For Immediate Release
February 17, 2021
The Sheldon Jackson Museum February Artifacts of the Month are three Yup’ik spoons collected from along the Kuskokwim River by Sheldon Jackson (SJ-II-S-12, SJ-II-S-11, and SJ-II-S-13). The Sheldon Jackson Museum has many fine Yup’ik spoons but these ones are unique from all of the others in the permanent collection and have been selected to be exhibited together because of the extremely similar animal figure painted in the center of the spoon bowls. Though the spoons served the same utilitarian purpose and have many aesthetic commonalities, they are notably different from one another in terms of their handles and the border exterior edges of their bowls.
All three of the Artifacts of the Month are hand-carved from a single piece of wood and hand-painted. All three are decorated with black paint; two, possibly three, are painted with red ochre. Each bowl of the three spoons is embellished with geometric designs or lines, small circles, and/or cross hatching, likely a familial and proprietary design as seen in many Yup’ik bowls. In the center of each bowl, there is an animal that appears to be an otter with four appendages, a pointed tail, pointed ears, and a stick in its mouth, all rendered in the same style and very possibly, the same hand. Every detail of the otter from the body proportions to the curve of the feet and legs to the shape of the stick in its mouth is undeniably the same.
The handle of the largest spoon (SJ-II-S-12) is rounded at the very end and then tapers down to where the handle connects with the bowl of the spoon. The elongated oval shape near the end of the handle has an upside down teardrop-like cutout painted black. As the handle tapers down, there is a red ochre band, then a curved black band, an area unpainted except for a cross shape flanked by two smaller black, very faded and hence, unrecognizable shapes, a mountain-like form in black with an unpainted area near the center, a band of black cross hatching and another band of solid black followed by red ochre to the end.
The handle of the spoon (SJ-II-11) featured in the middle of the image printed in this Artifact of the Month article is rectangular in shape and tapers down the length to the end where the bowl joins the handle. There is a cutout shape in the handle mimicking the form of the latter, terminating approximately 2/3 the way down its length. The top center of the handle has a black triangular shape and a parallel design continues on each side of it and down the length of the spoon alternating in single black lines, x shapes, thicker, solid black bands, single black diagonal lines with dots in between, and a cross. The pattern in the handle is then repeated until two black triangle shapes conjoin in the center. Below that junction are two very faded cross shapes (and probably once a third to balance the design), followed by black upside down v-shaped bands, three black X shapes, and a solid black triangular form terminating at the place where the bowl joins the handle.
The third spoon (SJ-II-S-13) has a very unusual handle unlike that of any other Yup’ik spoons or ladles in the Sheldon Jackson Museum’s collection. The very top of the handle is spherical and completely painted black. Below the sphere is a length of wood with hints of very faded red and no embellishment save for a black, solid band located approximately 1 ¼ inches from the bowl.
While we do not know the identity of the maker of the spoons and cannot confirm if they were, without question, carved and painted by the same hand, we do know that the wood used to make the spoons was likely stump wood, perhaps cottonwood. This species of wood was and is a particularly important species for Yup’ik ladles, spoons, net floats, boats, adzes, and bowls. This kind of mixed-grain wood referred to as mimernat by the Yupiit, is valued highly because of its resiliency and robust nature. As Yup’ik culture bearer recounted to Ann Fienup-Riordan, “If a person doesn’t use a stump to make a ladle, it will crack.”
The Sheldon Jackson Museum’s February Artifact of the Month and fifteen other Yup’ik spoons in the permanent collection may be seen at the museum during hours of operation – Wednesday through Saturday 12pm until 4:00pm. General admission is $7, $6 for seniors, and free for those 18 and under or members of either the Friends of the Sheldon Jackson Museum or Friends of the Alaska State Museum.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
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Media Contact:
Patience Frederiksen
Director, Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums
907.465.2911
patience.frederiksen@alaska.gov
lam.alaska.gov
Fienup-Riorda, Ann. Yuungnaqpiaqllerput: The Way We Genuinely Live – Masterworks of Yup’ik Science and Survival. University of Washington Press, 2007i
Nelson, Edward William. The Eskimo about Bering Strait. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983
i (Fienup-Riordan, 62.)
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