May

‘The Way we Genuinely Live’

Elder Paul John, a member of the Toksook Bay Village Council, blesses the exhibition hall. (Photo courtesy of Ann Knaup)

The exhibition “Yuungnaqpiallerput (The Way we Genuinely Live): Masterworks of Yup’ik Science and Survival,” on view at the Museum of Natural History through July 25, presents 200 remarkable 19th- and early 20th-century tools, containers, weapons, watercraft and clothing used by the Yup’ik people to survive for centuries on the sub-arctic tundra of the Bering Sea coast. Artifacts on display were gathered from the Smithsonian’s collections and those of 12 other museums in the United States and Germany.

A Yu’pik snuff box is among the 200 objects on display in the "Yuungnaqpiallerput" exhibition.

Organized by curator Ann Fienup-Riordan of the Arctic Studies Center, the exhibition illuminates the legacy of intelligence and ingenuity of this ancient culture and illustrates the intimate relationship between the Yup’ik people and their environment.

Museum staff, conservators and 30 representatives of the Yup’ik people of southeast Alaska celebrated “Yuungnaqpiallerput” dance and music demonstrations and interviews and public discussions of the Yup’ik artifacts and culture on April 17 and 18 in the museum’s Discovery Room. These discussions were filmed for educational use, and the information obtained from the consultations will be added to the EMu collections database.