June 2002 Number 10www.mnh.si.edu/arctic ewsletterN National Museum of Natural HistorySmithsonian Institution NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR By Bill Fitzhugh In thirty two years at the Smithsonian, I have never experienced a year quite like the last one. In the past, the Smithsonian seemed immune from worldly upheavals, and sailed steadily forward even in troubled times. During these years, the Institution changed physically and intellectually, increased the social and ethnic diversity of its staff and programming, and began to diversify its funding stream; but the basic commitment to scholarship and research remained solid. Today, this foundation is being challenged as never before. The result has been an unusual year, to say the least. A stream of directors—seven or eight at last count—have left their posts; a special commission has investigated American History’s exhibition program; a congressional science commission is evaluating Smithsonian science; and two additional science studies have been ordered by the Office of Management and Budget, which threatened to transfer $30 million of the SI science funds to the National Science Foundation. The OMB plan suggests that the Smithsonian should be a gallery and not a research center. Our governing Regents seem to agree, apparently believing that research is an expensive luxury that should be left to universities, and that our main mission should be museum-based education. Indeed, recent decades have seen a steady shift in emphasis from science to general education, resulting in 15- 20% cuts in science staffing and decimation of its research funds. The trend continues. Shortly after his appointment, Secretary Larry Small ruled that research should be conducted as a primary mission only in the science bureaus and that research in the art and history museums should be restricted to planning specific exhibitions or public programs. Changes are already afoot. Science Under Secretary Dennis O’Conner, who served this year also as Acting Director of NMNH when Robert Fri stepped down, departed for the University of Maryland. Irwin Shapiro, Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, has been named Interim Under Secretary; and Douglas Erwin has been named Interim Director of NMNH while the search for a permanent person for both positions continues. Yours Truly has become Chair of Anthropology (a post I held from 1975-80). By this time next year the Science Commission Report will have been on the table for six months, and I hope to report new directions and improved prospects for Smithsonian science. * * * Despite difficult times, the ASC has maintained its core programs and has initiated new projects. At long last, Igor Krupnik and I, with assistance from Elisabeth Ward, succeeded in realizing the dream of a dedicated ASC monograph series. Funded by revenues from Vikings, a bequest from James VanStone, and other sources, it bears the series title “Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology” and is dedicated to monographs, symposia, translations, and other works. We envision publishing two or three volumes each year. Our first, Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897-1902, appeared this winter and makes a memorable contribution to our “Jesup 2” centennial program. A second volume, Honoring Our Elders: History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology, is dedicated to Elmer Harp, Jr., who inspired several generations of arctic anthropologists (including me!) at Dartmouth College. Richard Jordan’s manuscript on the Avayalik Dorset site, and several volumes produced by the Torngat Project will also be published here. We are also nearing agreement with Smithsonian Institution Press to bring out a series of more commercially viable publications. Among the projects planned for the coming year are an edited volume on northern ethnographic landscapes produced by Igor with the assistance of the National Park Service in Alaska; Christopher Nagle’s study of Labrador Dorset technology and raw material movements; and English National Museum of Natural History, Museum Support Center:John Phillip, Sr. of Kongiganak, AK explains how kayaks were once used for hunting and transporting people and equipment. ASC Newsletter 2 THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS Inlingua/Santis Corp. Robert H. Malott Rasmuson Foundation Phillips Alaska Inc. Museum Loan Network Rock Foundation Alaska Humanities Forum Koniag, Inc. National Park Service Anina Glaize James VanStone Estate Arco Foundation Raymond and Margaret Mason Bateman Fund National Science Foundation Iceland Air Trust for Mutual Understanding Ocean Alaska Science and Learning Center Leifur Eiriksson Millennium Commission of Iceland National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration translations of The Archaeology of Taimyr and Central Siberian Arctic by Leonid Khlobystin and hopefully the massive Historical Ethnographic Atlas of Siberia translated by Henry Michael, with the support of the