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YUP'ik ELDERS in MUSEUMS: FIELDWORK Ted Irch TURNED on ITS HEAD ;.On .Nak- ANN FIENUP-RIORDAN

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YUP'ik ELDERS in MUSEUMS: FIELDWORK Ted Irch TURNED on ITS HEAD ;.On .Nak- ANN FIENUP-RIORDAN y35:2 38. YUP'IK ELDERS IN MUSEUMS: FIELDWORK ted irch TURNED ON ITS HEAD ;.on .nak- ANN FIENUP-RIORDAN n avid Abstract. This paper describes efforts begun in 1994 to bring Yup'ik elders in direct contact with I be- an museum colIections gathered from their region 100 years ago to simultaneously preserve their knowledge and make it available to scholars and Yup'ik community members. The museum arti- on facts that provided our focus were the 7000 objects colIected by Iohan Adrian Jacobsen from Alaska in 1882-1883. Housed in Berlin's Museum für Vôlkerkunde, they constitute the largest unpublished colIection of Yup'ik artifacts anywhere in the world, including detailed ethno- bu- graphic and linguistic information. Bringing information about a major colIection home to Alaska is an act of "visual repatria- tion" that we hope will illuminate the world view of its creators. Yup'ik elders working side by side with anthropologists and museum professionals can help us better understand the artifacts Jacobsen colIected from their area. These are first steps in the two-way process of Yup'ik people owning their past and museum curators realizing the full value of the contents of their attics. of 1 Introduction returned to Berlin in 1883 to great acclaim. His colIection of 6720 objects, a third from Yup'ik Fifteen years before the outset ofthe [esup North communities on the coast of the Bering Sea, was Pacific Expedition, Adolf Bastian, director of displayed in a special exhibit for Berlin's Anthro- '1 Berlin's Royal Ethnological Museum, commis- pological Society, and Crown Prince Friedreich J, sioned a 30-year-old Norwegian jack-of-alI-trades, carne to view it. This was the first of many trips Ja- Johan Adrian Jacobsen, to travel to America's cobsen made for the Royal Museum, which today northwest coast and colIect for his museum. houses more than 15,000 objects colIected by him Aware that the Geographical Society of Bremen from all over the world (Fienup-Riordan was sending the Krause brothers to the Pacific 1996:219-226). Northwest, Jacobsen set his sights on Alaska.' He Jacobsen spent the folIowing winter in Berlin was especialIy interested in slate blades, nephrite cataloging his colIection, but his lack of academic (jade) amulets, and other "stone age" tools, and training earned him a cool reception among mu- hoped to bring home evidence of ancient Eskimo seum professionals. Franz Boas visited the mu- adaptations (Jacobsen 1884,1977; Krause 1956). seum and perused Jacobsen's accession records, Arriving in St. Michael in 1882, the year after complaining about inaccuracies and exaggerations Edward Nelson (1899) left, Iacobsen (1977:159) (Thode-Arora 1989:52). In part because of these continualIy complained in his correspondence limitations, Jacobsen's colIection remained largely that "Mr Nielsen" already had gotten all the good unpublished until World War 11, when most of it stuff. In fact, plenty remained for Jacobsen, and he was thought to have been destroyed during the Ann Fienup-Riordan, 9951 Prospect Dr., Anchorage, AK 99516 ARCTIC ANTHROPOLOGY Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 49-58, 1998 50 Arctic Anthropology 35:2 Fiel bombing ofBerlin (Westphal-HelIbusch 1973). In fact, the Soviet Army took much of [acobsen's ma- terial (along with other museum colIections) by o train through Poland to Leningrad when they re- th~ treated from Berlin. In 1978 these colIections were do sent to the Leipzig Museum for Ethnology in East cot I Germany and, after the fall of the Berlin wall, re- VaI"' turned to the Museum für Võlkerkunde (Hopfner ofr 1995). elo: I first visited the Museum für Võlkerkunde in rOL 1994, looking for Yup'ik masks. There I was seq stunned to find the staff busil y un packing this ex- For traordinary Yup'ik colIection, second only to Nel- ton son's in size and scope, yet with accession records AIlj still handwritten in old German script and almost lat completely unpublished (DisselIhoff 1935,1936; Figure 1. Yup'ik delegation to Berlin's Museum für Hipszer 1971). I spent my brief stay in Berlin Võlkerkunde. From left to right: Catherine Moore, Was- silie Berlin, Paul [ohn, Annie Blue, Marie Meade, Andy busily photographing masks. But along with pho- Paukan, and Ann Fienup-Riordan. tographs, I brought home a desire to return to Berlin and dig deeper into Iacobsen's treasures. This attitude toward colIections as opportunities Yup'ik EIders TraveI to Germany to affect the future was the primary reasonelders After the mask exhibit opened in Anchorage in and regionalleaders supported this project and 1996, a team of Yup'ik elders and community agreed to travel so far and work so hard. While in