the early disruption of their
traditional culture through disease and decimation
(Ray 1981:5657) brought by Russian exploration
and occupation. But in the Yupik and Inupiaq areas
where change was slower, the creation of dolls for the
tourist market was fueled by the growing presence of
non-Native teachers, nurses, and government employ-
ees. Because of Westerners lack of familiarity with
Alaska Native cultures, these dolls had to be dressed
in identiably Eskimo or Indian clothing. This in turn
reduced stylistic variation of Alaska Native dolls (Ray
Intimates and Efgies 25
Figure 29.
King Island, ca. 1940. This little girl, who has her large western
doll beside her, accepts a malted milk tablet from her mother.
Alaskan Sheperd Collection, acc. no. 88-117-98N, Archives, Alaska and Polar
Regions Department, Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
1977:39). For example, the cloth play dolls common to
most Alaska Native groups during the early historic pe-
riod were not widely reproduced for sale, undoubtedly
because they were not recognized as Alaska Native
in comparison to those clothed in fur or sea mammal
intestine parkas.
These changes were gradual and occurred at different
dates throughout Alaska, depending upon the isolation
of the group. However, it is probably safe to say that
most or all Alaska Native cultures, including the types
of dolls they make, were affected by the end of World
War II. We will use 1950 as a reliable starting date of the
modern period of Native Alaska doll making.
During the modern period the main producers of
souvenir dolls were the Inupiaq, Central Yupik, and
St. Lawrence Island Yupik Eskimos. According to Susan
Fair (1982:5571), there are ve main types of dolls of
the modern period, and these can be classied accord-
ing to their stylistic differences.
Inupiaq
From the Inupiaq villages of Shishmaref and Brevig
Mission came dolls made of reindeer or caribou ant-
ler (Fig. 30, far right), which served as a cheaper and
more available substitute for the ivory used earlier,
which had become expensive and more difcult to
obtain. Universally referred to as horn dolls, the
antler dolls originated after World War II. Dressed in
traditional fur clothing, the dolls were rst intended
as childrens play things, and it was only later that
they were sold as souvenirs. The reindeer antler used
to make horn dolls is dried for several months before
use. The shape with the outline of arms engraved
26 Chapter 1
Figure 30. Collaboration and Innovation
The increase in doll collecting and the reduction in raw mate-
rials have created an innovative and collaborative movement
amongst the Alaska Native men and women. Left to right: coiled
grass doll, Cupik, maker: Viva Wesley Smith, 20 x 22 x 12.5,
UA94-009-0016AC; St. Lawrence Island woman, St. Lawrence
Island Yupik, makers: Floyd and Amelia Kingeekuk, 32 x 20.5 x
5.5, UA86-003-0013; dipnetter, Cupik, maker: Clothilda Stone,
22.5 cm, UA97-021-0001; Yup ik man in fur parka, maker:
Margaret (Penni) Abraham with Jeff Lyons, UA90-003-0007;
caribou-jaw sled and doll, Inupiaq, maker: Elizabeth Driggs, 61
x 12.7 (fully extended) UA81-003-0129AE; horn doll, Inupiaq,
9 x 3 x 3, UA71-057-0005; horn doll, Inupiaq, 17 x 8 x 5, UA67-
098-0211; horn doll, Inupiaq, maker: Delbert Eningowuk, 18 x
7.5 x 4, UA88-007-0004AB.
into the horn is reminiscent of nineteenth-century
dolls from northwestern Alaska (Jones 1982:29). In
the late 1960s, horn doll production slowed because
of the large amounts of antler exported from Seward
Peninsula villages to Japan for use as an aphrodisiac
(Ray 1977:50).
32
Whale bone dolls were also made in
Shishmaref. These simple, columnar-style dolls had
facial features painted on with black paint, but they
are otherwise unelaborated.
In Kotzebue, Ethel Washington (Agnauglugaq)
(18891967) popularized
33
portrait-style dolls with
realistically carved wooden faces and accurately de-
tailed skin clothing. Her style was widely copied by
other Kotzebue doll makers (Fig. 31) and she was also
the rst doll maker whose name became known to
non-Native customers.
Ethel Washington began making her wooden-head,
soft-bodied dolls in the 1930s, when tourists rst came
to Kotzebue on Wien Airlines day trips. None of her
dolls from this early date can be identied, and it was
not until the death of her husband, George, in 1951,
that her doll-making career began in earnest (Hedrick
and Hedrick 1983:16).
Washington made the dolls herself, including the
strikingly realistic heads. She whittled them with a Boy
Scout knife out of wood collected on the Kobuk River
and then nished them with a single-edge razor blade.
It is unusual that she worked the wood herself,
34
since
woodworking was considered the province of men in
traditional times, even as late as mid-century. Birch
was especially desirable because it is soft when freshly
cut and later hardens without cracking (Hedrick and
Hedrick 1983:68). The open mouths of the gurines
almost always revealed teeth. The hair of Washingtons
dolls was either human hair, from wigs, or wolverine
fur. The bodies were cut out from patterns and made
out of caribou skin.
The clot hing and accessor ies accompanying
Washingtons dolls were especially remarkable. Tiny
parkas and boots were cut out from patterns and
Intimates and Efgies 27
sewn with minute stitches. The dolls always carried
Washingtons trademark accessories, usually a Kobuk
Riverstyle birchbark basket and a wooden berry
scoop for women, a bow and arrows and a sheathed
ivory knife for men. The boots of the early dolls were
dyed with alder dye and had genuine bearded seal bot-
toms. These complex and beautifully rendered dolls
required about three days each to make (Hedrick and
Hedrick 1983:9).
Ethel Washingtons success inspired other Kotzebue
women doll makers, among them Lena Sours, Rosa
Francis, Emma Black Lincoln, and Minnie Norton
(Hedrick and Hedrick 1983:10). In the next generation
of younger doll makers, the dolls of Dolly Spencer and
Eva Hefe are especially noteworthy.
Dolly Mendenhall Spencer (19302005) (Fig. 32),
who learned skin sewing and sinew twisting from
classes taught by Lena Sours, was born near Kotze-
bue but presently lives in Homer. She made her rst
doll when she was in the sixth grade. Her exquisitely
articulated dolls are larger, more elaborately dressed,
and accompanied by a wider variety of imaginative
accessories. Furthermore, Spencers dolls go beyond
the generic portraits of Ethel Washington, often speci-
cally portraying members of her family, her commu-
nity, or other people whom she admires. For instance,
one doll in the UAM collection portrays Marvin R.
Muktuk Marston, founder of the Alaska Territorial
Guard and widely beloved throughout rural Alaska.
Spencer, who also carves her heads out of birch like
other Kotzebue doll makers, prefers to use Alaskan
materials for other doll parts, but she sometimes uses
imported items such as coyote fur in order to achieve
the desired effect (Fosdick 1984).
If Ethel Washington was the rst Alaskan doll maker
with name recognition, Dolly Spencer was the rst to
achieve international acclaim. In 1996, the National
Endowment for the Arts voted Spencer their highest
honor, a National Heritage Fellowship, for her contribu-
tions to Alaska Native dolls and doll making.
Figure 31. Kotzebue Dolls
Ethel Washington and Lena Sours started Kot zebue-style
wooden-faced dolls. Both were accomplished seamstresses,
and both produced wonderfully life-like dolls. Left to right:
man in hunting gear, Inupiaq, maker: Ethel Washington, 29 x
14 x 6.5, UA83-003-0003; mother and baby, Inupiaq, maker:
Ethel Washington, 28 x 14 x 6, UA84-022-0002B; family of
three, Inupiaq, maker: Lena Sours, (max) 33 x 22 x 6, UA85-
003-0044AC.
28 Chapter 1
Figure 32. Dolly Spencer Dolls
Dolly Spencer followed in the tradition of Kotzebue doll mak-
ers by producing life-like wooden-faced dolls. She became
especially well-known for her extreme attention to detail and
her realistic portraits of people she knows and admires. Left to
right: Inupiaq woman, 38 x 18 x 10, UA81-003-0180; Muktuk
Marston, 37 x 19 x 8, UA82-003-0048AC; Ida Mendenhall-Mills,
33 x 12 x 11, UA82-003-0065.

Eva Hefe is one of a handful of doll makers around
Alaska to popularize the so-called activity dolls.
Mounted on a board or another stiff surface, activity
dolls are at the center of a miniature diorama, usually
demonstrating a typical traditional activity of village
life. First appearing in the 1950s, they respond to
non-Native buyers nostalgic preference for tradition,
whether it is a dolls clothing style or the activity.
Hefe, who was among the earliest artists to make
activity dolls, did not begin making dolls until she was
an adult and had moved from Kotzebue to Fairbanks.
She has made at least thirty types of activity scenes,
with dolls represented making clothing and preparing
food (Figs. 33, 34).
Hefes activity dolls carry the Kotzebue emphasis
on traditional accessories to its greatest elaboration.
Hefe, who continues to live near Fairbanks, uses
Alaska Native materials such as sea mammal intestine,
sh skin, caribou hide, and birch bark that has been
sent to her by relatives still engaged in subsistence
activities in the Kotzebue area (Smith 1998).
Artists in several mainland villages around Bering
Strait continue to make dolls for sale. On the Seward Pen-
insula, especially from the village of Wales, artists make
ivory-faced, soft-body dolls of a mother and child.
St. Lawrence Island Yupik
The St. Lawrence Island Yupik villages of Gambell
and Savoonga became doll making centers recently.
Characteristics of most modern St. Lawrence Island
dolls are their predominantly red (based on earlier
uses of alder dye) and white (bleached sealskin) colors
and the decorative use of beads for earrings and
braid embellishments. Floyd and Amelia Kingeekuk
of Savoonga originated a doll type with realistically
carved walrus ivory heads and hands and dressed in
detailed skin clothing, which was probably inspired by
29
Figure 33. Eva Hefe Dolls
Doll maker Eva Hefe has created activity dolls for many years.
She also makes entire dioramas that incorporate many individu-
al activities and combines them to show a slice of life. Here she
Figure 34. Activity Dolls
Inupiaq Eva Hefe started making dolls after she had moved away
from Kotzebue, partly as a way to learn about her own culture and
partly as a way to make money. Sold for only a few cents when she
rst began, now they are found in museums and private collec-
tions all over the world. The wooden heads she uses follow in the
tradition of her home of Kotzebue. Left to right: man making sh
trap, 13.5 x 16 x 12, UA81-003-0139; man with drill bow, 16 x 10
x 12.5, UA84-022-0004; seal hunter, 20 x 11 x 13, UA81-003-0105;
woman with basket and spoon, 20 x 13 x 10, UA81-003-0102;
woman crimping mukluks, 12 x 12 x 12, UA81-003-095.
has re-created a hide-covered tent scene with ve separate dolls,
each involved in its own activites, including making clothing
and preparing food. 31 x 47 x 43, UA81-003-0145.
30 Chapter 1
Figure 35. St. Lawrence Island Dolls
The doll makers on St. Lawrence Island are known for intricate
detail and expert reproduction of historic clothing styles. Here
several artists works are represented. Left to right: woman in
decorated parka, maker: Josephine Ungott, 35.5 cm, UA81-003-
0052; seated infant, maker: Miriam Kilowiyi, 28 cm, UA66-023-
0002; woman in decorated parka, maker: Ellie Kululhon, 40.5
cm, UA81-003-0025; woman in decorated parka, maker: Floyd
and Amelia Kingeekuk, 30 cm, UA86-003-0013.
the prehistoric Old Bering Sea ivory gurines dug up
on the island. Their dolls usually are single gures such
as hunters or women wearing traditional St. Lawrence
Island parkas (Fig. 35).
Miriam Kilowiyi of Savoonga is known for her
soft-bodied St. Lawrence Island baby dolls. They have
bleached sealskin faces with features stitched in em-
broidery thread and are dressed in the typical all-in-
one combination suits with moss diapers, bib-like fur
collars, and caps with bead decorations.
Pansy Omwari of Gambell (her mother, Hazel was
also a doll maker) makes soft-bodied dolls, mainly
women dressed in St. Lawrence Island combination
suits wearing traditional mukluks. Her dolls also have
sealskin faces with stitched-on features.
Collectors of Alaska Native dolls often vie for the
meticulously rendered dolls of Helen Carius, who
died in 1998. In her later years, Carius had begun
making activity dolls illustrating typical St. Lawrence
Island occupations such as bird-egg collecting and seal
ensing (Fig. 36).
Central Yupik
A relatively limited number of women in southwestern
Alaska make coiled grass dolls, a spinoff of the coiled
grass basketry practiced widely throughout the Yukon-
Kuskokwim Delta. Viva Wesley Smith from Mekoryuk
is one of these doll makers.
One Central Yupik village where modern doll mak-
ing innovations developed is the village of Eek. Two
styles are associated with Eek: the oval-faced dolls
with wooden heads, probably originating with Stella
Cleveland in the 1940s (Fair 1982:47; Jones 1982:15);
35

