Object: Necklace

E/1959/7/59
Necklace
Baffinland Inuit
North America: Canada: Baffin Island
prior to 1959
Materials: Glass, bone, ivory, beak or claw, and cord

This trade bead necklace has been attributed to the Baffinland Inuit tribe from Baffin Island, Canada. The Baffinland Inuit are one of the groups that make up the Central Eskimo, along with the Copper, Iglulik, Netsilik, and Caribou Inuit. Baffinland Inuit, like other Inuit groups, traditionally lived in semi-permanent winter settlements. These winter settlements served as a hub for smaller seasonal camps that were utilized for hunting, fishing and gathering of specific materials throughout the warmer months of the year. Marine animals like seals, beluga whales, walrus, narwhal, and polar bear were important year round resources for the Inuit people. While in the summer, caribou, birds (and eggs), small game, berries, roots, and shellfish were also available. Today, the Baffinland Inuit live in six main communities: Iqaluit, Pangnirtung, Qikiqtarjuaq (formerly Broughton Island), Clyde River, Kimmirut (formerly Lake Harbour) and Cape Dorset.

This necklace, like other traditional Inuit arts and crafts, is made of bone and ivory from marine animals. In addition to these traditional materials this necklace also features large glass trade beads. Glass beads were first introduced to native North Americans by European explorers. Prior to European contact tribal groups had been making beads from bone, shell, stone, and other materials for many years. Early glass trade beads came mostly from Venice and Holland, later Poland and Czechoslovakia also became major trade bead manufacturing hubs. Trade in glass beads was very common throughout North America, with blue beads being particularly prized. [Kathryn S. (Barr) McCloud]

Object: Opium Pipe

E/1955/18/102
Opium pipe
Dynastic China
Asia: China
prior to 1950
Materials: Wood, ivory, brass, and ceramic

Pipes of this type were used in Dynastic China to smoke the drug opium. Opium has been ingested as a medicine and painkiller for thousands of years. Sometime in the middle of the 17th century people also began to smoke the drug for recreational purposes. It soon became a major trade good for a number of colonial powers operating out of Asia, like the East India Company. Opium is made from the seed pod of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), and contains varying amounts of alkaloids such as morphine, codeine, thebaine and papaverine that are still used in various pharmaceuticals and street drugs today. Opium is a highly addictive narcotic and its use as a painkiller must be strictly controlled. The addictive effects of opium were well known as early as the 1830s when it was said that nearly 9 of 10 Chinese men were thought to be opium addicts. This widespread addiction led Chinese officials of the Qing Dynasty to attempt to eliminate the substance from their country and further restrict trade with Britain, leading to the Opium Wars. Pipes of this type were designed with special pipe-bowls that were meant to vaporize the drug, rather than burn it like other types of pipe. Opium pipe-bowls were usually made of ceramic and depicted traditional Chinese symbols of longevity, wealth, and happiness.

The following video gives additional information on the opium poppy plant. [Kathryn S. (Barr) McCloud]

Object: Ivory Harpoon

E/1948/2/1
Harpoon Head
North America: Alaska
Ca. 20th Century
Materials: Ivory

Harpoon heads have been a key component to survival for indigenous people since around 500 AD.  This particular head is made out of walrus ivory with a crevice at the tip of the head for a metal or stone point and a hole in the center for a line attachment.  The design of this head is commonly referred to as a toggling head design which refers to the ability of the harpoon head to rotate once inserted into the animal’s skin to ensure that the line remains embedded.

Whaling is a long-standing tradition distinct to Inuit communities that reinforces concepts of kinship and sustainability.  The specific design of whaling harpoons are passed down by males in the same kinship group. Whaling is organized by kinship networks of hunting crews who use wooden canoes and search for breathing holes to find bowhead whales. Once the whales have been spotted, hunters thrust their harpoons into the whales. The whales do not die immediately, so the hunters follow them using a system of buoys attached to the harpoon heads until the whale becomes exhausted. Once the whale dies, the whale carcass is taken to shore where kinship groups extract and distribute the meat, fat, and bones for food and tools. This process is known as flensing. Cultural beliefs require that every part of the whale be utilized as a means of honoring the spirits.

