Alaska Native Collections – Sharing Knowledge

2004(1)

Identifying & explaining

Eliza Jones: Did you ever hear stories about them? Denaanekk’u hedeeloyee [snow goggles].(2) I’ve heard about them.

Judy Woods: They used to make them out of birch bark I thought.

Eliza Jones: Yes, but this one is made out of wood. This one is spruce.

Suzi Jones: Did they also make them with birchbark?

Judy Woods: Yes, they use the same line there [slit] to see through.

Eliza Jones: Except it would be flat. This one, because it’s wood, has got that shape [curved].

Trimble Gilbert: There’s a nose [groove] too.

Suzi Jones: Did you ever use anything like that?

Trimble Gilbert: I heard about this. In springtime, snow-blindness really bothered people a long time ago. I heard this was a very popular thing during those times to protect eyes from snow-blindness. And a lot of people used it.

Eliza Jones: So what would you call the glasses in your language?

Phillip Arrow: Noxtth’og [snow goggles, glasses].

Eliza Jones: Oh yes, naaheloo tl’ok [snow-blind glasses], that’s the word.(3)

Snow-blindness

Trimble Gilbert: You know, anything red protects your eyes from snow-blindness. That’s what they said. And the way they found it is you know ptarmigan? The red here [eyes]? They said it protects their eyes from snow-blindness.

Aron Crowell: It’s painted red on the outside. I noticed it’s black on the inside. That would probably help too, right?

Trimble Gilbert: Yes. I got snow-blindness one time. It’s really bad. I couldn’t even see.

Phillip Arrow: I had it one time.

Eliza Jones: Did they treat it with steam and stuff?

Trimble Gilbert: Yes, they put a hot pad on there too. But I didn’t know about it, so I was really sick for a week out in the fields. Once it hits you, geez, I just sat down. It was really bad. But glasses protect your eyes. This is a special one they used a long time ago.

Phillip Arrow: Protect your [eyes from] bright light, [from getting] snow-blindness. We got snow-blindness out there on trap-line. We used to steam trapline, all the time long ago. You get caught out all the time, with sickness out there, snow-blind, with nothing out there, so you take birch bark, make hole on there, that protects your eyes.

Aron Crowell: So a piece of birch bark and it would have a strap around the back?

Phillip Arrow: Right.

Eliza Jones: With the slits made in them.

Trimble Gilbert: That’s a good one.

[From discussion with Phillip Arrow, Trimble Gilbert, Eliza Jones and Judy Woods at the National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian, 5/17/2004-5/21/2004. Also participating: Aron Crowell (NMNH), Kate Duncan (Arizona State University) and Suzi Jones (AMHA).]

1. In this entry, the Elders speak in different Athabascan dialects: Phillip Arrow, Deg Xinag; Trimble Gilbert, Gwich’in; Eliza Jones, Central Koyukon; and Judy Woods, Upper Koyukon.

2. According to Eliza Jones, denaanekk’u hedeeloyee are “sunglasses, eyeglasses, snow goggles” and literally means “those which set against our eyes.”

3. According to Eliza Jones, naaheloo tl’ok are “old-time sunglasses, snow-blind glasses,” and literally means “winter [eye] plates.” She also calls these nohuloonh tl’ok [snow goggles, sunglasses].

By limiting the amount of light that could reach the eyes, wooden snow goggles prevented snow blindness, a painful burning of the retinas caused by the arctic sun’s strong reflection off snow in spring. They were also worn as safety glasses when making arrowheads, to protect against flying chips of stone.(1) Snow goggles were universal among Yup’ik, Iñupiaq, and other Eskimo peoples, and neighboring Athabascan appear to have adopted this technology.(2) Among these groups were the Gwich’in, Koyukon, and Deg Hit’an.(3) Pieces of bear, caribou, or fish skin with slits cut in them could also serve as snow goggles.(4)

1. Osgood 1970:184

2. Nelson 1973:314

3. Osgood 1936:70,73; Whymper 1868:190; Osgood 1970:183-185

4. Osgood 1970:184