and the leather or skin-faced dolls, sometimes referred
to as old people dolls, which originated in the 1970s
with Eek resident Grace White. Possibly related to the
shrunken apple-faced dolls of mainstream American
31
Figure 36. Woman Preparing a Seal
Helen Slwooko Carius was from Savoonga, on St.
Lawrence Island. She was known for her delicate
stitching, especially on the sealskin faces of her dolls.
Carius duplicated the traditional tattoo patterns with
black thread, rather than simply drawing the design
onto the surface. She used Native materials like seal-
skin, sea mammal intestine, wolf, beaver, and other
skins to make her dolls. 14 cm, UA99-004-0001.
Figure 37. Paniyak Family Creations
Three generations of Paniyak doll makers are represented in this
photo. A special style of hide-covered faced dolls developed from
this Chevak family, and they have become extremely popular
with Alaskans because of their humorous way of depicting real
life. Left to right: dancer, Cupik, maker: Janice Paniyak, 24 x
14 x 12, UA98-012-0001; woman eating akutaq, Cupik, maker:
Ursula Paniyak, 23 x 13 x 22, UA97-018-0001AB; woman with
basket, Cupik, maker: Ursula Paniyak, 21.9 x 9.4 x 7.9, UA98-
001-0004; male doll, Cupik, maker: Rosalie Paniyak, 26 x 11 x
6.5, UA83-003-0011; honeybucket doll, Cupik, maker: Rosalie
Paniyak, 19 x 11.5 x 15.5, UA97-022-0001.
32
Figure 39. Chevak Dolls
Perhaps inspired by the success of local doll maker Rosalie
Paniyak, other women in Chevak make dolls with sealskin
faces, doing interesting activities and dressed in creative
outts. This group of dolls were made by six different doll
makers. From left to right: doll carrying bucket, maker Natalia
Nayamin, 29 x 12.5 x 6.5, UA98-025-0006; dipnetter, maker
Betty Fermoyle, 32 x 17.5 x 18, UA98-025-0005; male doll,
maker Rosalie Paniyak, 64 x 50 x 30, UA98-025-0003; woman
shing, maker Rosalie Paniyak, 24 x 11 x 11, UA98-025-0002;
honeybucket doll, maker Rosalie Paniyak, courtesy of Pamela
Stern; woman with grass, maker Monica Friday, 37 x 12.5 x 13.5,
UA98-025-0008; fetching water, maker Rosalie Paniyak, 25 x
10.5 x 11.5, UA98-025-0001; woman with pipe, maker Anna
Martins, 43 x 16.5 x 18, UA98-025-0007; shskin doll, maker
Rose Kanrilak, 36 x 10 x 8.5, UA98-025-0004.
Figure 38. Statue of Liberty
This doll was made by Rosalie Paniyak. It clearly represents
the Statue of Liberty, down to the correct positioning of her
feet under the long robe (which looks very similar to a long
kuspuk). The Native people of Alaska have been in contact with
Westerners since as early as the eighteenth century. They have
adapted and become an active part of Western society while
also preserving their own sense of identity. Rosalie has taken
her uniquely Cupik doll style and recreated one of the most
important American symbols in that style. 55 x 22 x 16, UA2001-
008-0003. Photo by James H. Barker.
Intimates and Efgies 33
culture in that decade, old-people dolls break with
tradition in depicting people as they are rather than
an idealized picture of Alaska Native villagers.
Both wooden-faced and old people dolls have been
widely reproduced in other Central Yupik villages
(Schuldberg 1996). Undoubtedly the most famous
maker of dolls deriving from the old-people style is
Rosalie Paniyak of Chevak. Paniyaks dolls are humor-
ous caricatures of village people engaged in ordinary
experiences such as heading for the steam bath, bas-
ketmaking, shing and using the ubiquitous honey
bucket (Fig. 37). In the 1980s Paniyak created a Statue
of Liberty doll, which expresses the feeling of connec-
tions between Yupik/Cupik people and the wider
world (Fig. 38). Rosalie usually includes a handwritten
comment on her dolls, apparently at the suggestion
of folklorist Susan W. Fair. Paniyaks daughter Ursula
and grand-daughter Janice also have become excellent
doll makers.
Since the popularization of Paniyaks innova-
tions, a number of doll makers, many from Chevak
and Hooper Bay, have experimented with different
aesthetics. Helen and Natalia Smith of Hooper Bay
produced a number of bird-people dolls made from
loon skins (Fig. 40). Another innovator is Rosalie
Paniyaks sister, Clothilda Stone of Hooper Bay (see
Fig. 30). Stone creates imaginative devil dolls out of
dried pike skin and other local sh. Her dolls include
a traditional implement such as a sh net ingeniously
whittled and knotted by her husband, Henry. In a pat-
tern reminiscent of Kotzebue a few years earlier with
the doll making of Ethel Washington, other Chevak
women have started creating dolls based on Paniyaks
anti-aesthetic (Fig. 39).
Figure 40. Restricted Materials
Federal regulations intended to help manage populations and
over-harvesting of certain animals have hurt the art industry,
especially doll making. Most artists attempt to accurately re-
produce the clothing styles of their parents and grandparents,
which becomes increasingly difcult with the passage of these
laws. These dolls are made from materials that are restricted
under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) of 1972
and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) of 1918. Under these
federal regulations, the sale of the pieces would be restricted,
thus limiting the market for accurate and imaginative works
of art. Dancers and drummers, Inupiaq, 17 x 25 x 14.5, UA92-
006-0007; doll with basket, Yupik, maker: Natalia Smith, 30.5
x 17 x 10, UA96-002-0001; doll with grass cup, Yupik, maker:
Louise Toll, 26 x 12 x 4, UA71-057-0009.
34 Chapter 1
Contemporary Period, 1990Present
Recent economic, political, and demographic trends
have all helped to shape the present-day social biog-
raphy of Alaska Native doll making (Fig. 41). Among
the many factors are new legislation affecting access
to traditionally harvested birds and animals, grow-
ing rural poverty, urban migration, and the need for
mass production.
Legislation such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act
of 1918 (and its many, more recent amendments) has
limited Alaska Native peoples access to traditionally
harvested birds and animals by making it illegal to sell
dolls made with feathers such as loon or eider (see Fig.
39). This is unfortunate for artists in the Yupik region.
Alaska Natives in rural locations usually live a sub-
sistence life based on hunting and shing, but today
this way of life depends on imported commodities
such as snowmachines, four-wheelers, shing boats,
guns, and ammunition. Like all conveniences, these
cost money. When there are shortfalls in subsistence
harvest, this seriously affects bush communities, where
wage-labor jobs are scarce. The current migration of
rural residents into Alaskas urban centers is largely
because of these economic factors.
The relationship of doll making to subsistence activi-
ties is critical and circular. On one hand, Alaska Natives
have long depended on the sale of art to supplement their
Figure 41. New Audiences and Materials
As missionaries and gold rushers began to make their way into
the YukonKuskokwim Delta of Alaska, new materials, designs,
and audiences became available. Dolls and human gurines,
once made for children or ceremony, now were created mainly
for tourists. The dolls pictured here were made for all these audi-
ences. The trio depicting a dance scene was made for an outsider
to represent a traditional Yupik dance celebration. The large
doll in the gut parka is either from St. Lawrence, Nunivak, or
Nelson Island. It is most likely modeled on a German bisque-
faced doll brought into the region by a missionarys child. The
two dolls on the right were made and used by children or adults.
From left to right: drummer, 14 cm, 0477-0001; female dancer,
20 cm, 0477-0003, male dancer, 16.5 cm, 0477-0002; female
doll, Central or St. Lawrence Island Yupik, 33 cm, UA64-021-
0896; play doll, Yupik, 19 cm, UA64-021-0870; doll, Yupik,
14 cm, 1084-0010F.
Intimates and Efgies 35
Figure 42. Western Dolls in Native Dress
Often, when Western goods entered villages across Alaska,
they were altered to t the local aesthetic. Many Western-made
dolls were-dressed in local clothing styles, as seen here by the
mets^eghe hoolaane and qaspeq in this photograph. Miss Koyukuk
doll, Athabascan, 33 cm, UA90-007-0002AB; sparkle beach
Barbie (kuspuk), Inupiaq, maker: Hilda Ashcraft, 30 x 10 x 9,
UA96-008-0001.
incomes in lean economic times. Yet with the number
of subsistence hunters dwindling, the raw materials on
which successful doll making depends become more
difcultand expensiveto obtain. Alaska Native doll
making will undoubtedly continue, although the cre-
ation of dolls with clothing made of materials associated
with traditional ways of life depends in large part on a
speedy and satisfactory resolution to the current state
and federal subsistence-priority impasse (Lee 2003).
New markets such as the internet will be increasingly
important to artists in rural Alaska. Another new trend
is the use of commercial web sites such as eBay, which
often offer Alaska Native dolls for sale. These new trends
and a resolution to the subsistence impasse should help
to strengthen the future of one of Alaskas oldest and
liveliest Native art forms.
Figure 43. Greenlandic Dolls
Dolls like these Greenlandic Eskimo examples were made
across the Arctic to sell to outsiders. The two with topknots
are women. In Greenland, the topknot is a symbol of feminin-
ity. The gure on the right is packing a baby in her gut parka,
just like mothers in Alaska. Left to right: All three dolls from
Ammassalik District, Greenland. Left to right: 7.5 x 6.1 x 8.5,
UA66-011-0355; 9.5 x 3.3 x 2.6, UA66-011-0357; 11.6 x 4 x 3,
UA66-011-0356.
36
Figure 44. Dolls to Educate
Today, dolls are often used as a way to educate both Native
and non-Native people about activities no longer undertaken.
The activity dolls illustrate scenes from Native life such as
net making, weaving, stor yknifing, and dancing. Modern
activities are also depicted, including the woman carrying her
nurses book. Clockwise from upper left: dancer and drum-
mer, maker: Agnes Bostrom, Yup ik, 31 x 21 x 18, UA98-022-
0001AD and 29 x 16 x 19, UA98-022-0002AE; nurses aide,
maker: Lucy Berry, Yup ik, 26 x 16.5 x 11, UA94-009-0025;
girls storyknifing, maker: Lucy Berry, Yup ik, 17.8 x 12.7 x
26.7, UA94-009-0024; man working on net, maker: Martina
Oscar, Yup ik, 12 x 11.5 x 14, UA68-020-0002; woman mak-
ing a grass mat, maker: Lucy Berry, Yup ik, 13.9 x 14.6 x 11.4,
UA94-009-0027.
Figure 45. Innovation in Anaktuvuk Pass
Established art forms are often adapted in
new and innovative ways. The face of the
doll on the right is a miniature Anaktuvuk
Pass skin mask, for which this community
is famous. From left to right: mask, maker:
Simon Paneak, Nunamiut, 15.2 x 24, UA82-
003-0064; doll, maker: Susie Paneak, Nuna-
miut, 50.8 x 16.5, UA82-003-0063.
37
Figure 47. Two Dolls of Undetermined
Origin
Left: The doll is probably Yupik, as indicated
by the facial features and the construction of
the boots. 5.5 cm, UA67-098-0196.
Right: The beadwork and the parka style
suggest that it may be Athabascan, although
the many experts consulted were unable to
conrm this. The heavy ornamentation of
the doll tells us that it certainly was not a
childs plaything. The attached watch cogs
and springs may indicate that it was used by
a shaman. Siberian shamans often attached
metal pieces to their clothing to bring on a
trance state. The hair style and the piece of
dentalium that pierces the nasal septum sug-
gest a Gwichin Athabascan origin. 25.4 x 9,
UA78-015-0001AB.
Figure 46. Canadian Dolls
During the 1940s and 50s in Canada, there was a concerted
effort to promote Native arts and crafts. Eventually, the soap-
stone carving and printmaking of the Canadian Inuit became
known worldwide. Doll making also became popular because
dolls were easy to ship, compact in size, and widely appreci-
ated. This photo shows a male doll with a soapstone head, a
mother and child wearing the traditional beaver-tail parka
(amautik) of Bafn Island, and a papier-mch couple made
as part of an art program at the Grenfell Mission, Labrador.
From left to right: man in duffel parka, Canadian Inuit, 37 x
19 x 7, UA93-010-0001; mother and child, Canadian Inuit,
33 x 18 x 7, UA70-009-0001AB; woman doll, Canadian Inuit,
47 x 16, UA82-003-0092; male doll, Canadian Inuit, 49 x 17,
UA82-003-0092.
38 Chapter 1
Notes
1
Every Alaska Native culture is distinct from the others,
but in order to survey the uses of the human gure across
them all, we have sometimes generalized in places where
cultural features were similar.
2
The small number of loaned pieces for the exhibition
came from the Alaska Native Medical Center Auxiliary
Heritage Collection, Anchorage; the Anchorage Museum
of History and Art, Anchorage; the Alaska State Museum,
Juneau; and several private collections. We gratefully
acknowledge their generosity.
3
This essay was written by Molly Lee based on the research
of Angela J. Linn for her masters thesis project, which
resulted in the exhibition Not Just a Pretty Face.
4
The advisory team for Not Just a Pretty Face included
Poldine Carlo, (Athabascan), Martha Demientieff (Alu-
tiiq), Rebecca Etukeok (Tlingit-Inupiaq), Eva Heff le
(Inupiaq), Christopher Koonooka, Velma Koontz, and
Jonella Larson (all St. Lawrence Island Yupik), Rebecca
Peterson (Yupik), Glen Simpson (Tahltan Athabascan),
Phyllis Morrow (anthropologist), Chase Hensel (anthro-
pologist), and Jean Flanagan Carlo (evaluator). We are
grateful to them all for their generosity with time and
information.
5
Miniature human gures are not reported from Old Bering
Sea III sites.
6
The figure was deposited at the Peabody Museum at
Harvard University and later lost. Only a plaster cast of
it remains (Black 2003:20).
7
Dates of the rst contact between Alaska Natives and West-
erners vary depending on the location. One of the earliest
was 1741, when Alexei Chirikov encountered the Aleuts
in the Aleutian Islands (Black 2004), and the latest was
about 1900, when trading posts were established among
the more remote groups of Athabascans. Therefore, there
is no single date for the beginning of the historic period
in Alaska. With this caveat in mind, we use historic
period here to refer to dolls and human gurines that
were reported or collected between the date of rst contact
between a Native group and non-Natives and about 1950,
when World War II had ended and modernization brought
about further changes in doll making.
8
There are some early dolls in the University of Alaska
Museum collections whose clothing and/or skin legs may
be absent due to deterioration. These may have been made
for children but their original purpose is uncertain.
9
In one instance, Nelson found a pair of dolls whose heads
and bodies were formed from clay. This nd, at Razbinsky,
on the lower Yukon, still maintained the stylistic charac-
teristics common to this area (Nelson 1899:343).
10
In some parts of the YukonKuskokwim Delta, dolls were
complementary to story knives, the fancifully carved
ivory knives used to draw pictographs in the mud to il-
lustrate the stories the girls told each other (Himmelheber
1993:2831). According to Lucy Sparks, who grew up in
Chevak, when the rst cranes appeared in the spring the
girls would wrap up their dolls and take them to an older
female relative, who would exchange them for the story
knives (Hensel 1999).
11
It is generally thought that the strict division of gender
roles in Alaska Native cultures (Giffen 1930) discouraged
boys from playing with girls toys, including dolls. How-
ever, Osgood is alone in specically saying that boys were
discouraged from playing with dolls, in this case among
the Deg Hitan (Osgood 1940:390).
12
Not all charms and amulets were carved to represent
human beings. Some were zoomorphic and others bio-
morphic.
13
According to Ray, charms and amulets differed conceptu-
ally but could not necessarily be distinguished visually.
Charms directed energy outward beyond the self. Amu-
lets, on the other hand, were invested with power by the
wearer or a religious specialist and thought to protect their
owner against a specic type of bad fortune or to bring
about good luck of a certain kind (Ray 1977:17).
14
Numaiyuk, the spelling formerly considered standard,
actually originated with Otto Geist, who was on St. Law-
rence in the 1920s; it is based on the English phonetici-
zation of the way the name is pronounced. In the 1960s,
Central and Siberian Yupik orthography was standardized
such that the name would be spelled Nemayaq. This is
currently the spelling preferred by Native speakers, ac-
cording to the Alaska Native Language Center, University
of Alaska Fairbanks.
15
There is a possible parallel between fertility gurines in
the Yupik region and the sun-worm doll found among the
Koryak of northeastern Siberia. Regarded as the guardian
of women, the body of this doll is thought to contain a
worm (called the vivifying one,) that falls from the sky
into the womans root basket, protecting her from sterility
(Serov 1988:249).
16
According to Ray, the human figurines were usually
found on the board type of monuments, the distribution
of which was mainly restricted to the lower Kuskokwim
River. Ray describes one such efgy as a life-sized man of
wood, holding a rie and surrounded by his possessions
(Ray 1981:37; 1982).
17
Osgood also reports the use of a second doll for the pur-
pose of divining good weather among the Deg Hitan.
The small anthropomorphic gure was made out of wood
shavings and carried a sled, which may have been a sym-
bol of putting things in order. The doll was activated by
burial (Osgood 1940:422).
18
Between 1842 and 1844, Lt. Zagoskin witnessed what
may have been a version of the doll ceremony: On the
bench [in the ceremonial house] stood ve nude wooden
statues about an arshin [about a foot] in height, with the
arm bound in a special way and the legs only indicated
by a line. Two of them were female. There was a mask over
the face of each of them, and a lamp was burning before
each. The Natives danced in turn and then they placed
before each statue platters with sh tolkusha [archaic term,
meaning unknown], and other food. As they did this they
said: This is for you from our supplies, help us to more
[sic] in the future.. . . On the [next morning] when the
Intimates and Efgies 39
[ritual steam] bath was over they put the statues away in
their old place behind the kazhim and covered them over
with birch bark (Michael 1967:229).
19
In his diary, Moravian missionary John Kilbuck discusses
the Moravians conscation of doll festival gurines and
the Yupik mens puzzled and angry reaction. When Kil-
buck refused to return them, the men later brought in a
bundle of the dolls possessions including fur clothing and
a miniature drum (Fienup-Riordan 1991:189). Whether
this was a gesture acknowledging their defeat or was a
way of making sure that the dolls would have what they
needed in their new life is unknown.
20
The size of doll festival gurines is in doubt. Ray (1981:22)
describes them as huge. Nelson (1899:379) did not wit-
ness the event himself and gives no information about
the size (Donta 1993:188189). According to Osgood
(1940:423424), the gurines for the same Deg Hitan
ceremonies were between seven inches and one foot tall.
21
Ivanov reports that the Aleut also placed small human
gures outside their barabaras (underground houses) to
dispel evil (Black 1991).
22
Quart z was considered to have magical properties
throughout much of the Eskimo cultural region. Ac-
cording to Weyer: Small fragments of quartz crystal are
[considered to be] the centers of masses of ice that have
frozen so hard they become stone. These are prized as
amulets (Weyer 1932:312). The British Navy captain
Rochfort Maguire, who spent two years at Barrow from
185254, also observed that the local Eskimos wore large
pieces of crystal on their breast as amulets (Bockstoce
1988:210).
23
Puppets are also reported for the Yupik region, although
less is known about them (Fienup-Riordan 1996:130).
One example, deposited at the Alaska State Museum (cata-
log number II-A-3070), is illustrated in Ray 1981:188.
24
According to Lowenstein, puguqs depicted stories told
in more recent generations whereas quluguluguqs illus-
trated stories taking place in long-ago mythological times
(Lowenstein 1993:117).
25
Puppets and marionettes were used widely along the
Arctic Coast. For example, see the ivory puppet from King
Island illustrated by Kaplan and Barsness (1986:154, g.
146). Ray describes three puguqs in the collection of the
American Museum of Natural History (Ray 1977:121).
26
According to University of Alaska Museum Ethnology
records, the museum acquired this marionette in 1964.
Thereafter, the Point Hope people created a new, almost
life-size example.
27
According to Ivanov, such gurines were also placed
outside Aleut barabaras to ward off evil spirits (Black
1991).
28
According to Birket-Smith, some shamans practicing at
the time of his 1930s eldwork used Western-made dolls
bought at the local store (Birket-Smith and de Laguna
1938:210).
29
Although the introduction of Christianity irrevocably
altered the core beliefs of Alaska Native people, certain
aspects of indigenous religions were incorporated into
Christianity. For example, prayers for the return of game,
a cornerstone of most indigenous religions, have been in-
corporated into Christian church services in rural Alaska
today (Hensel 1996:68).
30
Up until the 1960s and 1970s, many children still used
cloth play dolls. Although handmade, these are not con-
sidered indigenous because they were made of imported
fabric.
31
According to Ray, the Russians taught the Aleut and Alutiiq
people to craft items such as buckets, berry mashers, and
cabinetry (Ray 1981:58).
32
Susan W. Fair offers an alternative explanation for the
reduction in horn dolls. She suggests that fewer are made
now because the art form is not remunerative enough to
be economically viable to the extended family required
to produce them (Fair 2006).
33
According to Hedrick and Hedrick (1983:4), Lena Sours
of Kotzebue actually made the rst wooden-headed doll.
The head was carved by Oliver Brown (Nipaloq).
34
According to Eva Hefe, who grew up in Kotzebue, after
doll making got going there, Nipaloq carved most of the
doll heads for other doll makers, although Ethel appar-
ently always made her own.
35
Wooden-faced dolls from Eek are grooved around the
perimeter. According to Fair, this technique goes back
to earlier doll construction techniques (Fair 1982:47).
Wooden masks from the same region were similarly
grooved so that the parka hood could be brought around
the face during a dance for a more realistic portrayal (see
Fienup-Riordan 1996:296, bottom g.).
41
2
Playing for Real
Scholarly Perspectives on Alaska Native
Play and Ritual
Angela J. Linn
As I researched the play dolls in the University of
Alaska Museum collection for Not Just a Pretty Face,
I began to realize that the category play is a general
term for a wide array of activities, usually joyous but
always vital to the development of children. In this
essay I discuss the varied perspectives on play taken
by anthropologists and psychologists, with particular
attention to those that focus on play dolls. Next, I show
how this body of literature is applicable to the analysis
of play among Alaska Native children. Finally, I will
point out that in some indigenous cultures of Alaska
there is a strong link between childrens play and the
more formalized play of adults that we call ritual.
The Spectrum of Play
Fundamental to any scholarly study is a denition
of its focus. However, nearly a century of combined
psychological, sociological, and anthropological re-
search has failed to arrive at a collectively acceptable
denition of play, much as a generally agreed-upon
denition of culture has eluded anthropologists. The
literature suggests that the denitions of play can be
thought of as a continuum. At one end are the func-
tionalists, for whom play is simply the opposite of work
(e.g., Huizinga 1950). At the other are those who have
used neuropsychology to arrive at a largely biological
denition of the phenomenon (e.g., Parman 1979).
Hovering somewhere in between is the perspective of
phenomenologists, who argue that play activities are
essential to making sense of and learning from experi-
ences (Cameron 1996).
Researchers subscribing to the work vs. play distinc-
tion have followed the lead of twentieth-century Dutch
historian Johan Huizinga, who, in his book Homo
Ludens, dened play as:
A free activity standing quite consciously outside
ordinary life as being not serious, but at the same
time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is
an activity connected with no material interest, and
no prot can be gained by it. It proceeds within its
own proper boundaries of time and space according to
xed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the
formation of social groupings which tend to surround
themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference
from the common world by disguise or other means
(Huizinga 1950:13).
Other researchers, such as Caillois (1961), Cohen
(1987), and Norbeck (1971), have followed this basic
premise, occasionally tailoring it to t a research aim.
1