Rock Foundation. Stephen Loring’s new SI Press edition of Lucien Turner’s 1894 Ethnology of the Ungava District appeared this winter and was launched with major fanfare at the Canadian Embassy. Finally, collaboration with ARCUS produced, in the record time of one year, The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, edited by Igor Krupnik and Dyanna Jolly, which also had a celebratory launch at the Canadian Embassy. Without a doubt, however, the ASC publication prize of the year goes to Aron Crowell for Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People, which he co-edited with Amy Steffian and Gordon Pullar. Though not a Smithsonian publication, Aron and the University of Alaska Press produced this beautiful book, which combines native perspectives, high quality scholarship, great illustrations, and spectacular design! Who ever said museum collections were crusty fossils! This book breathes life on every page! Although publication was our year’s highlight, fieldwork brought us new caches of data. My Mongolia projects (2001,2) landed me in a part of the world with intriguing cultural and biotic arctic connections and stimulated an interdisciplinary NMNH project linked to the museum’s new Modern Mongolia exhibition. I also surveyed the Lower North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Quebec and will continue work there this year. Further north, Stephen Loring continued his community archaeology work in Makkovik, excavating at the historic period Adlavik Island Inuit villages. On the other side of the arctic, Igor Krupnik worked on community history and indigenous knowledge projects dealing with observations of climate change with St. Lawrence Island collaborators. This year we had a breather in the frenetic pace of recent exhibit work, as others made sure that Vikings and Looking Both Ways traveled safely to new venues. Vikings completed a very successful venue in Los Angeles and opened at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull/Ottawa in May. Elisbeth Ward and James Rubinstein have done a great job on media, installation, and educational programming for these venues. Likewise, LBW finished its opening venue at the Kodiak Museum and moved to the Pratt Museum in Homer. This year also saw development in our association with the National Museum of the American Indian. Igor worked closely with Lars Krutak on St. Lawrence Island research; Jennifer McCarty continued her NMAI-sponsored work at the ASC Anchorage office as education outreach coordinator; joint work continued on the Alaska Collection Project under the direction of Aron Crowell, with consultation visits by elders and cultural leaders from Nome, St. Lawrence Island, and the lower Kuskokwim; Stephen Loring wrote an introduction for a tribal catalog on the NMAI Innu and Eastern Cree collections; and Igor Krupnik and Stephen Loring prepared research and cataloguing aids for the NMAI collections. Several joint seminars and special receptions were also organized. One of our most important educational projects was updating and redesigning our website. During the past five years, the site has received awards from Yahoo and NEH and has been an important communications tool. We hope you like the new look and new offerings. We hope you enjoy this issue! T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S Arctic Climate Change p. 3 Science Commission Study p. 5 ASC Anchorage Alaskan Collections Project p. 7 Beluga Whale Nets p. 7 An Intense Visit to the Collection p. 8 An Intern’s Account p. 9 Exhibitions Looking Both Ways p. 10 Vikings in Canada p. 10 Modern Mongolia p. 11 Outreach Website for the 21st Century p. 12 Atanarjuat Premieres p. 13 Research Research in Igloolik, Nunavut p. 14 Studies of Greenlandic Clothing p. 14 Ikpik Journal p. 16 Njal’s Saga Landscape Study p. 18 Publication Gateways Published p. 20 Makivik-Smithsonian Collaboration p. 20 Earth is Faster Now Book Launch p. 21 Collections Premier Okalik of Nunavut Visits p. 22 Waugh Collection Project p. 24 Labrador Artifacts p. 25 Fieldwork St. Lawrence Gateways p. 26 Salekhard Mummies, West Siberia p. 27 Mongolian Initiatives p. 29 Conferences Mongolia Reserach Conference p. 31 AnthroNotes Award p. 32 Mummy Congress p. 32 Bergy Bits Snowy Owls and Harry Potter p. 35 Voices of Discovery p. 35 Gifts p. 35 Awards p. 35 Comings and Goings p. 36 New Alaska Outreach Coordinator p. 36 In Memoriam 9/11 Victims p. 37 Publications and Contacts p. 38 Publication Order Form p. 39 ASC Newsletter 3 ASC INITIATES NEW ARCTIC CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH By Igor Krupnik The ASC has a long record of involvement in Arctic climate and environmental change studies – one that has embraced its research staff and its many associates and collaborators for almost 30 years. Bill Fitzhugh explored ancient ecosystem changes in the Eastern Arctic in his book on environmental archaeology in Labrador (1972) and in several later publications under the Torngat and Meta Incognita projects. Igor Krupnik similarly summarized