Overview
In the 1880s, the Norwegian-born traveler Johan Adrian Jacobsen spent a year in Alaska and amassed an unprecedented collection of Yup'ik material culture that eventually made its way to Germany's most prominent ethnographic museum. More than a century later, a delegation of Yup'ik elders and educators from Bethel, Alaska, joined cultural anthropologists and museum professionals at the Berlin Ethnologisches Museum to examine and interpret Jacobsen's collection, one of the world's largest and most impressive Yup'ik collections Things of Our Ancestors is a record of this unusual meeting of minds and cultures. Evoking the stories and experiences that the cultural artifacts embody, the Yup'ik elders examine and discuss these objects made by their ancestors, reclaiming knowledge on the verge of being lost. For this Yup'ik-English bilingual book, anthropologist Ann Fienup-Riordan has chosen stories and accounts of the Berlin exchange that best describe the collection and the visit. The narrative is accompanied by 66 photographs of this unusual episode of cultural revival. This book will prove a treasure for Yup'ik readers, linguists, folklorists, anthropologists, and historians, and will hold much interest for anyone concerned with Native American oral tradition.
Full Product Details
Author: Marie Meade ,
Ann Fienup-Riordan
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Imprint: University of Washington Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.60cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.608kg
ISBN: 9780295984711
ISBN 10: 0295984716
Pages: 448
Publication Date: 01 January 2005
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Language: English & Yu'pik
Reviews
Taken together, Fieldwork Turned on its Head and Things of Our Ancestors are extremely well done, both as products and as examples of a successful collaborative research effort. For those with an interest in northern indigenous communities and cultures the two books are moving accounts of a research partnership that joined indigenous knowledge bearers with academic and museum professionals, the result of which was to place indigenous knowledge at the center rather than at the periphery of the research enterprise and the resulting volumes. Museum Anthropology Review The Yup'ik delegation transformed anthropological material culture into moral teachings, ceremonial songs, hunting lore, dance steps, and vehicles for cultural pride...This book would be a valuable addition to any applied anthropology, material culture, or indigenous knowledge course and should encourage others to participate in collaborative museology. American Anthropologist
Taken together, Fieldwork Turned on its Head and Things of Our Ancestors are extremely well done, both as products and as examples of a successful collaborative research effort. For those with an interest in northern indigenous communities and cultures the two books are moving accounts of a research partnership that joined indigenous knowledge bearers with academic and museum professionals, the result of which was to place indigenous knowledge at the center rather than at the periphery of the research enterprise and the resulting volumes. Museum Anthropology Review The Yup'ik delegation transformed anthropological material culture into moral teachings, ceremonial songs, hunting lore, dance steps, and vehicles for cultural pride. ..This book would be a valuable addition to any applied anthropology, material culture, or indigenous knowledge course and should encourage others to participate in collaborative museology. American Anthropologist
Author Information
Marie Meade is a Yup'ik Eskimo raised in Nunapitchuk, Alaska. She has worked as a translator and Yup'ik language expert and presently teaches classes inYup'ik language and culture at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Ann Fienup-Riordan is the author of numerous books on the peoples of Alaska, including Yup'ik Elders at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, The Living Traditions of Yup'ik Masks and Freeze Frame: Alaska Eskimos in the Movies. She and Marie Meade previously collaborated on Agayuliyararput / Our Way of Making Prayer.