Most agree that play is a framed activity in which one
makes a conscious decision to adhere to rules and roles
that are in contrast to everyday situations.
At the other end of the spectrum are those, such
as Parman (1979) and Csikszentmihalyi and Ben-
nett (1971), who dene play as a universal biological
process. They state that play relieves boredom as well
as the complicated worries of everyday life and elicits
behavior that allows the player to lose consciousness of
self (Csikszentmihalyi and Bennett 1971). Parman sees
a direct connection between playing and dreaming,
arguing that a common neurophysiological process
underlies both. This process arises from the need for
disruption of synchrony, something provided inter-
nally during sleep, but which occurs during waking
hours during institutionalized or noninstitutionalized
42 Chapter 2
play. To function healthily, the nervous system re-
quires changed sensor y input and differentiated
neural activity, both of which are achieved during
play (Parman 1979). Neuropsychologically then, the
capacity for play promotes youthfulness and vitality
(Norbeck 1971). This perspective is the basis for the
contemporary theory that the need for play continues
into adulthood.
In between these two extremes is the phenomeno-
logical view that play furnishes both children and
adults with the ability to synthesize experience (Cam-
eron 1996). From this perspective, children constantly
recreate their environment through play, rearranging
its components to align with their own notions of
the world. According to Lvi-Strauss (1966), the best
known of the moderates, play ensures the perpetu-
ation of social patterns and rituals. I argue that this
view of play best ts the historical context of Alaska
Native cultures.
The Historical Study of Play
Anthropologists and psychologists have studied play
in various ways, most commonly as a medium for
revealing the unconscious thoughts and relationships
of children, as well as their cognitive development.
Early anthropologists saw play from an evolutionary
point of view. William Wells Newell, in his Games and
Songs of American Children (1903), interpreted games as
survivals of the adult activities of earlier societies. The
activities of children were thought of as windows to
the past. Newell and his followers originated the idea
that childrens activities were primitive, frivolous, and
unworthy of scientic study.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the heyday of function-
alism, theories on childrens play emphasized its
imitation of adult behavior. To the functionalists, the
sole purpose of play was to socialize children into
behavioral norms. While reductive, their notion at
least disputed that play was frivolous (Schwartzman
1978:133). At about the same time, culture-and-per-
sonality investigators such as Margaret Mead fused
anthropology and psychology, using childrens play
as a case study of a culturally specic activity that re-
futed the idea of universal, biologically based behavior
(Schwartzman 1978:207).
It was not until the 1940s that investigators incor-
porated play dolls into their studies of childrens activi-
ties. Researchers, especially psychotherapists such as
Henry and Henry (1974), used dolls in the treatment
of children to elicit unconscious or repressed feelings.
Psychologist Jean Piaget published Play, Dreams, and
Figure 49
Elena Carlo and her Barbie wear matching lightweight cotton
parkas. Courtesy of Jean Flanagan Carlo.
Figure 48
Through play, children learn social skills that will prepare
them for their adult roles. The young boys with their toy guns
pretend to be hunters while the young girl in the tent keeps
the camp orderly. Frederick Drane Collection, acc. no. 91-046-477, Ar-
chives, Alaska and Polar Regions Department, Rasmuson Library, University
of Alaska Fairbanks.
Playing for Real 43
Imitation (Piaget 1962), one of the most inuential
studies of the subject. Piagets main method of research
was observing his own three children, and one of his
principal contributions to the study of play was his
conclusion that children use play dolls and toys for
working out daily tensions. Later, Piagets ideas were
merged with psychoanalytic theory, and eventually
his techniques of doll play were applied to the study of
children cross-culturally (Schwartzman 1978:150).
Dolls in Play and Ritual in
Alaska Native Cultures
Anthropological, psychological, and folkloric studies
of play are helpful in analyzing uses and contexts of
Alaska Native dolls. Westerners tend to think of dolls
in connection with little girls playing house, where the
doll functions as a pretend baby. But other cultures
(Cameron 1996:20) distinguish beween doll functions
in play and ritual. In this book, we distinguish between
the gures used by children, or play dolls, and those
used by adults in ritual and ceremony, or human
gurines.
2
One instance where the scholarly literature can help
with the interpretation of Alaska Native childrens
play activities during the early historic period is in
addressing the question of whether playing with dolls
was a gendered activity. The ethnographic record rarely
makes clear whether the play habits of boys and girls
were the same or different. However, given the strict
division of labor between men and women in Eskimo
culture generally (Giffen 1930), it can be assumed that
for the most part it was girls who played with dolls.
Functional analysis suggests an explanation. If boys
grew up to be hunters, it should follow that their play
focused on miniature bows and arrows, halibut hooks,
or harpoons. Likewise, the expectation of Alaska Na-
tive girls was that they grew up to be mothers, seam-
stresses, and homemakers. Thus, we would expect their
toys to be miniature cooking and sewing implements,
womens knives, and play dolls.
That play is preparation for ritual activity in Alaska
is also suggested by the literature. This is illustrated in
the distinctions that Alaska Eskimos, Tlingit Indians,
and possibly, the Aleuts and Alutiiqs made between
dolls and puppets. In these groups, dolls were consid-
ered miniature people, and children played with them
in specially constructed imaginary worlds that required
no separate audience. Puppets, on the other hand,
could represent people as well as animals or mythi-
cal beings, and they were used in ritual performance
(Cameron 1996:13). This distinction can be seen in
the Inupiaq village of Point Hope, where puppets and
marionettes were used in the annual fall ceremonies
3