evidence of historic environmental change in Siberia and the Bering Strait in Arctic Adaptations (1993) and in a number of papers focused on indigenous marine hunting and reindeer herding economies. Tracing cultural-environmental interactions has always been a crucial part of our research agenda, and we have undertaken such studies in various places across the north: Stephen Loring in the Aleutians, Aron Crowell in Cook Inlet, Dosia Laeyendcker on Baffin Island, Richard Jordan and Susan Kaplan in Labrador, Natalya Fedorova in Yamal, just to name a few. However, most of the ASC efforts in environmental change studies from the 1970s to the mid-1990s were focused on evidence of former changes, either prehistoric or relatively recent. Although we stressed the value of our research for long-term modeling of polar ecosystems, we usually applied archaeological, dendrochronological, ethnohistorical, and other records to describe the past. In recent years, this familiar pattern has been altered as the focus of ASC interest shifts to include the issues of today’s rapid changes in Arctic environment and its impact upon northern people. Three developments of the past year were significant milestones toward such a transition. First, the ASC became an active part of the new inter-agency SEARCH initiative. Second, together with the NMNH Office of Exhibits we are laying groundwork for the Arctic version of the new Global Change (“Forces of Change”) exhibit at the NMNH to be developed in 2003 and 2004. Third, Igor Krupnik’s study of indigenous knowledge of Arctic sea ice and climate (ASC Newsletter, nos. 8 and 9) has culminated in a new publication project, The Earth Is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change (2002 – see pg. 21). Evidences of ongoing, rapid climate change in the Arctic is plentiful, and has been the focus of several major research projects by physical and environmental scientists over the last decade. Social scientists have been rather late and, usually, junior partners in these efforts. It has been commonly accepted for some time that northern residents should be included as critical subjects in any interdisciplinary survey of global climate change. But, it was not until recently that scientists also realized that Arctic people are the first and, usually, the most dedicated observers of such change, as the latter transform their daily life as well as the fundamentals of their ecological expertise and culture. Arctic indigenous people have a special stake in modern scholarly studies of global environmental change. They also have a lot to contribute – when and if they are given the chance and the appropriate means to participate in such efforts. Detailed records of local observations relating to sea ice, weather conditions, and animal and plant life are generated in dozens of indigenous communities across the circumpolar zone. These records, because they are primarily oral, are constantly analyzed and immediately tested in discussions with neighbors, fellow-hunters, and experienced elders. This spontaneous observation process is a non-stop, daily, and inter-generational activity that proceeds without granting agencies and scientific planning. It is indeed an invaluable resource for scholarly research in environmental change and a strong impetus for partnership between scientists and northern residents. At the same time, Arctic residents are quickly becoming the spotlight of the global environment debate – Through growing media attention as well as their own public actions. Major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Globe and Mail, and others have recently run front-page stories about the “melting Arctic,” extensively quoting the concerns and anxieties shared by northern people. Silarjualiriniq, a newsletter of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, has published several statements by Inuit leaders expressing rising Inuit concern about the speed of change in their environment. Beyond spreading this message, northern residents are also eager to cooperate with arctic scientists in order to have their observations documented and transmitted to policy makers. Arctic social scientists believe that at this critical juncture, we have all the more reason to bring the evidence of northern people, both of today and of the past, to public attention. We see this as the new frontier of arctic social science. It will guide the course of scholarly studies, outreach and educational efforts, and drive public support for northern research for years to come. Unfortunately, this vision is shared by few and the challenges to arctic social scientists are actually mounting, as we have to fight the “Johnny-come-lately” image within the northern academic community. Therefore, we have expanded our efforts in the past year, through the SEARCH program and related activities to build bridges. SEARCH, The Study of Environmental Arctic Change, is a major new research initiative that emerged from a workshop on modeling climate change in the Arctic. Unlike