Читать книгу Baleen Basketry of the North Alaskan Eskimo - Molly Lee - Страница 9

Introduction to the 1998 Edition

Rereading the first edition of this monograph fifteen years after its publication in 1983, I am struck by how firmly the study was cast in what Clifford since has called “salvage-paradigm ethnography” (1987). My research, completed in 1982, gloomily predicted that baleen basketmaking was teetering on the brink of extinction (Lee 1983).¹ Happily, this has not proven the case. As we approach the new century, the art form is alive and well and shows every indication of remaining so. Publication of a new edition of the monograph is a welcome chance to reflect on some of the changes that have taken place in the interim.

Many of those who participated in this collaborative effort are gone, notably, Patrick Attungana, Elaine Frankson, Eunice Hank, Andrew Oenga, Joshua Sakeagak, and Joe and Nellie Sikvayugak (artists); Thomas Brower, Howard Burkher, Don Burris, and Leslie Melvin (collectors and consultants); Albert Spaulding (thesis committee member); and my parents, William and Margaret Cooper, who generously supported this research and to whom it is dedicated.

Some of the original artists continue to weave, and they have been joined by a new generation, some of them relatives of earlier practitioners: Elijah Attungana, Elmer and Raymond Frankson, Titus Nashookpuk, John Omnik, James Omnik, Sr., and perhaps most prominently, Andrew Tooyak, Sr.

My prediction of a decline in the number of artists may have proved unfounded, but the negative correlation between basket production and availability of wage labor seems to have been borne out. Of the ten to fifteen weavers now at work, the majority are residents of Point Hope, a village that is still fairly removed from dependable sources of wage labor. Conversely, in Barrow, the center of jobs and other economic benefits of the North Slope oil boom, baleen basketmaking now is moribund. Thus, it would seem that baleen basketmaking, like other Alaska native arts, probably will continue to fluctuate according to the availability of wage labor, an easier and more lucrative way to earn a living.

My prediction that quality would decline was also not realized. For several years after the monograph was published, many of the baskets I saw for sale were of depressingly poor quality. Some ten years later, however, the tide began to turn, probably because collectors grew tired of paying steep prices for poor-quality baskets and there were still enough good weavers around to produce the occasional excellent example for comparison. As long as collectors were willing to buy shoddily woven containers and indifferently carved finials, the artists seemed content to cut the corners. When poor ones no longer sold, the artists either began to take pains or went out of business. Today, most baskets I see are beautifully executed. Predictably, however, along with the escalation in quality has come one in price. A good new basket can now sell for a few thousand dollars; a good old one for much more.

A topic that I overlooked in 1983 was the considerable part women played in the history and development of baleen basketry. While it is true that men were associated with baleen in traditional times, and that baleen basketmaking was an art form that originated with men, recent research on the spread of coiled basketry from Siberia to Alaska (Lee 1995) leads me to suspect that many women helped their husbands with the weaving. It is now established that North Alaska Inupiaq women made coiled baskets of willow and spruce root. In the thirties, forties, and fifties, only boys were taught to make the baskets in school, but more recently women often have made the baskets either alone or with partial assistance. Eunice Hank, for instance, first wove for her husband Carl. After his death, other male family members did the rough preparation of the weaving materials, but she finished them, wove the baskets, and even carved their finials. Alec and Elaine Frankson of Point Hope split up the chores much as had the Hanks. In this present generation Mary Jane Tevuk Litchard and Marilyn Hank both prepare and weave the baskets themselves.

Finally, one only need look at the photograph of Kinguktuk (QiNaqtaq), taken in the 1920s (fig. 8), his wife Qusraaq sitting at his side holding a half-finished basket, to realize that when they could, basketmakers returned to the long-established male-female division of labor. I don’t want to overstate the case—many basketmakers’ wives have had their own interests or been too busy—I simply want to acknowledge, however belatedly, those women who have participated in basketmaking through the years.

A final factor that may have contributed to the continuance of baleen basketry is the growing prestige attached to native arts by Alaska native people themselves. Shortly after this research was finished I heard my first report of a baleen basket made for an Inupiaq recipient. When Alec Frankson learned that Eban Hopson² of Barrow was very ill, he made him a baleen basket with a whale’s tail, a polar bear, and a seal³ on the finial (Frankson 1984; see note26. page 67, this volume). Today, Alaska native arts have taken center stage as symbols of ethnic identity,⁴ and a growing number of Alaska natives collect Alaska native art, including baleen baskets.

Predictably, changes have occurred in the types of weaving, finial depictions, and size of baskets over the last twenty years. One example of change is the adoption of Barrow spaced-stitch weaving in Point Hope. When I returned to Point Hope in 1984, I went to visit Andrew Tooyak, Sr., and found him sitting on the floor with the baleen basket monograph in his lap, teaching himself this new, more efficient form of weaving, which he proudly referred to by name. Since then, others have taken it up and from what I have seen, it has virtually replaced the old, wide-weaver, Point Hope-style technique. This in turn has affected the shapes of Point Hope baskets, which have traded their straight-sided angularity for a more curvilinear profile. In addition, today’s baskets are markedly smaller than their predecessors, probably also a time-saving device.

Changes in finial motifs have also occurred. Whereas Point Hope artists once followed George Omnik’s lead in making narrative finial scenes—polar bears capturing seals, for instance—in 1997, the single-motif finial seems to be the rule. Among the loveliest is the sleeping swan motif first developed, I believe, by Patrick Attungana.

Beyond these new expressions, some aspects of baleen basketry have begun to be incorporated into other art forms. In 1990, I purchased an ivory and baleen ponytail-holder made by Titus Nashookpuk of Point Hope. A curved piece of ivory, inset with baleen plugs to resemble polka dots, is pierced around the perimeter like a finial. It is encircled by several rows of Point Hope-style baleen weaving. The relationship between the ivory and the baleen builds on the idea of the subservience of the basket to the finials discussed in this study (see page 18). A second example are some recent whale bone masks made by John Kayoulik of Point Hope. Kayoulik has pierced a flat piece of relief-carved bone around the perimeter like a finial. Several rows of baleen coiling encircle the carving as a fur ruff on a parka encircles a face.

To summarize, the forms, techniques, and styles of baleen baskets have changed over the past two decades, as have the locations where basketmaking is practiced. But many diverse factors—new standards in quality (probably enforced by respect of younger artists for the senior generation of basketmakers in Point Hope today), a rising pride among Inupiaq people in ethnically identifiable objects, and recent innovations and adaptations, to name a few—bode well for the future of the art form.

On a broader level, there is one additional factor that can make a difference in the perpetuation of baleen basketry and, indeed, native art in general. To be viable now and in the future, the subsistence way of life that has sustained Alaska native cultures for a thousand years requires a cash boost for the many imported items that connect isolated rural communities with the outside world.⁵ Oil booms may come and go, but the only identifiably native way to earn cash is through the creation and sale of expressive culture, whether it is dancing, singing, storytelling, or the plastic arts. Thus, it is in the more centrally located communities such as Anchorage, Barrow, Bethel, and Fairbanks, now the largest population centers of Alaska native peoples, where native culture is most severely threatened. I hope that future generations of Alaska native artists, consumers, and researchers will focus their energies in these places in particular to help bring this about.