to give thanks to the spirits for the return of the whales
(see Linn and Lee this volume). These models were
not childrens toys; they played a critical role in adult
ritual performance.
Piagets studies provide insights into the play-as-prac-
tice activities of Alaska Native children. Young girls on
St. Lawrence Island used walrus mandibles as dolls (and
wooden yoke dolls that replicated the shape of a walrus
mandible) in order to practice packing a baby on their
shoulders. Practicing for an adult role allowed the girls
to acquire the understanding that miniatures stand for
real objects and that they can be used similarly (Cohen
1987:51). According to Piaget, this understanding is part
of the cognitive development of childhood, enabling
children to make sense of the world around them. Piaget
found that once children could create complicated play
situations, such as emulating motherhood, play activities
enabled them to begin the process of coping with future
reality (Cohen 1987:44). From Piagets perspective, when
E.W. Nelson walked into a house on Sledge Island and
saw that two small girls had placed their dolls standing
in a semicircle before us upon the oor, while they sat
quietly behind us as though permitting their dolls to
take a look at the strangers (Nelson 1899:345), he may
have witnessed such an event. These girls, who probably
had not seen many white men before, were most likely
Figure 50.
These young boys are practicing their hunting skills with
slingshots. Alaskan Sheperd Collection, acc. no. 88-117-42N, Archives,
Alaska and Polar Regions Department, Rasmuson Library, University of
Alaska Fairbanks.
44 Chapter 2
using their dolls to assess the strangers, thus diminishing
their apprehension.
Studies published in the 1960s, which demonstrated
the utility of play in the development of creativity,
would be applicable to the Alaskan case. Lieberman,
for instance, found that children who were encouraged
to play exhibited divergent-thinking abilities, ide-
ational uency, spontaneous exibility, and originality
(Schwartzman 1978:322). This conclusion sheds light
on the connection in Alaska between play and ritual
activities and also suggests the importance of creative
thinking in a harsh environment where imaginative
solutions to critical problems could make the difference
between life and death.
Piagets play-as-practice theories also help us to
understand how everyday interactions with dolls
prepared Alaska Native children for the use of human
gurines in adult rituals and ceremony. Before the
arrival of Christian missionaries, shamans, the medi-
cal-religious practitioners
4
common to all Alaska Na-
tive groups, often incorporated human gurines into
their practices. Some of the main uses were in curing
ceremonies, to treat infertility, and for divination. Both
written and oral sources make clear that these gurines
could assume living form and take on the role of a
shamans helper. Figurines were used to bring about
good or evil. During curing ceremonies, for example,
the helping spirits residing in the gurine moved to the
aficted person, driving out the evil spirits
5
believed
to be the cause of illness. At other times, the shaman
could use his familiar to cause evil, like the death of
a child.
So strong was the fear that a doll could come alive
that it continues to haunt some Alaska Native elders
today.
6
They recall the days when shamans regulated
their lives, and the possibility that a human gurine
could act on behalf of a shaman persists among some
of them. For this reason, elders sometimes shy away
from dolls that appear too lifelike. Recently, Chevak
doll maker Earl Atchak made a doll that, according to
elders, bore an eerie resemblance to an early-twentieth
century shaman (Fig. 52). Because of the resemblance,
the elders worried that the gurine might also be ca-
pable of springing to life. This suggests that old beliefs
Figure 51. School Children
Alatna.
The girls are holding Native
dolls while the boys hold min-
iature bows and arrows, fish
traps, and a toy gun. One boy
holds a doll and possibly a
push-top. As a rule, girls and
boys were encouraged to play
with different toys. Tishu Ulen

Collection, acc. no. 89-88-64N, Ar-
chives, Al aska and Pol ar Regions
Department, Rasmuson Library, Uni-
versity of Alaska Fairbanks.
Figure 52. Cupik shaman
Utuan, Chevak, ca. 1928.
Also known as Kangciurluq,
some of this shamans exploits
are described in Thomas Mo-
ses story Angalkull-ret/The
Old Shamans. Courtesy of Jesuit
Oregon Province Archives, Gonzaga
University, image no. 267-167.
Playing for Real 45
sometimes persist even though most Alaska Native
people today are Christians.
According to Parman (1979) play is a controlled
deviation from normalcy, and its contrast serves to
strengthen the rules of everyday life. This is illustrated
in the Alaskan case. Among the Yupik Eskimos, doll
play was permitted all year long, but only allowed
outside in summer after the return of the geese. If a
girl ignored this prohibition, the snow would not melt,
the animals would not return, and the village would
be unable to participate in summer subsistence activi-
ties. Such conventions taught Alaska Native children
the necessity of observing rituals of the annual cycle.
Seasonal appropriateness persisted in the ritual ac-
tivities of adults. For example, every winter the Yupik
people held a ceremony known as the Bladder Festival,
which ensured that the animals would return. Failure
to perform the ceremony could result in widespread
famine.
In addition to their role in the socialization of young
girls, dolls also served as markers of the transition
between their childhood and adulthood. Families of
Yupik girls marked the occasion of their daughters
rst menstruation by holding a feast, during which the
girl gave away her dolls. The practice was also reported
for the Yakutat Tlingit,
7
who held a potlatch for this
purpose (de Laguna 1972:520).
The division of labor between genders is also rein-
forced by corresponding differences between girls and
boys toys. There is little evidence that young Alaska
Native boys played with dolls. Possibly, there was some
cultural avoidance of dolls by males because they
marked female rites of passage.
8
Theories on Play and Ritual
In light of the examples above, it is clear that the
activities of play and ritual in Alaska Native cultures
are connected in ways that have not been previously
investigated. In Western culture this is not a new con-
cept. According to Plato:
What, then, is the right way of living? Life must be
lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrices,
singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to
propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his
enemies, and win in the contest (quoted in Huizinga
1950:1719).
Structurally, play and ritual share many features.
Both create a reality outside of the ordinary time and
space. They are parallel states of existence, differ-
ent only by the age of the participants. According to
Cameron, Children re-create the adult world through
play and bring continuity to the real world; adults
cause change in the real world through serious ritual
play (Cameron 1996:2627). In the Alaskan context,
children play with dolls as a way of learning about the
world around them. Dolls can act as a projection of the
childs personality. The manipulation of play dolls can
invest children with the ability to control their circum-
stances. They help develop creative thinking skills and
furnish the means for learning about adult roles. Ritual
uses of human gurines also allow for the projection of
ones self, under the guise of sympathetic magic as seen
in the Point Hope ceremony with the whaling crew (see
Linn and Lee this volume). By showing the successful
hunt of the whale model, adults attempt to manipulate
and control their realities. Shamans contributed to the
well being of the community when they used a human
gurine as a vehicle for curing. In the Doll Festival of
the lower Yukon, the shaman used human gurines
to foretell the abundance of game. Ultimately, the cor-
respondence between play and ritual is close indeed.
Play asks the performers to make believe while ritual
asks them to believe (Lavenda 1996:938).
Conclusion
Play dolls in Alaska Native cultures performed as vital
a role in the lives of children as human gurines did
for adults. When attempting to arrive at a denition
of play, early psychologists discounted these activi-
ties as insignicant, but in Alaska Native cultures, as
elsewhere, play and ritual are equally necessary. Func-
tionalists argue that playing with dolls teaches young
girlsand the boys who watched themabout the
culturally appropriate roles of behavior. From the point
of view of developmental psychology, play promotes
cognitive growth, enhancing creativity and critical
thinking skills as well as physical dexterity. Through
playing with dolls Alaska Native children were able
to gain control over compelling aspects of their lives,
which promoted the growth of self-condence. These
various factors helped the child grow into an adult
who could readily accept the use of human gurines
for rituals.
46 Chapter 2
Notes
1
Some oppose this definition. Anthropologist Helen
Schwartzman argues that play is not always fun, that games
do not encourage spontaneity, and that play is not always
unproductive. She also challenges the notion that play
must occur in a separate space and time. To her, play is a
mode of existence, rather than a phase, which can come
any time, any place (Schwartzman 1978:327328). Games
are dened differently from play. They tend to be more
formalized. They have denite rules, xed sequences of ac-
tion, and uncertain outcomes (Cheska 1979). In contrast,
play is more casual. Schwartzman shows that energetic
play is connected to creativity, and that if play activities are
permitted at work, they may result in higher productivity.
Schwartzman also argues that childrens play contributes
to a childs emotional, social, and cognitive development
(Schwartzman 1978:327328).

2
Studies have shown that if boys are permitted dolls they
play differently with them. A girl usually pretends that she
is grown up, and the doll is her baby. Boys tend to project
their personas into the gure and to assume the adult role
of warrior, hero, or villain (Cameron 1996:20).

3
Both Rasmussen (1927) and Rainey (1947) witnessed this
ceremony. It was a type of thanksgiving festival in which
the miniature umiak crew, led by the umialik, paddled their
oars and breathed with the assistance of sinew lines and
gut breathing tubes.

4
In many Alaska Native cultures, it was thought that ill-
nesses were caused by the penetration of an evil spirit
into the body of the aficted. Shamans were responsible
for restoring good health by removing such spirits.

5
Specic examples of this method of treatment can be seen
in Birket-Smith and de Laguna (1938).

6
This fear was shared by Westerners of earlier times. Ac-
cording to Aris, in the Middle Ages the doll was . . . the
dangerous instrument of the magician and the witch
(Aris 1962:69).

7
Cultural anthropologist Phyllis Morrow has hypothesized
that giving up dolls at puberty could be the result of the
dolls perceived roles as symbolic children. Once the girl
was physically able to have a real child, her symbolic child
was no longer needed. Morrows hypothesis of the cor-
respondence between dolls and symbolic babies stands
up in the Tlingit case. The Tlingit word for a doll, sik,
translates as little daughter (de Laguna 1972:515).