many other meetings, the 1997 workshop in Seattle thankfully created substantial momentum. A year later, the Arctic System Science (ARCSS) program of the NSF Office of Polar Programs announced SEARCH. Sachs Harbour community members gather to discuss their observations of climate changes. (Photo from The Earth is Faster Now, 2002.) ASC Newsletter 4 At first, SEARCH was fully under the supervision of the ARCSS Ocean-Atmosphere-Ice Interactions Steering Committee; during its first ‘gestation’ years it was regarded mainly as an ocean- atmosphere modeling enterprise. However, since 2000 SEARCH has gradually evolved into a much broader venture, under the leadership of John Calder, Director of the Arctic Research Office at NOAA. He established the SEARCH Interagency Working Group which includes representatives from nine participating governmental agencies, such as NSF, NOAA, DOI, EPA, NASA, and the Smithsonian. The first serious new funding to back SEARCH activities is anticipated in FY 2003; but many agencies are already undertaking some efforts using available funds. The expected duration of SEARCH is from 5 to 10 years. The scientific core of SEARCH is to develop a scenario for environmental change across polar regions that differs from linear global warming models, which are based upon the progressive increase in carbon-dioxide emission. In contrast, SEARCH is focused mainly on the decadal (3-50 year) and closely inter-related pan-arctic fluctuations in atmospheric pressure, ocean and air temperatures, sea ice, etc., that are driven by the so-called ‘Arctic Oscillation’ (AO). The latter has been modeled following the famous El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), to which, as many atmospheric scientists believe, the AO is closely related. Whatever its cause, this new Arctic environmental change program was given the name Unaami, which is a St. Lawrence Yupik word for ‘tomorrow.’ With this new emphasis, the Arctic Studies Center became involved, promoting the “human component” within what was formerly a physical science initiative. The ASC and Smithsonian contribution to SEARCH is important on two different levels. From the scientific perspective, the ASC contributes its experience in using paleo-environmental and archaeological data to decipher past environmental and resource fluctuations in the polar regions. Such studies provide badly needed time depth to current models, which are based mainly on instrumental data of the last century. At the institutional level, Bill and Igor represent the SI at the SEARCH interagency working group, where they are, in a sense, the spokespeople for the polar social science community. We see our mission as that of raising issues of importance to Arctic native residents. Last year, the ASC/Smithsonian contribution to SEARCH expanded into an entirely new dimension, as the working group began discussing an outreach and educational aspect for the program. It was quickly realized that the SEARCH agenda has to be presented to decision-makers (who will determine its future), the media, and Arctic residents. In short, SEARCH needs a vehicle to communicate science and to advertise its needs and capabilities to a broader audience. Bill, with his extensive exhibit experience, suggested that an exhibition program would be the ideal way to promote the SEARCH outreach and educational agenda, and to introduce this initiative to the public. In fact, NMNH is the ideal location to develop and deliver a SEARCH educational program. It already has the capabilities, personnel, and existing framework to be used to bring Arctic environmental change issues to public attention. The NMNH Forces of Change educational and exhibit program (initiated in 2000) features the dynamics of global change and examines the connections between the physical, biological, and cultural forces that shape our world. The core of this program is a 6,000 square foot exhibit space at NMNH, which will be used over several years for a series of regionally focused exhibits. Each of these exhibits will feature various “faces” of ongoing global change. The first in the series, Listening to the Prairie: Farming in Nature’s Image, was successfully launched at the NMNH in November 2000, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agriculture and Research Education Program. After five-months at NMNH, the Prairie exhibit started a three-year national tour, visiting twenty venues, primarily science centers and libraries, across the country. An estimated one million people will see the exhibit, which is accompanied by curriculum materials and other outreach opportunities. In Spring 2001, Bill and Igor began to discuss developing an arctic feature for this programwith Barbara Stauffer and Carolyn Margolis of the NMNH Exhibit Office. A six-component Smithsonian-NMNH SEARCH proposal was developed that includes, in addition to a Forces of Change Arctic show, a NASA-supported Global Links electronic exhibit; an enhanced multi- staged web site linked to the Smithsonian’s popular