Whaling has received much criticism in recent years by the governing powers of North America and environmental organizations that have become concerned about the preservation of endangered whales.  By 1970s, the International Whaling Commission successfully banned the act of whaling due to the impact the commercial whaling industry at that time had on whale populations.  However, the ban largely ignored the significance of whaling in Inuit culture. In response to indigenous movements, the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC) was created in 1976 as a means of preserving the cultural practice of subsistence whaling among Inuit communities. Since 1981, Inuit groups participating in the AEWC Commission have worked with the National Marine Fisheries Service to come up with an annual quota of bowhead whales that are allowed to be hunted. For example, in 2008, 67 whales were permitted to be killed among the 10 Inuit whaling groups in Alaska.

[Benjamin Norrick]

Object: Ivory Figurine

E/1954/18/9
Ivory Carving of Man
Ca. 1920s-1940s
India
Materials: Ivory and black teak wood

Ivory is a precious raw material that is used in many applications, including miniature statues and large intricate figures. Ivory comes from animals in the family Elephantidae and it is harvested from the tusks of this species. Ivory tusks are the only incisors that this species posses.  The object above is from southern India, and it may be a chess piece known as a rook. Three countries primarily contribute to the ivory industry: Japan, China, and India. Ivory carving dates back to the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) Dynasties, as well as prehistoric Inuit, even though they use walrus ivory. These traditions are usually carried on through the families and are considered to be ancient.

Ivory does not just come from elephants but various animals as well. Since 1973 an organization known as CITES, placed both the African and Asian Elephants on their list of various species that can no longer be killed for their ivory. Many ivory carvers and local shops were forced to close due to the ban of ivory trading. Substitutes of ivory sources are walrus, narwhal, hippopotamus, mastodon ivory, and cow bones have been used.  Mastodon ivory is considered to be the best substitute for elephant ivory. Mastodon Ivory, also known as fossil ivory can be found in Russia and Alaska. Most of the time when prehistoric animals die they turn to fossils, however, when the mastodons are frozen they do not fossilize. Instead, the ice protects animal from this process.  After the permafrost has melted away, ivory hunters and paleontologist can find and remove the ivory from its site.

Mastodon ivory has a natural earthy brown hue to its appearance, and it is easy to tell the difference from the whiter, Elephant ivory. An etching technique, also known as scrimshaw, brings our the color in the ivory. The tusk itself has a blue center, and after being heated, the exterior of the tusk changes to a turquoise color. Mammoths and mastodons differ in many ways biologically, but according to CITES these species are preferred over the killing of the present day elephants because retrieving raw materials poses no threat to the extinct species.  It is unknown, however, how much more mammoth and mastodon fossil ivory remain.

[Constance Clark-Lecona]

Object: Snow Goggles

E/1948/2/15
Inuit: Ivory Snow Goggles
North America, Arctic Coast
Materials: Ivory

These are Inuit snow goggles made of ivory and heavily weathered.  They are made in the traditional style with thin slits for eye holes.  These were worn to help cut out the glare that reflected from the sun off of the snow preventing snow blindness. This type of goggle is an example of the ingenious adaptive measures taken by Inuit people for life in the arctic that astonished westerners.  There are some examples of this type of goggle much more heavily decorated and intricately carved, but this utilitarian example shows the basic functionality of such a useful invention.  Similar technology has been utilized by NASA in space travel to reduce the risk of photokeratitis, the scalding of the cornea from exposure to bright light, when working in space.

Snow goggles were made of wood, ivory, bone, and antler and were tied using string or sinew.  They fit tightly to the wearers head to block out all light but what was coming through the small slits in the front.  The inside of the goggles were often blackened with soot to further minimize glare. The goggles helped focus vision like a permanent squint while blocking out harmful rays.  Some of the oldest of this type of goggle are dated 2000 years ago in the Old Bering Sea culture area, the western coast of Alaska.  These people were the ancestors to the Inuit or Thule culture.  Snow goggle technology was passed down to the Inuit culture and traveled with them to Canada around 800 years ago during the “Little Ice Age”, a sudden and prolonged drop in regional temperatures forcing the Inuit further south.

Snow goggles along with specialized hunting tools, weapons, fishing boats, protective clothing, living structures, and diets all exhibit cold weather adaptations that allowed the Inuit people to survive and thrive in an area considered uninhabitable to most people on earth.  These adaptations  were a result of thousands of years of trial and error leading to revelations in technology that intensified ease of living in the arctic climate. Through tradition and practice, Inuit people have adapted to these extreme climates and certain physical differences have emerged as a result of this. The ability to survive on a mainly protein based diet with little or no vegetation is one of the main physical adaptations they have adopted.  Tolerance of extreme temperatures is another.  This is accomplished through increased blood flow to the extremities that prevents frostbite. In combination with clothing and dwelling styles that intensify warm air circulation, survival in arctic temperatures is feasible.