8
I have only seen one Alaska Native boy playing with a
doll, and that was in a historical photograph.
47
In preparing a video to accompany this exhibit, I
had the opportunity to interview twelve Alaska Native doll
makers during craft sales at the Fur Rendezvous in Anchor-
age, the Festival of Native Arts in Fairbanks, and in their
homes. The interviews were exciting and wide-ranging,
covering a variety of topics relating to doll making. In order
to preserve the avor of these interviews, I tried to let the
doll makers speak for themselves, grouping quotes under
topics and stitching them together with brief comments of
my own.
1

The doll makers I interviewed included Dora Buchea (St.
Lawrence Island Yupik), Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy (Yupik),
Denise Hardesty (Koyukon Athabascan), Eva Hefe (Inu-
piaq), Alice Johnnie (Tlingit), Ruth Koweluk (Inupiaq),
Walton Irrigoo (St. Lawrence Island Yupik), Iva and Ken
Lisbourne (Inupiaq), Carolyn Kava Penayah (St. Lawrence
Island Yupik), Jackie Schoppert (Tlingit), and Lillian Tetpon
(Inupiaq).
Denise Hardesty, like other Alaska Native doll makers,
makes old things new. She is an innovator, inventing beaded
sun catchers one spring when she wanted stained glass in
her window. She also recycles materials, giving old things
new lives. She has created many Athabascan dolls based on
historic photographs. In conversation, she suggested that as
long as there is documentation and preservation, the objects
in archives and collections are not dead, but only resting,
ready to be brought back to life and be reincorporated into
contemporary traditions. For example:
Denise Hardesty: One of the things Ive been
thinking about the past couple of years is nobody has
made any crocheted rabbit skin clothes in 40 years,
that I know of. I have never even seen one, and I do
want to come up there to the museum and see what
you have. I have 30 rabbit skins, and Im going to make
two great big balls of rabbit skin yarn and give one to
my mom and one to my cousin, and tell them, Here,
make something. Its just like everything old can be
new again. All youve got to do is look for it.
Finally, she suggests that making doll clothing based on the
clothes she has studied in historic photographs is a way of
understanding the past as well:
Denise Hardesty: You see them [people] in their
pictures. They took what they thought were the ner
things from both their cultures and dress themselves up
in nice, good, solid White mans clothes. But they just
had to have the [beaded] boots, the mittens, the baby
strap or whatever that was better than they could buy
down at the store. . . . People are just the same. They just
want to be respected and held in high esteem, and that
was what the big deal was with all the fancy clothes.
Everything Old Is New Again
Interviewing Alaska Native Doll Makers
Chase Hensel
Denise Hardesty
Koyukon AthabascanFairbanks
Now living in Fairbanks
3
48 Chapter 3
How Did You Learn To Make Dolls?
Most doll makers learned from two or more teachers. For
women, one of these was generally the doll makers grand-
mother, or sometimes her mother, aunt, or great aunt. For
men, these teachers were usually grandfathers or fathers. The
second might have been another, perhaps more judgmental
relative, or a teacher in school. For example, Dora Buchea
said she learned:
Dora Buchea: From my grandma, mostly. My
grandmother was very patient, not my mother. Dont
let her know that. My grandma was very patient, and
she points them [mistakes] out. I think she gures that
if she takes them apart for us to redo that we might get
discouraged. She always just lets us nish, since its our
own toys. We didnt have very much toys when we were
growing up, so we just made our own.
Elsewhere, however, she uses different terms to describe
how she learned:
Dora Buchea: When I was a little girl, I was hyper.
That was my punishment, to sit there and make doll
clothes for my aunts. Just Barbie dolls, after Barbie dolls
came. I had fancy Barbie doll clothes. . . . I came from a
long line of doll makers, too. I dont know if you know
Annie Alowa. Shes my fathers sister. So I kind of got
the thing from her, because we never really quite got
along, until I got good. She was always telling me, You
did this wrong, and Id get mad, so I tried to improve
mine better than hers, and I end up making it pretty
good. But I think she was my inspiration because we
argued about, something looked bad, shed tell me, and
Id get mad at her because I was just learning. But she
did a lot for me, I feel.
Caroline Kava Penayah describes the central position of watch-
ing, visually attending, as well as doing hands-on work:
Caroline Kava Penayah: My grandmother was a
doll maker and so was my mother. They didnt sit down
and teach us. We [were] just watching them, theyre do-
ing it, we just keep up with [what theyre doing], but she
taught me the stitches a lot, which I didnt like it. When
you were younger, you dont want to [work], but I loved
to visit her. . . . When I walked in, open the door, she
was doing something. No way I can run away or hide.
I have to do what shes just handed to me.
Dora Buchea
St. Lawrence Island Yupik
Now living in Slana
Caroline Kava Penayah
St. Lawrence Island Yupik
Now living in Anchorage
Ken and Iva Lisbourne
InupiaqPoint Hope
Now living in Tok
Walton Irrigoo
St. Lawrence Island Yupik
Now living in Anchorage
Everything Old Is New Again 49
Iva Lisbourne describes her early apprenticeship and her
search for technical advice as an adult:
Iva Lisbourne: I learn from my mother, because
I used to thread her needles and stuff and watch her
sometimes. But Im still learning. I still got a lot of
things to learn. And I have my father help me too. Be-
cause mama, shes gone. I dont have any [living close
female relatives]sisters are gone, so I ask for help a
lot. And Im still learning a lot.
Often this early learning involved redoing something several
times until it was done to acceptable standards:
Walton Irrigoo: My dad taught me. I started carv-
ing when I was about 12 years old. And he started me
off with small gurines, owls, and seals. And as I got
a little older and, of course, my skills advanced, he
started teaching me some of the other artwork that we
do: kayaks, animal gurines, polar bears. You didnt see
any in my display case because we sold out the rst day,
of my carvings anyway. And from there I kind of went
off on my own and started producing my own things.
When he was teaching me how to do the kayaks . . . the
little men that sit in the kayaks, I made ve or six before
he nally let me put one of those men on my kayak. . . .
Id go and show him one, and hed look at it and he
goes, Well, youre going to have to do another one.
And hed just toss it. And so Id have to go and make
another one. And then thats how I learned.
Alice Johnnie: I learned that from my grandmother.
Before she passed away, she told me to pick that up.
Of course, when you rst do something, I had put it
together backwards, but she said, Its all right, its all
right, . . . It made me feel good. . . .
The border on there [the blanket], I had it upside
down like that, and I put, I think it was an eagle. I put
it up here, and I showed it to my grandmother. I said,
How did I do, Grandma? I used my own Tlingit word,
and she said, Oh, thats pretty. Thats pretty, she said.
I knew there was something wrong when she said that.
Otherwise, she wouldnt have said that was good. Then
just before I walked out, she said, You put it upside
down, but its all right. I had to undo it again.
Jackie Schoppert: Well, she [her grandmother]
insisted on accuracy, for one thing. We had to be ac-
curate in anything we depicted . . . in our sewing. I
remember having her rip out a seam. Id just sew along,
and then Id get to the end and tie the knot, and shed
rip it out because it wasnt perfectly straight. We had
to learn the basics rst before we could do anything
else. I remember hours of just sewing one line or one
seam just on a piece of cotton, and when I got to the
end I just knew she was going to tear it out. . . . It was
so boring, but we couldnt say it was boring. That word
didnt exist in our vocabulary. We couldnt even roll
our eyes like that.
Sometimes the doll makers early teaching was less than
successful. Eva Hefe notes:
Eva Hefe: Well, I wasnt too good at sewing. I never
was. Thats why I surprise everybody. Growing up, Lena
Sours [Evas great aunt] was the teacher, teaching us
kids how to sew at the school, and I remember while
the other girls were making mukluks, I was making
mittens. I just have to sew the outside of it. I cant
remember how she had [arranged it], but the simplest
thing, I couldnt even do that right. So she had me mak-
ing thread out of caribou tendon. I got all tangled on
that, and she was so disgusted with me. I just couldnt
sew, so I never picked up sewing again. When I tried to
learn, my grandmother, Mary Curtis, would chase me
away, because shed say Im going to lose her needles
and her beads. Then she seen my dolls, and she was so
sorry, because she made them beautiful show parkas
with the wolverine tassels and stuff. She looked at my
Alice Johnnie
TlingitJuneau
Now living in Juneau
Eva Hefe
InupiaqKotzebue
Now living in North Pole
50 Chapter 3
work, and she said, I should have showed you. By
then she was pretty old, and all she could work on up
until her death, 90 some years old, was yo-yos.
However, perhaps she had learned more about sewing than
she knew:
Eva Hefe: My rst doll took me two weeks, maybe
more. Its been a long time. But that rst doll didnt
even have arms. I sewed the sleeves together, because I
didnt know how to put on arms, and the mukluks were
like them old Lapland shoes that curl up. [Laughs.] I
forgot to put the strip between the mukluk top and the
bottom part of the mukluk. Without it, its just a real
skinny, long thing. Oh, I had a time with my rst doll.
But it had a wooden head. I dont know who made it,
but my grandma sent me some dry sh, and there were
two of them in there, so thats how I started.
While most doll makers learned primarily from relatives,
Ken Lisbourne thinks that being technically schooled in
ne arts and Native arts was also vital to his profession as
a Native artist:
Ken Lisbourne: I feel when I studied art, after be-
ing able to go to school for it and having some of the
nest teachers like when I was very young in Point
Hope . . . Andrew Tooyak, Sr., was one of my rst teach-
ers in ivory carving. My father was also one of my rst
teachers. But later on, my high school years, I decided
I was very interested to get into an art school. Thats
when [I went to the Institute of American Indian Arts]
in Santa Fe, which was all Native arts, which you can
take every day for classes. You had great teachers like
Henry Tubis for painting, which was oil, acrylics, or
watercolor. Sculpture teacher Allan Houser, who taught
my sculpture, and ceramics was a lady named Linda
Figure 53.
Two of Denise Hardestys dolls are on the far left. The striped
material on the doll to the left is old pillow ticking that Denise
remembered her father using when she was a child. In this group
of dolls are Athabascan, Northwest Coast, and Aleut dolls. Left
to right: William Paul, Koyukon Athabascan, maker: Denise
Hardesty, 26.7 cm, UA93-003-0003AC; trapper, Koyukon
Athabascan, maker: Denise Hardesty, 27.3 cm, UA93-003-0004;
male and female dolls, Ahtna Athabascan, maker: Doris Charles,
26.6 x 13, UA94-003-0001AC, 27 x 15, UA94-003-0002AC; two
male dolls, Athabascan, maker: Laura Alfred, 31.5 x 14, UA72-
011-0001, 32 x 15, UA72-072-0001; Tlingit crest doll, maker: An-
nie Lawrence, 25.5 x 16, UA69-050-0006A; doll, Tlingit, maker:
Mabel Pike, 25.5 x 13.5, UA84-003-0062; male in kamleika (gut
parka), Aleut, maker: Sophie Pletnikoff, 26 x 13, UA70-051-
0029B; female in long parka, Aleut, maker: Sophie Pletnikoff,
23 x 10.5, UA70-051-0029A; male dolls, Aleut, maker: Hartina
Savaroff, 29.2 x 8.9, UA81-003-0178, 0179.
Everything Old Is New Again 51
Lillian Tetpon
InupiaqMarys Igloo
Now living in Anchorage
Larson, who taught us the way to work with ceramics.
And I think I just connected my way of work along with
my style of Native art and my schooling both con-
nected. But art school is very important [for the] work.
You have to go to school to be able to produce better in
this day and age.
So I think that the most important thing is to go to
school and stay in school. If youre becoming a Native
artist, you do need to go to school.
Each Time I Remember, I Make a Doll:
Making Meaning by Making Dolls
Making dolls is both deeply personal and deeply cultural.
One part-time doll maker stressed the importance of a posi-
tive social environment when working:
Jackie Schoppert: The way I was trained in regalia
making is if theres any contention, anything negative
around, then you have to put the work down. You
cant work on it. . . . So when I work on weaving, or
carving, or making jewelry, or working on the dolls,
or whatever it is Im doing, I block out anything that
is negative, and if theres something negative coming
into the housemy kids are screaming, whateverit
gets put down. I wont touch it. I will not touch it
because what if some little girl sees this, and my kids
have been screaming their heads off, then that negative
energy goes into that. This is how I believe. Maybe no
one else in the room [the three non-Native interview-
ers present] believes it, but this is what I believe. Then
that little girl or little boy is going to want that doll,
and theyre going to pick it up. . . . What we work on is
sacred, and if we keep that in mind as were working,
and if more of us did that, probably we would not
have the problems that we have in the world. It starts
with one drop in the ocean, just that one drop or that
one whisper.
Eva Hefe came to recognize that doll making not only put
her in closer touch with her Native culture, it actually helped
a vital part of that culture to continue:
Eva Hefe: I do enjoy doing the dolls. The reason is
Im trying to keep our culture alive through my dolls,
if I could. Some day, if Im dead and gone, the kids that
havent learned it in school can look at my dolls, and
theyll sew. Thats what we do. When I go to the schools,
I tell them we take pride in what we do because we have
survived this country. We just didnt go to the store and
buy something. Every culture, even your people at one
time, had to make their own stuff. And in this cold
country, the people survived. The Inupiat survived. . . .
Way back, I was so busy trying to learn, it never oc-
curred to me that Im doing my culture. But then after I
started doing it, I started thinking, this could preserve
the culture, because [some of it is] getting lost.
Each time I remember, I make a doll. It wasnt just
automatic [that] I knew my culture, because Id for-
gotten a lot of it. A lot of times I go to Kotzebue, and
I say, Oh, I remember my grandma doing that. So I
put it mentally in my mind. Then when I come home
Ill remember it, and Ill make the doll.