address; public lecture programs; and educational curricula for museum and school use. Unfortunately, the proposal stalled in 2001 and early 2002 because of a lack of Smithsonian funding and recurrent changes in top museum leadership. However, the situation is now changing, thanks to the strong commitment expressed by the NOAA Arctic Research Office and its director, John Calder. NOAA has pledged substantial seed funding to the Smithsonian-NMNH effort in developing the “Arctic Environmental Change” exhibit in 2003- 2004, to be preceded by a special planning workshop. This will serve as a foundation, to a tangible SEARCH public and educational component, until future funding becomes available from participating agencies and the Smithsonian. While the new Smithsonian SEARCH exhibit is still in the discussion and planning stage, the ASC succeeded in quickly turning out an immediate material product as its contribution to the SEARCH program. In May 2002, a new book was published by the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS), in collaboration with the ASC and with the funding provided by the NSF Arctic Social Science Program. This new volume of some 380 pages, titled The Earth Is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, was compiled and co-edited by Igor Krupnik and Dyanna Jolly, formerly with the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and now at the Centre for Maori Studies in New Zealand. The book is a collection of ten papers featuring recent projects in documentation of indigenous knowledge of environmental change. All these projects were undertaken during the last few years in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic. The book is accompanied by numerous quotations from interviews with Native residents of local observations, and has almost a hundred photos and other illustrations. Nelson Island Hunters. Photo: James Barker. ASC Newsletter 5 This volume began with an almost fortuitous meeting of the two co-editors at the 13th annual ARCUS meeting in Washington in May 2001. At the time, both were actively engaged in independent collaborative efforts in documenting indigenous knowledge on recent climate change in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic (see ASC Newsletter, no.9, p.16). When the two prospective editors discussed their research and the need to advocate the value of indigenous knowledge to the scholarly study of Arctic environmental change, the idea of combining resources seemed obvious. Together, Igor and Dyanna had a good network of American, Canadian, and European colleagues who were exploring the same field and who shared the same passion and ideology. The ARCUS leadership (Wendy Warnick, ARCUS Executive Director, and Henry Huntington, ARCUS President) expressed enthusiastic support for the new initiative, which we all regard as truly exemplary of interagency collaboration. Overall, during this past year the ASC has made several successful inroads into merging arctic social science with studies of modern environmental change in polar regions. We are now working successfully under an interdisciplinary team of Arctic climate, ocean, and atmospheric specialists. We are designing, in cooperation with the NMNH Office of Exhibits staff, some new venues to make “hard science” more accessible to the general public, such as interactive exhibits, web site development, and educational curricula. We have initiated new ways to document indigenous knowledge on Arctic climate change and produced the first collection of professional papers on these issues. Our next goal is to add to these ventures our long-established expertise in unveiling ancient environmental and cultural changes from archaeological records and relating these to modern problems of today’s arctic people. SCIENCE COMMISION STUDY CONTINUES By Bill Fitzhugh During the past year, a national commission appointed by the Regents (the Smithsonian’s governing body) has been studying the quality, organization, and future direction of the Institution’s science programs. The Commission is led by anthropologist Dr. Jeremy Sabloff, Director of the University Museum (UPenn), and is composed of 17 scientists from inside and outside the SI in the fields of biology, anthropology, and astrophysics. To date, the Commission has spent much of its time gathering and discussing information on leadership, professional evaluation, organizational structure, outreach and exhibition, and relationships between science and education. Sub-committees assigned to each of these subjects have roamed the science bureaus from the Mall in Washington D.C. to Cambridge and Panama, interviewing staff, collecting information, debating issues of balance and priority, trying to identify the place of Smithsonian science in the national science framework and how to strengthen the Institution’s contribution to these efforts in the future. This ambitious task has been further complicated by events unfolding within the Smithsonian leadership and the Bush Administration, as outlined