[Katrina Kassis]

Object: Figurine

E/1955/18/3
Ch’ing (Manchu) Dynasty: Ivory Figure
Asia, Dynastic China
Ch’ien Lung Period (A.D. 1736 – 1799)
Materials:  Ivory, wood

This is a male figure carved in ivory on a wooden stand.   The figure holds a spear in the left hand and also wears a quiver of arrows on his back.  The incised decorations are inked in black. The figure is 18.75” high and curves to the left. Ivory is derived from the teeth or tusks of mammals such as elephants and boars. Examples of tooth ivory are less common, and generally limited to hippo and sperm whale teeth.  Teeth are defined as dentition which is not visible when the mouth is closed, whereas a tusk protrudes from the closed mouth. Tusks from African and Asian elephants, wild boars, walruses and narwhals as well as extinct mammoths and mastodons have been used throughout history (and pre-history) to produce a range of ornamental and useful objects. Simple ivory amulets and tools have been found in archeological sites dating 7000 years before present. The Chinese penchant for ivory goes far back in their history (5000 BCE) as does their supremacy in the art of carving it into intricate designs and inlays.

The properties of ivory vary somewhat by species in terms of hardness, uniformity and the basic shape of the raw material. Elephant tusks provide large, mostly solid pieces, whereas other types (like narwhal tusks) are mostly hollow, and others like hippo teeth are smaller. The majority of very old ivory carvings and ornaments are probably from Asian elephants whose tusks are relatively smaller and found only on male animals. Within the last several hundred years, however, the African elephant has been the ivory provider of choice, due to its historically greater population numbers, larger tusks, and the fact that both sexes are tusked.

Ch’ien Lung (1711-1799) was the fourth emperor of the Ch’ing, or Manchu, dynasty in China The Ch’ing dynasty lasted from 1644 until 1912. Ch’ien Lung’s rule covered a span of 63 years, from 1711 to 1799, making his reign longer than any other in the recorded history of China, dating back to the Shang dynasty (1766-1122 B.C.).

[Debra Taylor]

Object: Ivory Figurine

E/1958/15/2
Walrus figurine
ca. 1958
Inuit
United States: Alaska
Materials: Ivory and ink

This is an ivory carving made by Inuit artist in King Island, Alaska.  It was sold at an Eskimo craft shop in College, Alaska by a Mr. Charles Lucier, a graduate student of anthropology, to a Dr. Chance in 1958.  Scrimshaw is the art of carving discarded animal ivory.  It was popular with Inuit people and developed into a highly valued art form.   Early American whalers also practiced this art form as a means of using up idle time on ships between whaling ventures.  This carving is most likely made of discarded walrus ivory because of its prevalence in the King Island area and the time frame in which it was made.

Ivory carving has been practiced by people of  the Inuit culture and their ancestors since around 500 BCE.  Mostly useful items were carved from bone and ivory such as fish hooks, harpoon points, sewing needles, and snow goggles, but in the contemporary era (starting in the late 1940’s) the carving of figurines became more and more popular.  During this time there was an influx of contact between Inuit and Western people and there was a high demand for souvenir items.  Carvings such as this were a popular souvenir for sailors, fishermen, and visitors to the area.  The ivory used to make these figurines first came from discarded pieces naturally found on the beaches, but soon this resource ran out and it became necessary to hunt to obtain ivory.  In 1989, CITES (the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species) instated a ban on the trade of ivory and ivory objects. This caused the trade of objects like this to decline, but Inuit people still made carvings from soapstone, bone, and other materials.

These carvings and other forms of folk art became an important source of income to the Inuit people after WWII when Alaska was increasingly populated by westerners.  The traditional way of life for the Inuit became harder to maintain in the face of Western influence, but there are many traditions that remain in use today.  Fishing vessels made of animal akin are still in use as are dog sleds and the parka.  Without these items, living in the extreme climate of Alaska would be impossible.  Ivory, stone, and bone carving techniques have been handed down through generations and are just as important today as they were in prehistoric times. [Katrina Kassis Swihart]

Objects: Ivory and Baleen Bracelets

E/1959/8/56 & E/1959/8/58b
Bracelets
ca. 1920s -1950s
Inuit
United States: Alaska
Materials: Ivory, baleen, and elastic

The first ivory and baleen bracelet (E/1959/8/56) is carved with depictions of a whale, a polar bear, a seal and a walrus.  The second bracelet (E/1959/8/58b) has twelve carved links depicting a man in a parka driving a dog sled team. They were likely made by the inhabitants of Diomede Island, a small island between the western coast of Alaska and the eastern coast of Siberia where there is a small Inuit population.  One of the most famous aspects of this culture is their talent in carving ivory, bone, and stone.  Many of the carvings made here have been exported all over the world with the major hubs of trade being at Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska.  Bracelets like these were produced between 1920 and 1950 as souvenir items.

