Alaska Native Collections – Sharing Knowledge

2002

Identifying & explaining

Neva Rivers: Ca tam tauna?

(Now what is that?)

Virginia Minock: Qanermiutaq ici-w’.

(You know, a respirator for fire-bath.(1))

Neva Rivers: Qanermiaq.

(Respirator for fire-bath.)

Virginia Minock: Keggluku tauna pitungatliniat.

(Seems like they bite that.)

Joan Hamilton: Mouthpiece.

John Phillip, Sr.: Puqlamek tua yuuryailkutnguuq.

(It is for breathing in hot air.)

Design differences

John Phillip, Sr.: Camiutaugat-w’ ukut wani-w’ waten ayuqellriaseng? Tamakucinek wangkuta tangeqsaitellrukut tuaten taqumalrianek.

(Where are these from that it has this look? We have never seen one made like that.)

Aron Crowell: Shaktoolik.

Neva Rivers: Qagkumiut. Yeah, Shagtulirmiut. Ungalaqlirmiut tamaa-i.

(People of the North. Yeah, people of Shaktoolik. Around Unalakleet.)

John Phillip, Sr.: Tua-wa ayuqenrilameng pissuutet.

(Well, some things are different.)

Neva Rivers: We all have different ways of making things—in our garments, in our marks, trademarks for the family . . . What we have goes on from our ancestors to the young generations, and what we have remembered, we still go on with.

John Phillip, Sr.: Ayuqenritut caliyarait yuut.

(People have different ways of working.)

Making

John Phillip, Sr.: Avani tang wii cenami nunamteni qiprar canliraarluki qipluki taugaam pililallrukait. Qanermiglallruunga-ll’ wiinga.

(Over there in my village on the coast, they carved and then twisted them. I used to make fire bath respirators too.)

Neva Rivers: Rolled wood shavings up. I’ve seen my papa doing that, when I watched those people in the qaigiq [men’s house].(2) Some of them cavigteq [carved] shavings like that, and they take them up and roll them up, gently all the way . . . into a ball.

John Phillip, Sr.: Wiinga wani tangvalallrunga canaraarluki takliriaqatat kanavet quyurrluki nenglluki tua-i-ll’ qipqerluki wani qipraarluki nutaan qukaa qill kanavet elliqerluku.

(Now I watched them after they carved. After [the shavings] got long, they gathered them down there, stretched them out, twist them, and finally tie it in the middle and placed it down there.)

[From discussions with Joan Hamilton (Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center and Museum), Virginia Minock, John Phillip, Sr. and Neva Rivers at the National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian, 4/22/2002-4/26/2002. Also participating: Aron L. Crowell, William Fitzhugh, and Stephen Loring (NMNH), Suzi Jones (Anchorage Museum), and Ann Fienup-Riordan.]

1. A maqi [fire-bath] is a type of sweatbath (see Fienup-Riordan 2004:40).

2. A qaigiq or qaygiq is the Hooper Bay-Chevak dialect spelling of qasgiq. A qasgiq “mens’s house” or “men’s community house”—also called a “kashim” in English—is a moderately large structure where men of a community resided and worked. It was also used for sweatbaths, dances and feasts (Jacobson 1984).

In the past, men and boys gathered frequently in the qasgiq [men’s community house] for a cleansing sweat bath.(1) Naked except for bird skin hats and mouth masks, they basked in the fierce dry heat.(2) H. M. W. Edmonds described this scene at St. Michael on Norton Sound in 1890-91: “There being but one very small entrance, which is closed, and a small hole in the roof, covered over by fish skin, the heat from this burning pile of wood is great and almost unendurable. The men undress here and lie down or lounge around on the floor or benches. In wintertime each one brings in with him a great wooden bowl of hard packed snow with which he rubs himself down. To endure the intense heat, they make a mouthpiece of grass or straw, about an inch thick and about three inches long and a couple of inches wide. This is rounding on the outside and concave on the side that goes next to the face. It has a stick run through from end to end horizontally. The Eskimo grasps this between his teeth and draws the “breather” close up to his mouth and nose and breathing through it is able to endure the terrible heat of the [qasgiq] where the very walls are too hot to touch.

After perspiring profusely the Eskimo often go out, in wintertime, and roll around in the snow; or in summertime, take a dip in the river or sea . . .”(1)

1. Jacobsen 1884:88; Nelson 1899:287-88; Ray 1966:32

2. Fienup-Riordan 2005:208-09

3. Ray 1966:32