leaders and I set to work planning for that return Germany they saw themselves not as sightseers ar visit. The National Science Foundation funded our solitary researchers, but as representatives of the project through a grant to the region's nonprofit Yup'ik nation. The elders who traveled to Berlin corporation, the Association of Village Council were the recognized "professors" from their re- Presidents. After a year's preparation, ineluding a gions and were chosen both for their ability and four-month battle with Passport Services,' our willingness to share what they knew. Their de- seven-member "Yup'ik delegation" set out from tailed knowledge was impressive. They spoke in Anchorage on September 5, 1997. The group in- colIections not for my benefit or for that of the eluded Marie Meade as interviewer and translator, scholarly community, but to enlighten and em- Andy Paukan, mayor of St. Marys, as videogra- power their descendants. pher, four elders representing the different areas To understand the magnitude of their trust of the region-Wassilie Berlin, Paul [ohn, Annie and dedication, you should know that three of the Blue, and Catherine Moore-and me as photogra- four elders speak only Yup'ik. Two are in their pher and guide (Fig. 1). We spent three weeks eighties and the others in their seventies. Yet they working at the museum. As in the mask exhibit made a 24-hour plane trip, crossing 10 time zones, (Fienup-Riordan 1996:23-30), what we sought was to a place with unfamiliar sounds and sights and not so much the collectiori's physical return to foreign food. The first morning we were there, I re- Alaska, but the return of the knowledge and sto- member teasing 81-year-old Wassilie Berlin, calling ries, the history and pride that they embodied and him my uicungaq ("dear little husband," ar teasing that, we hoped, we would be able to bring home. cousin). This endearment has often worked to From the beginning the Yup'ik reaction to break the ice with elders. Instead of laughing, he learning about the existence of Yup'ik colIections looked at me seriously and said, "No, you are my has been gratitude and pride. Andy Paukan stated daughter." He said this in part because, since we it welI: had met, I had served him like a daughter. In the weeks that folIowed, he changed his mind. He and I'm thinking that coming to Germany to examine the other elders sometimes calIed me their mother these objects will make it easier for us to explain because, along with Marie, I cooked and cared for our culture to our young people and to our chil- them. Catherine confided how scared she was dreno We will be able to tell them things with no reservations. Our work will make it easier to pre- when I went out of sight, and I realized the depth pare teaching material about our culture for our of their dependence. I was humbled one morning younger generations, our children, our grandchil- near the end of our trip when Paul Iohn, the ac- dren, to our peers and even our own parents and knowledged leader of our group, said that we had grandparents. With this work, our roots and cul- been chosen by God to do this work. Although we ture will come closer to uso had fun on our trip, this was very serious business. !U'35:2 Fienup-Riordan: Yup'ik Elders in Museums 51 Elders' Work in Collections Ourwork in the museum began with a brief tour of thestorage room where 14 large cases with glass doorsheld the Yup'ik co11ections. Each elder wore a cottonqaspeq, and we stood together and sang "Tar- varnauramken," a song describing the traditional act ofpurifying oneselfwith smoke. This song had closedthe Yup'ik mask exhibit Agayuliyararput (OurWay of Making Prayerj in Anchorage, and sub- sequently opened the exhibit in each of its Lower Forty-Eightvenues, including New York, Washing- ton,D.e., and Seattle. Fo11owing the "blessing" song, Annie Blue led us in the Lord's Prayer. Three weeks 1aterour work ended with a feast and another prayer aswe joined hands in a circle with the German mu- Figure 2. Wassilie Berlin "hunting" in Berlin. Andy VVas- Paukan and Uli Sanner in the background. mdy seurnstaff we had come to know. Our group not on1yembodied geographic variation but all three re- ligious denominations active in the region- Catholic,Moravian, and Russian Orthodox. Between prayers we looked at a112000 ob- ies jects, one by one. Our major hurdle at the museum ers was not the German language, but their organiza- d tion in which "Eskimo" and "Arctus" are compre- dn hensive categories. We were fortunate that although s or Yup'ik and Ifiupiaq co11ections were mixed, most he objects from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland were in stored separately by type (e.g., net sinkers, spear points). They had not, however, been divided by .d Alaska region (Yukon, Kuskokwim, Coastal, Bristol Bay),which, as it turned out, would have been a in disaster for our regiona11y diverse group.
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