This week, Lucy faces that childhood dilemma of wanting to give generously while facing a budget that includes household flotsam that nobody wants. It's tough to inspire appreciation for a gift that no one misses when it disappears; like the dance festival, the gift must be infused with a new value. After foraging around the house, Lucy finds that several familiar outdoor elements have found their way indoors. Her resulting bounty: a tip of moose antler, a tuft of dog fur, and a piece of tundra cotton.
We never really know whether Lucy simply likes the objects, or whether she grasps their import to an older Yup'ik subsistence lifestyle. The dog fur, of course, is a side effect of relying on huskies for transportation and/or companionship. The moose antler would signify a great achievement in furnishing many materials for the subsistence lifestyle. A moose might be the subsistence equivalent of a walking Target store.
You've seen Lucy's family's collection of gifts, a mixture of the contemporary and traditional. Decades ago, handmade gifts might have included: food, skins and furs, dolls, knit goods, carvings, other tools, basketry woven from grass, parkas, mukluks, or qayaks. While I was researching Yup'ik crafts, I learned about the story knife, which may or may not have been gifted at potlatches. It seems that women passed it down through families, as women hold a special place as storytellers within Yup'ik culture. The knife is carved from ivory and used to sketch and inscribe pictures in the ground while telling a story. I can't help but make comparisons to my Wacom stylus, which is not made of ivory, but still plenty of fun.
I asked the author, Deb Vanasse, why she chose the three elements to represent Lucy's gift. She responded that she chose them more for their emotional resonance than for their practical importance, "because each would have a story behind it." Vanasse added, "In truth, the book is as much about Lucy’s gift as her dance; in essence, the dance is her gift, much as the dancing tradition is a gift both to and from the Yup’ik culture."
Her comment reminded me that drawing the three objects in this illustration was a good deal simpler than drawing Lucy's "larger" gift will be. On that note, I'm headed back to my story knife.
We never really know whether Lucy simply likes the objects, or whether she grasps their import to an older Yup'ik subsistence lifestyle. The dog fur, of course, is a side effect of relying on huskies for transportation and/or companionship. The moose antler would signify a great achievement in furnishing many materials for the subsistence lifestyle. A moose might be the subsistence equivalent of a walking Target store.
The tundra cotton, however, I'm not sure of. I'm aware that in a pinch, some Yup'ik people would stuff grass and plants inside their mukluks as insulation, and tundra cotton looks like a more welcoming plant than most others. Otherwise, I can't find any direct online references to uses of tundra cotton. Yup'ik women did weave, but usually the material came from the fur of musk-ox collected from where it accumulated on shrubbery. Any thoughts or ideas on the use of tundra cotton are welcome.
You've seen Lucy's family's collection of gifts, a mixture of the contemporary and traditional. Decades ago, handmade gifts might have included: food, skins and furs, dolls, knit goods, carvings, other tools, basketry woven from grass, parkas, mukluks, or qayaks. While I was researching Yup'ik crafts, I learned about the story knife, which may or may not have been gifted at potlatches. It seems that women passed it down through families, as women hold a special place as storytellers within Yup'ik culture. The knife is carved from ivory and used to sketch and inscribe pictures in the ground while telling a story. I can't help but make comparisons to my Wacom stylus, which is not made of ivory, but still plenty of fun.
I asked the author, Deb Vanasse, why she chose the three elements to represent Lucy's gift. She responded that she chose them more for their emotional resonance than for their practical importance, "because each would have a story behind it." Vanasse added, "In truth, the book is as much about Lucy’s gift as her dance; in essence, the dance is her gift, much as the dancing tradition is a gift both to and from the Yup’ik culture."
Her comment reminded me that drawing the three objects in this illustration was a good deal simpler than drawing Lucy's "larger" gift will be. On that note, I'm headed back to my story knife.
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