The materials for these bracelets were collected from the northern right whale which was extensively hunted by the Inuit during this time.  Today the northern right whale is the rarest of all large whales with populations numbering in the hundreds.  They are very near extinction and live only on the eastern coast on North America and the western coast of Europe today.  The Right Whale was named by whalers identifying it as the “right” whale to kill on a hunt.  Its products were used all over Europe and North America in the 1800’s and 1900’s when whaling was at its heyday.  These included oil and baleen that were used for lamps and  bone corsets, buggy whips, jewelry and other uses. Today they are protected by an international ban on whaling, but their populations have seen little recovery since it was instated in 1949. Because of this, objects like these are not produced anymore in the Diomede region, but stone and bone are used instead to carry on the carving traditions.  In art auctions, these carvings are very highly prized and are still bought by enthusiasts all over the world bringing in a substantial income for the people of Diomede Island. [Katrina Kassis Swihart]

Object: Ivory Bracelet

E/1959/8/57
Ivory Bracelet
ca. 1940s – 1950s
Inuit
United States: Alaska
Materials: Ivory and elastic

Ivory carved jewelry such as this detailed bracelet were common as souvenirs made by northern Inuit people in the early half of the last century.  This bracelet depicts a dog team with a sled, a rider and ten dogs intricately carved and painted.  The sections of the bracelet are made of white and mottled pieces of walrus ivory, the mottled ivory coming from the interior of the tusk.  The bracelet is strung on elastic thread which was commonly used in jewelry in the 1940’s and 50’s.

Ivory carvings of the Inuit people often depict animals and have historically been linked with shamanistic hunting rituals.  This tradition carried over into the souvenir trade that erupted in the 1940’s.  Animal depictions, though not linked to hunting ritual when used in jewelry or figurines for souvenirs, were still the main form of ivory, bone and stone carvings made.  The sled dog team is an important aspect of the Inuit culture and is thus depicted quite often in carvings.  Trained sled dogs made it possible for groups and individuals to travel long distances over arctic terrain to follow game or to relocate seasonally.  Dog teams were essential in guarding reindeer herds and hauling equipment and supplies. In 1896, during the Alaskan Gold Rush, sled dog teams made it possible for prospectors to travel in the icy tundra.  In the early 1920’s dog sled races became very popular and the famous Iditarod Race was born. This particular bracelet is from the Diomede Islands in the middle of the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska.

The inhabitants of these islands were relocated so close to Russia that a Russian military base could be built on the larger of the two islands, but a small population famous for their ivory carvings still remains on the smaller island in a the City of Diomede located on the westernmost coast. Carved ivory from this area is mostly sold in Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska, but is also sold through art auctions. [Katrina Kassis Swihart]

Object: Statuette

E/1955/18/18
Ivory Carving of Buddha
Dynastic China
ca. Qing Dynasty 1644-1949
Materials: ivory, red stain

This object is a small, carved statuette of Buddha. It came from dynastic China and was collected sometime during the Qing Dynasty between 1644 and 1949. It is probably carved from elephant ivory. The figure depicts Buddha seated on lotus petals, holding a small ball in his left hand. This object has also been stained red. Ever since China was introduced to Buddhism by way of India during the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD), the depiction of Buddha has become a major theme in Chinese art.

The elements of the statue and the Buddha figure can be linked to Buddhist beliefs. The main focus of Buddhism is to rid oneself of desire, which can lead to suffering, and become an enlightened person of the world. The ivory figure reflects this as the dot on the statue’s head represents wisdom and all-seeing power. The figure is positioned on lotus petals. Lotus flowers are a symbol of things that are pure and good because they grow out of water and mud to become beautiful pink flowers. Buddhist beliefs suggest that Buddhist followers, like lotus flowers, can rise above ugliness to achieve enlightenment. The figure is depicted in a meditative stance. In Buddhism, the way for followers to achieve enlightenment is to pray and meditate. [Brittany Teel]