Lillian Tetpon said she uses dolls in connection with stories
to keep her culture alive:
Lillian Tetpon: Thats how I feel too. So I make
sure that I make dolls for my grandchildren, and I tell
stories about how I was brought up because I want
them to know.
At rst, Alice Johnnie stated that she did not see doll making
as an activity for cultural survival:
Alice Johnnie: You know, I really dont think of it
that way [as keeping Tlingit culture alive]. I really dont,
because I didnt grow up in [a Tlingit household] at all.
I was an orphan, so I was passed to different people,
and I grew up in a Catholic school, a Catholic mission.
I really dont even know the story of our history. My
mother died while I was still a baby. My dad didnt
spend much time with us, and my grandmother was
too old to take care of us, so I was sent away. What I
learned, a very little bit, is from my husband. My hus-
band is a chief, so I always listen to him.
Soon, however, she began to discuss how she embroiders dolls
with the appropriate symbols of moiety and clan. All Tlingits
belong to either the Raven or Eagle moiety. Each moiety is
subdivided into clans such as Killer Whale and Frog:
Alice Johnnie: What I do is I put two different clan
[symbols on the button robe] I put the killer whale on
52 Chapter 3
the top, and I put eagle below it so the people will know
that theyre eagles [eagle moiety, killer whale clan].
When I sew frog, I put the frog on the blanket all by
itself, but I tell the people which tribe [moiety] it is. I
dont show the whole body, just the head part, and I
put eagle there because thats an eagle tribe.
Leonard Kamerling: So do people buy the dolls
of their clan?
Alice Johnnie: Yeah, they do. Like today, this
[person said] Im not there. [Theres no doll with my
moiety and clan symbols.] I told them that, well, it was
there. Its all bought.
Another item of interest for doll makers was whether or not
the dolls they make look like someone and if this resemblance
is intentional or accidental. Two doll makers said that they
mark the faces of some of their dolls with the beauty marks
that occur on their own daughters faces:
Ken Lisbourne: Theres one thing about the doll
is this beauty mark. Its always a trademark. This little
black dot here on each face. The reason was that we
had this daughter, and shes 16 years old now. She had
this beauty mark that showed up and thats the reason
why this is put on them, as our trademark.
Dora Buchea: Theres two dots. Cerene [her col-
lege-age daughter] has those two beauty marks. Thats
been my trademark since I do females. Ever since she
was born, Ive been putting them on. But then she had
them removed. I was mad at her. I said, You took my
trademark away. But what she didnt know is [that]
those moles, if she stayed out in the sun, they come
back. They came back but lighter. I laugh at her. I said,
See.
Many of the doll makers had dolls that ended up looking like
people they knew, often family members. In retrospect, some
wish that these dolls had been saved instead of sold:
Dora Buchea: A few times I made dolls that looked
just like my cousins. So I named them after my cousins,
but I bet theyd be mad if they knew.
Figure 54.
Doll maker Eva Hefe has created activity dolls for many
years. She also makes entire dioramas that incorporate many
individual activities and combines them. Here she has recre-
ated a scene in a gut-covered tent with ve separate dolls, each
involved in making clothing and preparing food. 31 x 47 x 43,
UA81-003-0145.
Everything Old Is New Again 53
Ken Lisbourne: Over the years when Id carve
each face for her [his wife Iva Lisbourne], Ive always
thought of my relatives and her relatives when wed
produce the grandma doll, the mother doll, the father,
or the grandpa. Each face always turn out to be some
person here.
Iva Lisbourne: He makes a face look just like my
mother. I wish I had kept that. I should have just let
him make another one [that] looks like my mom.
Ruth Koweluk: Sometimes I laugh. . . . Last year,
somebody from St. Lawrence Island said this looked
like someone at home. Boy, they were really laugh-
ing. We just make them any old way, so they look like
someone.
Caroline Kava Penayah: I started out [making] my
little sisters face. . . . And then I changed for different
people when I see their face I like. Just looking at them
and get home and try to do it. And one doll I tried to
make Barbara Walters. I guess [it is] unique, but thats
my little secret.
Denise Hardesty: One of my favorites was this
. . . dog musher, and he could have been from back in
the forties. He just had a blue canvas pullover and a
traditional marten [fur] trapper hat . . . and beautiful
mittens. The mittens took me about a week just to bead
. . . because I used really, really tiny beads. . . . But I
never told anybody until recently that after I got done,
I thought that looks like Marvin Kokrine, and all the
girls like Marvin. I put three tails on his hat because I
knew he wasnt married yet. Usually, unmarried men,
if they were looking for a wife, they would put three
tails on there, so everybody would know that he was
looking. Ill have to tell Marvin about that.
Eva Hefe: In the sixties, Lena Sours husband died,
and thats my grandmas sister. Because my grandpa
had been dead since I was a little girl, probably; I dont
know how many years, I never knew him. So to me he
[Burton Sours] was my grandpa, because them sisters
would go camping, and hed always be there, when we
were getting sh. He passed away. I didnt have any
money, or the kids were small. I couldnt just up and
leave them, because their dad was working. I wanted
to go [to the funeral] because he was just like my own
grandpa. . . . I started making a doll, thinking about
him, and that doll was sitting down. Grandpa had salt
and pepper hair that kind of stuck up. . . . I remember
I was making that doll, and thinking about him.
That doll came out looking just like him whittling on
[something]. He used to do that when he was making
us kids toys, and theres nothing else to do. Ive never
made it since, and it looks just like him.
I was going to keep the doll, and it got sold while I
wasnt home. (Laughs.) I was going to keep the one of
my grandfather, because, I tell you, I looked at that doll,
and it looked just like him, and I automatically made a
doll like Aglavialuuraq [Burton Sours]. Thats his name.
And then it was the rst one sold.
One doll maker talked about her concern that her dolls not
look too much like people she knows. Another shared her
fears that sometimes they already are too life-like:
Denise Hardesty: A lot of [dolls] would start look-
ing too much like people that I know, and so I never
ever painted their faces in. It might be too much
like a voodoo doll or something. It just bothered me.
I just couldnt do it. The cottonwood bark was scary
enough, just because of the way the grain [looked]. A
lot of people who have been out in the elements a lot
of years, they just get that look.
Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy: Rosalie [Paniyak] told me
that when she made a whole bunch of dolls a long time
ago, she was by herself, and she said that she was afraid
Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy
YupikHooper Bay
Now living in Glennallen
Ruth Koweluk
InupiaqWales
Now living in Anchorage
54 Chapter 3
of her dolls because she thought that they would come
to life. I said, Oh, yeah? Because I never told anybody
either, [but] I thought the same thing, too.
Another doll maker also talked about how the clothing of
each doll she made reected how she felt as she was work-
ing on it:
Dora Buchea: When I make each doll its different
all the time because I make it the way I want to be
dressed that day. Sometimes you have lots of tails and
beads, other times when I feel like a real worker its
just kind of plain.
The Economic Side of Native Doll Making
Many doll makers talked about the economics of doll making.
One doll maker shared childhood memories of making and
selling dolls to tourists:
Alice Johnnie: I remember when we were real small,
my sister and I. We [lived in] a sh cannery. When the
tourists comes, we used to go out on the porch and put
all our little stuff on a little towel. Of course, we didnt
know how much we were supposed to be selling. Some
of them, we were selling it for ve cents, ten cents, and a
quarter. We thought a quarter was real big money. I was
seven years old, and my sister was a little bit younger
than me, and thats how I got started.
Another doll maker talked about how she got started:
Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy: When I started making
dolls in early 1980, I started offwhen I won some
money at bingo. I invested all of it into materials like
leather, ivory, furs, and sealskins.
A third doll maker stressed the economic primacy of doll
making when she was growing up on the Seward Peninsula
in Western Alaska:
Leonard Kamerling: When you were a kid grow-
ing up in Wales, did you see other dolls around? Were
there women making dolls then?
Ruth Koweluk: Everybody sews. Thats the only
income we have. When the health boat come, we sell,
and the mail boat come once a month. When the North
Star [the annual supply ship] come, they [the crew] go
to town and like to buy stuff to take home. Some of
them bring fabric to trade. Some stuff they bring to
trade like watch and stuff. We always take the money
so we could order from Sears Roebuck.
For Lillian Tetpon, learning early on that sewing was eco-
nomically viable crystallized a career choice for her:
Lillian Tetpon: Oh, I learned from my mother at
Marys Igloo, watching her. And I used to watch her
when she made ivory faces and her dolls. Me and my
sisters helped her when she sewed. So it was a learning
process just to be around her. So I made up my mind
that when I had children, I would learn how to sew
also and make a living out of it. Ive been sewing for
about 33 years.
Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy: This is what I do for a
living. This is my way of making a living.
Ruth Koweluk talked about how doll making has been a
path to an easier life:
Ruth Koweluk: I do lot of hard work when I was a
child. Id dream I was going to go where its easier to
live. Betterment of living.
Chase Hensel : And did you f i nd t hat i n
Anchorage?
Ruth Koweluk: I still go home and see my sister in
Wales, and my other relatives in Nome.
I sew away from home, get lots done. I do bead-
work when Im in Hawaii. Its nice and bright [on the]
balcony or on the beach. We get to know people. We
sew. Sit on the beach under the tree behind Sheraton
Hotel. . . . Its just fun. If we get tired, we get out into
the ocean and swim.
Lillian Tetpon raised the issue of producing dolls in quantity
to meet the market demand. Elsewhere she says that:
Lillian Tetpon: I think my grandmothers parkas
were all done by hand, and my dolls that I make are
made real, real fast. They would be satised with one
doll where I want a dozen. So I work on the one pat-
tern, so that would be the difference. . . . When my
grandmother made the dolls, they had real hair. I dont
know where they got the hair, but they got it. They did
their real black and white [pieced calfskin] trimming
for their parkas that I dont have the time to do. Mine
are very simple.
Other doll makers shared her concerns:
Ken Lisbourne: Our ancestors always had produced
the best Native arts like I said. Todays Native arts are
done with better tools but theyre made so fast these
days, theyre not producing the best type of work. I
think its due to the demand of the crafts. Its how you
have to nd ways to go faster, quicker. The quicker, the
better. And it just produces more money.
Everything Old Is New Again 55
Iva Lisbourne: There are times when he [Ken
Lisbourne] tried to hurry. He doesnt make good faces.
I said, I work so hard on these. I wanted a nice face.
Ken would do them over. Otherwise, if I didnt say
[anything], they would have funny little face, because
he tried to rush. Because I remember my father always
told my mom, If youre going do that, do it right. Try
to do it right. Dont do it pimaqluktuq.
Ken Lisbourne: Pimaqluktuq means dont do it the
wrong way.
Dora Buchea: When I did it, it was a hobby, you
nish one doll, and you look at it, itd look like so and
so. But a lot of times when youre doing it as a busi-
ness, you dont see that part of it anymore, which is
real sad. Thats what Id tell Cerene, You go to school.
You dont need to be a seamstress. Because your hands
get ugly.
Doll makers also talked about concerns about getting
properly compensated for their time, particularly for highly
detailed work.
Lillian Tetpon: One of the problems that we have
here in Anchorage is thateven in a show like this that
were having here (Fur Rendezvous)is that if you do
real intricate work, you want to know if you can get
the full price for your dolls, but thats not the way that
it is anymore.
Dora Buchea: Then I made the third one but that
one takes long time. Shes carrying water, buckets,
carrying water with a yoke. . . . I think I made her
three times and quit because Im not very good basket
weaver. Takes me long time to make them so I just kind
of quit because I end up throwing those little buckets
across the room so many times. Because if youre a
skin sewer, youre [keeping the thread] pulled tight.
Then the grass just breaks when you [do], so you have
to take the whole thing off and redo it again. Maybe
Ill start making my buckets with sealskin. It might
be quicker.
In counterpoint, there was one doll maker (not employed full
time as a artist) who described herself as spoiled rotten in
that she only made what she wanted to:
Denise Hardesty: The economic thing isits like
the more I need money, the less I can work. If I get red
up over something . . . its just the need to do something.
The cultural part comes from the fact that I think Im a
raven, and anything I can scavenge up for free is mine.
Ive got birch. People come to me if they need birch
bark. I got caribou hair dyed for tufting already . . .
and Ive taught quite a few women here in the Interior
how to do tufting. I dont do it myself. I might do it
for love, but not for money because its too icky and
messy, but I know how. Once I make it [an artwork],
unless I have another idea that I can change a little bit
and make it a little different, I may not ever make one
again. Theres people who know me whove got orders
that have been on layaway for vesix years, and I say,
Well, if I make another one, its yours.
Doll makers also talked about how the cost of materials
affected pricing:
Walton Irrigoo: Actually, I carve the head and the
hands. The majority of the dolls that we make are ce-
dar, and that puts them in the affordable range where
people can purchase. But the other dolls that we make
are the collectors version, and they have the ivory head
Figure 55.
Alice Johnnie makes dolls to represent the clans and moieties
of the Tlingit of southeast Alaska. She sews beads onto felt to
illustrate crest symbols. 29 x 14.5; doll courtesy of Mary Ellen

