TANTOO: Among the Yup’ik People of Western Alaska, every mask is unique – and each has a distinct story to tell. Often, these stories come from the dreams or visions of medicine men and women.

[SFX: SOUNDS OF A KAYAK SLICING THROUGH ARCTIC WATERS?]

Here, a face emerges from the center of a hunter’s kayak. The face represents the spirit of the seal – an animal of central importance to Yup’ik survival. Above the seal’s face, a second one is visible.

CHUNA MCINTYRE: That’s the [??], which is the skull. Life and death, and death and life. So it has that iconography of all of that. The cycle.

TANTOO: This is Chuna McIntyre. He’s a Yup’ik dancer, and was instrumental in the conservation of this complex piece.

CHUNA: Masks this big would hang from the rafters. At an appropriate time, a dancer would walk up to it and dance behind it. Yup’ik dance is stationary, so it would become part of the dance.

[SFX: FISH FLOPPING IN THE WATER?]

TANTOO: Several fish effigies surround the central figures. Like the seal, fish are key to the community’s survival, and this mask reflects the hope for a successful fishing season.

CHUNA: And these fish, salmon or whatever fish they are, were saying, “Please. We implore you, the spirts that be, please give us more fish. We need fish. We want fish to be plenty.”

TANTOO: Above, the encircling hoop represents a unifying consciousness.

CHUNA: Chongok[sp?] is the awareness. Cha[sp?] is our air, our perceptions, our earth. And the Cha is the sky. Cha is also the universe out there. So kind of this progression from our sense of awareness, and then it goes out to the spheres.

What you are looking at here, really, is the culmination of thirty centuries of life in our region. I mean, when I think about that, it always astounds me.