Alaska Native Collections – Sharing Knowledge

 

Boots

quyillegtak “pair of men’s knee-high skin boots”
Language: St. Lawrence Island Yupik

Also called:
kaamget “boots”
Language: St. Lawrence Island Yupik

We call it segeni (stitched design using reindeer hair). This kind of trimming is segeni. Originally, this came from Siberia… Reindeer people often make those.

—Estelle Oozevaseuk, 2001

These winter sealskin boots for a man are embroidered with geometric designs stitched in reindeer hair, a style associated with the reindeer-herding Chukchi people of northeastern Siberia and their coastal Yupik neighbors. Some women on St. Lawrence Island also know the technique. The legs of the boots are spotted seal fur and the hard, pleated soles were cut from the hide of a bearded seal, then pleated and sewn.

Culture: St. Lawrence Island Yupik
Region: St. Lawrence Island, Alaska
Object Category: Clothing
Dimensions: Length 46cm
Accession Date: 1923
Source: Farrar Burn (collector)
Museum: National Museum of the American Indian
Museum ID Number: 116764.000