Frank.

Photo by Barry J. McWayne.
56 Chapter 3
and ivory hands. I put the scrimshaw [of the traditional
St. Lawrence Island tattoos] on the face and on the
hands. . . . Theyre [the collectors version], quite easily
six to ten times more than our regular version. We sell
our regular dolls, our lowest ones are $300, and our
most expensive collectors version is $4,500.
Lillian Tetpon: I do [buy commercial furs]. This
year the most popular dolls that I have are these mother
and babies made out of sealskin. I have a great demand
for this doll. Sealskin is very, very expensive, so the
prices on my dolls are higher than I would [charge]
with any other material that I make.
Doll makers also commented on ways to make more efcient
use of materials:
Dora Buchea: I make masks. After all the work
you do with the skin . . . we scrape it and change water
for over a month. All the little scraps I have, I hate to
throw them away, so I just start molding them to my
doll faces. That way I could tattoo them too, and they
look pretty sharp. A lot quicker than carving them.
Several doll makers talked about different aspects of market-
ing. Ken and Iva Lisbourne talked about their own shyness
in marketing:
Ken Lisbourne: I think that the hardest part for
each Native artist is to be able to talk to the customers
and sell your Native crafts. You have to get over that.
And Ive had that problem too. Im just beginning to
be open with my customers, and I love each one of the
customers. Theyre great.
Iva Lisbourne: At rst, when we were selling, I
never sit [at the sales table] with him, and its been
only about three years [since] I start sitting.
One perhaps surprising fact is that the purchasers of the
more expensive dolls are generally Alaskans.
Walton Irrigoo: So far they [the purchasers of very
expensive dolls] have all been Alaskans. More than
anybody [it] is going to be somebody that lives in the
state. We do shows at the museum. We see a lot of
the tourists that come through, and they dont really
look at the dolls. They look more at the carvings, or
Figure 56.
The Camai Dance Festival held every March in Bethel invites
artists to show and sell their arts and crafts. Photo by Amber A.
Lincoln, 1999.
Everything Old Is New Again 57
they look at the other artwork that we do. But most of
our things will [be sold to] Alaskans.
Finally, one doll maker made an explicit connection between
teaching younger people and selling:
Denise Hardesty: I believe in teaching kids because
if they arent future artists, theyre future customers. I
will never pass up a customer. Im always out trolling,
born that way. So, Im a salesperson/artist, really.
Doll Making and the Future of
Native Arts in General
Doll makers have mixed opinions about the future of Native
arts and doll making. Some were very positive:
Ken Lisbourne: Native arts will never die. Today
there are so many younger Native artists who are
having craft shows, and theyre very talented. I notice
theyve been passing the arts to their kids and their
grandkids. . . . Native artists are getting younger these
days, and theyre getting more plentiful. I believe
theres a hundred of us who get together: Eskimos,
Indians, Aleuts, Tlingits, Haidas. Theyre all out there
[and] getting younger, and theyre really working as
Native artists. Theres no reason its going to die out.
Its just getting stronger.
Denise Hardesty: Both my oldest daughters are
artists. The oldest one tried plumbing-pipetting, and
she went back to her beads. . . . Theres a hole in the
market . . . [because I used to make] beaded sun catch-
ers, and theyre bugging me and wanting something.
So Im going to do the next best thing and say, Come
on, kid, [older daughter] because shes already done it.
She helpedwhen we did some for the Smithsonian
Christmas catalog. We did a limited edition of 250 sun
catchers, and there wasnt very many people around
that I could just train just like that to do it. Everybody
who said they could, couldnt, and I ended up having
to rely on my kids and my sister-in-law, this woman
from Venetie.
Eva Hefe: A couple of years ago, I think that man
was a principal at Shishmaref, and hed come to my
table twice. Hed come over and hed say, Eva, one of
my students is learning to sew. [Then she said] Im
going to get as good as Eva Hefe or better. (Laughs.)
That made me feel so good.
Alice Johnnie: Thats how my grandchildren is
learning from me. They watch me. My last grandchil-
dren is four years old, and the other one is one year.
They come and watch me. They say, Were going to
watch you. I tell them, Go ahead and watch me.
Thats the way they learn, because thats the way I
learned, by watching. Ive been sewing since I was
seven years old.
They like doing this [sewing]. In Juneau, one of my
granddaughters lives here now. . . . She was probably
about seven years old when she sat at the same table
with me in Juneau. She was sewing, and the people
liked it. The tourists liked it. They said theyve never
seen the grandmother and a granddaughter sew to-
gether, so we had our pictures taken together. They
put her sewing things here and mine on this side. So
thats how they learn.
Others are less sure about the future of Native doll making,
because of the complexity of marketing required for success.
Lillian Tetpon: Makes me very unhappy when I
see [what happened to] a lot of Eskimo ladies that start
making dolls when I was in the village. When I went to
my husbands village, people quit sewing there. I did
a lot of sewing, and it brought the interest back into
women sewing. So its a dying art. The ladies made dolls
similar to mine. They made whole bunch of dolls, but
they couldnt sell them. They settled for a very small
amount of money, and it was very discouraging because I
thought for sure that they were going to make an income
like I did. So I tell them that you have to market your
things. You have to continually think in large numbers
in order to make the money. . . . After they found out
that you do have to market your things, then they got
discouraged and quit. It made me feel very unhappy,
because they didnt know that you had to do that. It
takes years and years to get known for the products
that you make.
Like Denise Hardesty, each of these doll makers makes the old
new. By giving new meanings to old forms, they constantly
reinterpret the past with needle and thread, sewing new
representations of their history, guided by memory, stories,
artifacts, photographs, and imagination. The faces that
they put on the pastivory, cottonwood, or leatherspeak
volumes about them and that past. It points a way to the
future as well.
Note

