ETHAM 025851

grande boîte

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025851
Box
United States, Alaska, Deering
Iñupiat. Early 20th century
Wood, ivory, leather, sinew
Gift of Georges Barbey in 1956
MEG Inv. ETHAM 025851
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This large container, made from one or two curved wooden planks, was thought to have contained whale blubber. The rim is decorated with five polar bears and twenty three marine mammals including bowhead whales and beluga whales. Such bowls were used during festivities and feasts.

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Registres_inventaire_original/Registre_10_024547_025888.pdf

 

The Inuit from Alaska to Greenland

The Inuit, the indigenous people of the Great North, are scattered over the largest expanse on the planet: from the coasts of Siberia through Alaska and the great Canadian North to Greenland, a distance of over 10,000 km. Although widely scattered, Inuit culture is unified by related languages and a subsistence lifestyle adapted to the Arctic regions.

The spirit world

The polar landscape changes ceaselessly. The Inuit believe that the spirits of the winds and storms remodel nature as they please, sweeping away all familiar landmarks. The spirits are necessarily involved in all their activities and relationships with the wilds. To ensure satisfactory living conditions, such as mammals being where they were expected to be, the Inuit invoked many of these spirits by ritual chants. They frequently made small amulets from wood, bone or ivory as souvenirs of these supernatural encounters. These magical objects were kept on their bodies, in their houses and on their means of transport.


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