Tunghak Mask

According to the Bering Sea Eskimo, Tunghak or "old man in the moon" is the supreme deity that controls animals. Believed to live in the moon, shamans were sent to him to plead for game and other favours (see: Fitzhugh 1988, pg. 260).

PROVENANCE

By descent through the estate of Reta Mae Daniels, Bellingham, Washington, to her grandson.

Reta Mae Daniels (b. 1900) travelled to Unalaska in 1917, reportedly the first Caucasian schoolteacher in the Aleutian Islands. Upon leaving Alaska in 1918, a pair of masks was presented as a parting gift.

Shawn Ison, Bellingham, WA

Donald Ellis Gallery, Dundas, ON

Private collection, New York, NY

George and Rosemary Lois Collection, New York, NY

PUBLISHED

Donald Ellis Gallery catalogue, Toronto, 2001, pg. 7

Art of the Arctic: Reflections of the Unseen, Ellis, London, Black Dog Publishing, 2015, pg. 79, pl. 20

RELATED EXAMPLES

Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka, AK, Nos. llB45 and llB46 -,See: The Living Tradition of Yup'ik Masks, Fienup-Riordan, University of WA Press, Seattle, pg. 108 for a pair of masks likely by the same hand collected by Sheldon Jackson at Andreafski in 1893

Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin, Nos. IVA4402 and IVA4398 - See: Ibid, pg. 67, for a pair of masks collected on the Lower Yukon in 1882 by J. A. Jacobsen

National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, Cat. No. 38645 - See: Crossroads of Continents, Fitzhugh and Crowell, Smithsonian Institute Press, 1988, pg. 260, pl. 353

National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, Nos. 38646 - See: Inua, spirit world of the bering sea eskimo, Fitzhugh, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982, pg. 196, pl. 244