1
False starts, vocal pauses, and llers like you know were
deleted from the written transcripts to render them easier
to read. Deletions of words are marked with ellipses, and
inserted words that make the meaning more clear are
bracketed. The original tapes and transcripts are archived
by the Oral History Program, Alaska and Polar Regions
Department, Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska
Fairbanks as Not Just a Pretty Face, University of Alaska
Museum Special Exhibit Collection, acc. no. H99-38.
58
Figure 57.
Jigging for sh doll. 26.5 x 15 x 14, UA2005-003-0005.
Figure 58.
Woman Looking Into the Future.
Figure 59.
Rosalie Paniyak makes dolls
in her living room while
her great- granddaughter,
Earl Atchak, and Angela
Linn look on.
59
Bracing against the biting March wind, we walk up
the hill in the village of Chevak while snowmachines
buzz past, racing from one end of town to the other.
We reach our destination and stomp the snow off our
feet. Rosalie greets us with a smile but few words. She
seats herself on the oor and returns to work: she is
the creator of hundreds of dolls, each encapsulating,
in a few well-chosen features, an aspect of Native life
in southwest Alaska.
Standing as if on display, a gut-clad group of quirky
gures performs tasks that you can see any day in the
small Cupik
1
village of Chevak. One wizened man
holds a miniature kayak, while another displays a sh
dangling from a jigging stick. A small female doll sits
before a cooking pot, legs pulled under her gut parka
for warmth. A bucket full of berries is clasped in the
arms of yet another tiny woman who leans on a walk-
ing stick, satised with the days effort.
Rosalie Paniyak is a petite gray-haired woman with a
quick smile. She stitches with short, strong, and nimble
ngers designed more for cutting sh than thread,
constructing each doll entirely by hand. Beside her on
the oor is a small bag. She extracts a bit of wire that
her son scavenged from the village dump, which she
uses to make the legs and arms of her dolls. Later, she
will cut scraps of sealskin with her uluaq, a semilunar
knife used for over a thousand years by Alaskas Eskimo
peoples and sew bright pieces of cotton fabric into a
qaspeq, a dress-like garment worn over the parka. As
each ne stitch is taken and small scraps of fur for a
tiny ruff are attached, a small person emerges from
Rosalies hands. She will bead the eyes of the doll and
set the teeth in a gap-tooth grin, bringing to life in skin
and cotton a caricature of someone she has observed
in town or drawn from memory.
Rosalie Paniyak made her rst doll in 1953 in order
to support her family. She recalls watching older people
in the village sewing skins, but Rosalie chose to make
Rosalie Paniyak
A Portrait
Angela J. Linn and James H. Barker
Figure 60.
Rosalie Paniyak at home.
4
60 Chapter 4
dolls instead. She sold her rst efforts to nurses in
Anchorage for less than twenty dollars each. She then
began to make larger dolls with haunting features, a
style for which she was rst recognized in the 1970s.
Rosalie has since returned to making small dolls, which
are easier to sell. She often includes notes with her dolls
describing the activity she has depicted. She described
her famous honeybucket doll as sick with a stomach
ache after eating (see Fig. 37). She nds humor in the
details, a special gift considering the challenges that
the Qissunamiut faced for the last three centuries.
Following a winter ood in 1946, Rosalie and her
family endured a harrowing move from the village of
Qissunaq to a new location at Chevak. The old village
site of Qissunaq was located a few miles inland from
Hazen Bay (Map 1). There, the semisubterranean
houses of sod and driftwood were built into a mound
that rose fteen feet above the barren coastal plain.
Qissunaq was a semipermanent winter settlement.
During the summer, the Qissunamiut set up temporary
camps in their pursuit of various food sources includ-
ing salmon and small mammals. Throughout the long
history of Qissunaq, families would leave the settle-
ment during ood season and disperse to safer hunt-
ing grounds. But the villagers always returned when
winter set in. In the 1940s, with the encouragement
of a priest, the community moved farther inland to a
site they now refer to as Old Chevak.
Following World War II, and with the coming of
the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools in the 1950s,
the villagers moved again, this time to higher ground
at the site of present-day Chevak. The new village,
comprised of simple frame houses raised above the
ground, required the Cupiit to dramatically alter their
lifeways. Many gave up collecting their food from the
surrounding wetlands. Rosalie remembers fishing
and picking berries and greens. But the store, post
ofce, and school of modern Chevak and the costly
conveniences of electricity and gas have restructured
the economy of the delta region and provided the eco-
nomic incentives for Rosalie to take up doll making.
Rosalie grew up on the YukonKuskokwim delta
of southwest Alaska and the inspiration for her work
surrounds her. Many of her dolls are activity dolls,
which illustrate the activities of nineteenth and twen-
tieth century Yupiit. (See Fig. 44 for several examples.)
Rosalies gures offer the berries picked from the
tundra, or display a bundle of rewood collected on a
rainy afternoon. Miniature women wave dance fans,
mimicking the motions of Cupik dancers. Women
in colorful qaspeqs hold twined packs full of eggs or
display coiled baskets made of beach grass.
Figures 6163.
From top to bottom: Rosalie Paniyak cuts out eyes for a doll;
sewing the nose onto the face; clipping the thread in the dolls
mouth.
Rosalie Paniyak 61
What sets Rosalie apart from other Yupik, Cupik,
and Inupiaq doll makers who produce activity dolls
is her unconventional choice of subjects: an old woman
with a missing tooth rides a snowmachine; a youngster
sits in the cockpit of a bush plane; a woman paddles
her kayak. Rosalie even made a doll that represented
an old woman gleefully ourishing a check she just
received in the mail, an often-observed event at the
local post ofce.
Installations of Rosalies work at the Alaska Native
Medical Center in Anchorage feature seasonal scenes
such as Christmas carolers and a nativity with Mary
and Joseph dressed in sealskin boots, mittens, and
fur-trimmed qaspeqs. In the late 1980s, Rosalie began
making Statue of Liberty dolls (see Fig. 38), the clas-
sic gure with a crown made of sealskin and a torch
of fur.
The economics of doll making favor Rosalies work.
From her modest beginning, in which she sought only
to supplement her familys income, Rosalie has become
so successful that she now supports three generations
Figure 66.
Rosalie Paniyak, Rosalies great-granddaughter, and Ursula
Paniyak at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention, 2004.
Figure 64 (top left).
Sewing the ruff to the hood.
Figure 65 (top right).
After two days, Rosalie has completed the doll of a woman club-
bing a sh, a task that was often assigned to her. Photographer
James Barker asked if she had ever made a doll showing this
action. She responded in the negative, and then created this
doll. 30 x 17 x 12, UA2005-003-0001.
62 Chapter 4
of family members who live with her. Her commercial
success has inspired others in Chevak to begin mak-
ing dolls. Today, perhaps a dozen other women craft
dolls in the style Rosalie made famous. Some call them
the uglies (Schuldberg 1996:11) or ugly-faced (Fair
2006:63), describing them as having a macabre awk-
wardness (Ray 1981:129).
This awkwardness is visible in the faces, with skin
pulled tight, overly large wrinkled noses sewn with
heavy stitches, and too-small eyes beaded in black
and white. The figures stand with stooped backs,
pigeon-toed feet, and bent appendages. But this awk-
wardness transmits a realism that speaks directly to
the viewers emotions, eliciting a laugh and a sense
of recognition.
The perceived ugliness or awkwardness has proven
no obstacle to the popularity of the Chevak dolls and
the success of their makers. One popular art gallery
in Fairbanks mounted a display of 149 Chevak dolls
by eight doll makers in 2005. The works ranged from
small activity dolls to large-scale sculptures. Dolls the
size of a kindergartener stood next to a pregnant doll
entitled Im Ready. Nearly every doll had a sealskin
face and boots. The gallery owner, Yolande Fejes, no-
ticed that customers were especially conscious of the
dolls expressions. Doll makers such as Earl Atchak,
who is also Cupik, comment that Rosalie has broken
ground for all of them; her work serves as an inspira-
tion for others.
Rosalie Paniyak is the center of a large extended
family. Her home is full of activityyoung and old
constantly come and go; family and friends cycle
through the house or lounge on the couch chatting
with Rosalie, who sits on the oor sewing. The radio
is tuned to the local station and competes with the
voices on the VHF radio, omnipresent in rural Alaskan
homes. The phone rings, Rosalie hands it to her son,
granddaughter, sister, or whomever else happens to
be visiting and goes back to her work, glancing up
now and then.
Passing along the tradition of doll making in the
Paniyak family is a major concern. At craft fairs,
Rosalies daughter, Ursula, often displays her own
dolls alongside those of her mother. Occasions such
Figure 67.
Rosalie Paniyak in front of her house in Chevak.
Rosalie Paniyak 63
Figure 69.
Float plane doll.
Figure 68.
A pair of dolls made by Ursula Paniyak, for sale at the Alaska
Federation of Natives ar ts and craf ts sale in Anchorage,
October 2004.
as the art sale at the annual Alaska Federation of Na-
tives meetings, the Cama-i dance festival in Bethel,
the Fur Rendezvous in Anchorage, and the Festival
of Native Arts in Fairbanks provide venues for bulk
sales. Gift shops across the state carry Rosalie and
Ursulas dolls.
Ursulas daughter, Janice, has been making dolls
for the past few years along with Janices daughter,
Rosalies great-granddaughter. Four generations of
doll makers in one family testify to the popularity and
success of the whimsical characters Rosalie Paniyak
envisions, then creates from the raw materials of her
daily life in a remote village in the Alaskan bush.
Rosalie Paniyak is like many other pioneerspos-
sibly unaware of the signicant role she has played in
the world of Native doll making. Her observations of
the world around her, so familiar to her, so foreign
to many of her collectors, are communicated hon-
estly, with skin, and cloth and thread. A storyteller at
heart, she does what comes naturally to her, depicting
her friends and family, pointing out the silly things
they do and reproducing them in miniature. And we
64 Chapter 4
Figure 72.
Man with a kayak model and his son. 28 x 14 x 13.5, UA2005-
003-0006.
Figure 71.
Rosalies woman with akutaq doll. Akutaq is also called Eskimo ice
cream and is made with berries and whipped fat or shortening.
recognize the stories she tells, seeing ourselves in these
little people as we caught our rst sh, or picked our
rst batch of berries, danced our rst dance, or made
ourselves sick from eating too much. This recognition
of self explains why the ugly-faced dolls have become
so well known and widely collected. Their creator,
Rosalie Paniyak, is an innovator who began creating
out of need and continues out of success, paving the
way for the next generation.
Note
1
Cupik is a dialect of the Central Alaskan Yupik language.
The people of Chevak refer to themselves as the Qissuna-
miut, which translates as the people [of the village] of
Qissunaq.
Figure 70.
Sewing a boy doll into a kayak model.
65
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Index 69
Index
Note: Italicized page numbers indicate gures or photos.
A
Abraham, Margaret (Penni), 26
activity dolls
of Helen Carius, 30, 31
and education, 36
of Eva Hefe, 28, 29, 52
of Janice Paniyak, 31
of Rosalie Paniyak, 31, 32, 58,
6061, 64
of Ursula Paniyak, 31, 63
of various artists, 50
Admiralty Island, 8
Agaveksina, 20
Alaska Native languages and dia-
lects, viii (map), 64n
Aleuts, 58, 12, 2223, 50
Alfred, Laura, 50
Alowa, Annie, 48
Alutiiqs, 58, 7, 12, 24
amulets, 14, 38, 39
Anaktuvuk Pass doll, 36
anti-aesthetic, of Rosalie Paniyak, 33
antler dolls, 25
archaeological sites, 2 (map)
arts and crafts show, 56
Ashcraft, Hilda, 35
Atchak, Earl, 44, 58, 62
Athabascans
beaded mittens, 10
Deg Hitan, 38
dolls, 12, 19, 35, 50
gurines, 8, 18
B
baby belt, Athabascan, 13
Barbie dolls, 35, 42
Beaver, JoAnn, 13
Bering Strait Region, 13
Berry, Lucy, 36
bird-people dolls, 33
Bostrom, Agnes, 36
bow and arrow, Canadian Inuit, 13
Brown, Oliver (Nipaloq), 39n33
Buchea, Dora, 48, 52, 5456
Bunyan-Serovy, Rosalie, 5354
C
Canadian Inuit, 13, 37
caribou-jaw doll, Inupiaq, 26
Carius, Helen Slwooko, 30, 31
Carlo, Elena, 42
Carlo, Poldine, 12
Central Yupik Eskimos
See also Yupik entries
gurines, 1518
modern dolls, 3033
play dolls, 1011
Charles, Doris, 50
charms, 14, 38nn1213
Chevak dolls, 32, 59, 62
See also Paniyak, Rosalie
children with toys, 36, 42, 43, 44
Christianity, 39n29
Christian missionaries, 24
clans, 5152, 55
clay heads, 16
Cleveland, Stella, 30
clothing for dolls, 2627
coiled grass dolls, 26, 30
Cook, James (Captain), 12
Cupik dialect, 64n
Cupik dolls, 26, 31, 44
See also Paniyak, Rosalie
Curtis, Mary, 49
D
Deg Hitan Athabascans, 38n17
devil dolls, 18, 19, 33
deities, images of, 5
doll accessories, 10, 2627
doll ceremony, 38n18
doll festivals, 18, 39nn1920
doll makers
See also individual names
on economics of doll making,
5457
on future of doll making, 57
home villages of, viii (map)
on learning to make dolls, 4851
modern, Central Yupik, 3033
modern, Inupiaq, 2528
modern, St. Lawrence Island
Yupik, 2830
doll making
economics of, 6162
materials, 15, 33, 3435, 59
dolls
See also activity dolls; specific
ethnic groups; play dolls
Anaktuvuk Pass, 36
for arts and crafts sale, 63
in coming-of-age rituals, 11, 13, 45
for divining weather, 38n17
fear of, 44, 5354
fertility, 8
Greenlandic, 35
life-like qualities of, 5253
modern, in general, 26
origins of, viii (map)
in play and ritual, 4345
puppets, 21, 39n25, 43
soft-bodied, 10, 26, 30
St. Lawrence Island, 11, 13, 2830
sun-worm, 38n15
as symbolic babies, 46n7
Tlingit, 14
ugly-faced, 62, 64
of undetermined origin, 37
Western-made, 24, 25, 35, 39n28
Driggs, Elizabeth, 26
E
economics of doll making, 6162
Eek village style, 30
Eningowuk, Delbert, 26
Eskimo belief system, 22
F
Fair, Susan W., 39n32
fall whaling rituals, 20
fear of dolls and f igurines, 44,
5354
Fermoyle, Betty, 32
fertility dolls, 8
gures and gurines
See also under ethnic groups
70 Index
fear of, 44, 5354
headless, 6, 15
house guardians, 15
life-sized, 7, 20
Nukleet, 4
Okvik, 13
Old Bering Sea, 3
origins of, viii (map)
in rituals and ceremonies, 1519,
2324
St. Lawrence Island, 3, 26
uses, in general, 810
gurine oats, 1920
ying puguqs, 20
Francis, Rosa, 27
Friday, Monica, 32
functionalists, on play, 41, 45
G
games, 46n1
gender roles, traditional, 38n11,
43, 45
grave goods, 8
Greenlandic dolls, 35
H
Hardesty, Denise, 47, 50, 53, 55, 57
harpoon head, Aleut, 5
hats, Aleut, 23
headless gures, 6, 15
head piece, wooden, 9
heads, clay and ivory, 16
heads, wooden, 29
Hef f le, Eva, 2728, 29, 39n34,
4951, 52, 53, 57
Hensel, Chase, 54
historic period, 1013, 38
Hooper Bay gures, 17
horn dolls, 25, 26, 39n32
house guardians, 15
Houser, Allan, 50
Huizinga, Johan, 41
I
illnesses, dolls and, 46n4
indigenous religions, 39n29
infant with Catholic medal, 24
interviews. See doll makers
Inupiaq dolls, 1112, 2528, 33, 35
Inupiaq gurines, 9, 10, 1822
Inupiaq housewife, 10
Irrigoo, Walton, 48, 49, 5556,
5657
ivory carvings
busts, 8
gurines, 3, 19
function unknown, 5
heads, 16
ivory-headed dolls, 9, 28
miniature, 6, 23
prehistoric, 6
J
Johnnie, Alice, 49, 5152, 54, 55, 57
Jowly Man, 5
K
Kamerling, Leonard, 52, 54
Kanrilak, Rose, 32
kayak models, 7, 8
Kilbuck, John, 39n19
Kilowiyi, Miriam, 13, 30
Kingeekuk, Floyd and Amelia, 26,
2829
King Island, 19
Kodiak Island, 78
Kokrine, Marvin, 53
Koontz, Velma, 11
Kotzebue tradition, 26, 27, 29
Koweluk, Ruth, 53, 54
Miss Koyukuk doll, 35
Kululhon, Ellie, 30
L
languages and dialects, viii (map),
64n
Larson, Linda, 5051
Lawrence, Annie, 50
life-sized gures, 7, 20
Lincoln, Emma Black, 27
Linn, Angela, 58
Lisbourne, Iva, 48, 49, 5356
Lisbourne, Ken, 48, 5053, 5557
Lyons, Jeff, 26
M
Madonna, Okvik, 3
marionettes, 21, 39n25, 43
Marston, Marvin R. Muktuk, 27, 28
Martins, Anna, 32
masks, 36, 39n35
Mead, Margaret, 42
memorials to the dead, 1718
Mendenhall-Mills, Ida, 28
mens house, 18, 20
mittens, Athabascan, 10
moieties, 23, 5152, 55
Morrow, Phyllis, 46n7
mother and baby, 12
mother-and-child gurines, 1517
N
Nayamin, Natalia, 32
negative energy, 51
Nemayaq, 10, 16, 17, 38n14
neuropsychologists, on play, 4142
Newell, William Wells, 42
Northwest Coast dolls and gurines,
8, 1214, 2324
Norton, Minnie, 27
Nukleet gures, 4
Nunivak Island gure, 17
O
Okvik gurines, 13
Old Bering Sea gurines, 3
old people dolls, 30, 33
Old Togiak partial gures, 17
Omwari, Pansy, 30
Oscar, Martina, 36
P
Paneak, Simon, 36
Paneak, Susie, 36
Paniyak, Janice, 31, 33, 63
Paniyak, Rosalie
dolls of, 31, 32, 61, 63
family of, 6162
at home, 58, 59, 62
making dolls, 60, 61, 64
and old-people style, 33
Rosalie Bunyan-Serovy on, 5354
Paniyak, Ursula, 31, 33, 61, 62, 63
parkas, miniature, 10
Paul, William, 50
Penayah, Caroline Kava, 48, 53
phenomenologists, on play, 41
Piaget, Jean, 4244
Pike, Mabel, 50
Plato, 45
play
denitions of, 4142
historical study of, 4243
as practice, 4344
Helen Schwartzman on, 46n1
theories on ritual and, 45
play dolls, 1013, 43, 46n2
See also under ethnic groups
Pletnikoff, Sophie, 50
Point Hope dolls and gurines, 20,
21, 43
portrait-style dolls, 26
prehistoric period, 58
productivity and play, 46n1
puguqs, 20, 39n24
puppets, 21, 39n25, 43
putting away the dolls, 11, 13
Q
Qissunamiut, 64n
Qissunaq, 60
quartz crystal, 19, 20, 39n22
quluguluguqs, 39n24
Index 71
R
rabbit skins, 47
rag dolls, 9
Ramos, Elaine, 23
rituals
coming-of-age, 11, 13, 45
doll ceremony, 38n18
dolls in play and, 4345
human f igur i nes i n, 1519,
2324
seasonal, 7, 20, 45
whaling, 20
rock-faced doll, 9
S
Savaroff, Hartina, 50
Schoppert, Jackie, 49, 51
Schwartzman, Helen, 46n1
seasonal rituals and traditions, 7,
20, 45
Seward Peninsula, 28
sewing kit, Inupiaq, 10
shaman gures, 20, 23
shamans, 18, 2324, 44
shamans dolls and gurines, 6, 8,
16, 39n28
sitting ceremony, 20
skin boat with whaling crew, 20
skin mask, 36
Sledge Island, 19
Sledge Island oat, 19
Smith, Helen, 33
Smith, Natalia, 33
Smith, Viva Wesley, 26, 30
soft-bodied dolls, 10, 26, 30
Sours, Burton, 53
Sours, Lena, 27, 39n33, 49
souvenirs, 7, 8, 2425
Sparks, Lucy, 38
Spencer, Dolly Mendenhall, 27, 28
spirit access point, 6
spirit guard (yake), 23
spirit quests, 2324
St. Lawrence Island
doll boots, 10
dolls, 11, 13, 2830
gurines, 3, 1518, 26
heads, 16
house guardians, 15
Statue of Liberty dolls, 32, 61
Stone, Clothilda, 26, 33
Stone, Henry, 33
stone-headed dolls, 1314
storykning, Yupik girls and, 36
story knives, 38n10
sun-worm doll, 38n15
superstitions, 11, 12
Svarney, Gertrude, 22
T
taboos, 11, 12, 20
tails, symbolism of, 53
Tetpon, Lillian, 51, 5457
Thule period, 34, 6
Tlingit dolls and gurines, 14, 23,
50, 55
Toll, Louise, 33
Tooyak, Andrew, Sr., 50
topknots, 35
toys, Athabascan, 13
Tubis, Henry, 50
U
ugly-faced dolls, 62, 64
umiak model, 21
Umnak Island, 5
Unalaska Island, 7
Unga Island, 7
Ungott, Josephine, 30
unisuit, 12
V
visor, Aleut, 22
W
walrus ivor y car vings. See ivor y
carvings
Walrus Man, 7, 22
Washington, Ethel, 2627
weather-divining dolls, 38n17
Westerners, and Alaska Natives, 38
Western-made dolls, 24, 25, 35,
39n28
whale bone dolls, 26
whaling kit, 19
whaling rituals, 20
White, Grace, 30
winter festivities, Aleut, 7
wooden carvings
dolls, 9
head piece, 9
heads, 29
masks, 39n35
memorials to the dead, 1718
by Nemayaq, 16
shaman gure, 23
shamans dolls, 24
Sledge Island oat, 19
wooden-faced dolls, 33, 39n35
wooden-headed dolls, 9, 26, 39n33
work vs. play distinction, 41
Y
yoke dolls, 11, 43
Yukon Island, 8
YukonKuskokwim Delta dolls,
38n10
Yupik dolls, 11, 13, 2830, 30
See also St. Lawrence Island
Yupik dolls
See also Cupik dolls; Paniyak,
Rosalie
activity dolls, 33, 34, 36
conventions for playing with, 45
man in fur parka, 26
modern, 3033
play dolls, 9, 1011
Yup ik figures and figurines, 10,
1518, 17
Yupik girls and storykning, 36
Yupik miniatures, 10, 13