Mask

Provenance: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, New York, No. 5/940 (1916)

Published: Masques Eskimo D’Alaska, Daniele Amez (ed.). Editions Amez, 1991, pg. 277

This Yup’ik transformation mask illustrates many of the fundamental beliefs of the people who created it. Within the presence of a Yup’ik mask, familiar physical laws of reality are suspended as a means of interacting with the supernatural. In the case of the commanding mask illustrated here, multiple subjects are arranged in a composition in which they simultaneously occupy a single space. As a walrus, salmon and “tunghak,” or spirit helper share that space, they present an act of transformation within a world-view that recognizes multiple identities within a single entity. Beings from the animal spirit world were believed to cross over to the human world and inhabit people and objects upon which they acted.

It is important to recognize that most Yup’ik masks were originally created with a specific performance in mind. Each represented a mythological story line that was put into song and
presented within a choreographed dance. Visual form, motion, sound and story converged to convey a particular concept.

In this example, the artist has successfully maintained an impressive aesthetic standard while meeting the dictated requirements of properly depicting a complex subject. Through careful composition and execution, he has incorporated a series of identities into a single work, beautifully suggesting relationships in both form and character.

One may only imagine the effect of seeing this mask animated in the dimly lit dance house, to the rhythmic beat of the drums.

—Bill Wolf, November 2009