Amlesqanek  Uksunek  Piamci!
                         "Season's Greetings"
            From the Alutiiq Museum Board of Directors & Staff

               Agayullquutaq    “Something to hold sacred”
                          -an Alutiiq word for masks-

    Imagine a beating drum; families in their best skin clothing
 gathered for a festival;  a warm sod house decorated
   with animal pelts and hunting gear.  In the low winter light,
 dancers emerge into a wood-planked room reenacting a
   scene  from a summer hunt.  Each wears a mask carved in the likeness
 of a human or animal spirit.  As the men
  dance, the  spirits come to life and are honored for the gifts of the
 past year.  In Alutiiq cosmology each animal has
  a soul - or sua - that when treated respectfully will give itself to
 the human world over and over again.  Health,
  prosperity,
   and  life itself, rely on this celebration.  As the dance ends, the
 masks are broken and discarded, burned, or
  secreted away for a future use.  This will insure that no disrespect
 befalls the spirit worlds.

  Mask carving continues in modern Alutiiq communities as an expression
 of traditional values and enduring ties to
  the natural world.  Lena Amason’s Salmon Mask is both an aesthetic
 work and a connection to her Alutiiq
  ancestry.

                                              Please Scroll Down
Produced by the Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository
Contemporary salmon mask by Lena Amason
Photo by Amy Steffian


--
Dayna Brockman, Programs Manager
Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository
215 Mission Road, Suite 101
Kodiak, Alaska 99615
voice:  (907) 486-7004
fax:  (907) 486-7048
e-mail:  [log in to unmask]