below. Established by Congressional mandate in the spring of 2001, the Commission was charged with answering many of the same questions that had been raised during the preceding year by the Institution’s senior leadership, Secretary Larry Small and Under Secretary Dennis O’Connor. Their initial proposals would have eliminated the Zoo’s Conservation Research Center and the Science Center for Materials Research and Education; created separate institutes of biology, astrophysics, earth and planetary sciences, and human sciences; and removed all curators at the NMNH from museum duties. Advanced with little prior discussion with the staff, these proposals threw Smithsonian science into a public uproar (see 2001 newsletter for details) that only partially subsided when Congress and the Regents stepped into the battle for what many consider to be the soul of the Smithsonian. The administration’s critique was rooted in the question of balance between the two missions established in founder James Smithson’s bequest “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” How should the Institution best allocate its resources in these two directions? In an increasingly de-federalized institution, what mix of federal and private support is necessary and desirable in accomplishing these missions? How can these existing tasks and new needs for collections care and museum services be maintained when the Secretary’s budget priorities call for program cuts to science and massive new allocations to facilities, exhibitions, and infrastructure? Early in its deliberations, the Commission realized that the answers would not be as simple as they might be for other institutions such as universities or specialized research centers. Initial critiques of some aspects of the Natural History research program gave way during a succession of commission meetings to a more nuanced understanding of the unique complexities, idiosyncrasies, and requirements of the Smithsonian science program. Funded by Congress rather than by peer-reviewed granting agencies like NSF, science at the Smithsonian has grown incrementally, adding new functions as scientific methods and theory advanced, while also retaining aspects of more traditional research in descriptive studies and taxonomy. At NMNH, for instance, science funding is shared between research, collections care, and outreach, whereas functions like collections care, public access, and taxonomy are relatively minor missions at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and other science units. Further Climate changes in recent years have altered snow fall and sea ice patterns, often making travel and hunting difficult. ( Photo from The Earth is Faster Now, 2002.) ASC Newsletter 6 complicating activities in biology at NMNH is the need for cutting edge collections-based research, whereas non-museum based research centers like STRI and SERC focus more institutional energy on systemic ecology, which tends to be more popular and fundable than taxonomic work. At the same time as collections have grown and become more important to the science community at large, and as educational needs have increased, these demands have drained support from science and research at NMNH contributing to the current crisis. This shift has been further accentuated by Secretary Small’s priorities, which are to restore the deteriorating physical plant, and improve institutional infrastructure and outreach. Often the NMNH with its large science budget has been viewed as a place to find funds and positions for other priorities. Variation in unit missions, age, and staffing introduce other complications. The Science Commission has struggled with these issues, and Chairman Sabloff has reported on progress regularly to the staff and the media. A further bureaucratic complication developed in late fall when the Office of Management and Budget selected the Smithsonian as an a test case to evaluate President Bush’s “scorecard” program, which involves an annual evaluation of institutional efficiency and responsiveness to its mission. After much negotiation, the OMB forced the SI to pay nearly one million dollars for two new studies, beyond the scores of studies already done and the on-going Science Commission. One study (to be conducted by the National Academy of Sciences) is to be directed at the quality of scientific research and a second (to be conducted by the National Association of Professional Accountants) is to look into efficiency of science administration. Both are to be accomplished within the current calendar year such that their results can be incorporated into the SC’s final report to the Regents. In the midst of all this turmoil and uncertainty, Smithsonian science has been further set back by rapidly escalating leadership issues. Following more than a decade of short-term or acting directors, NMNH’s most recent director, Robert Fri, resigned in October under pressure from the Castle, leaving the largest SI science bureau without a director. Furthermore, a replacement could not possibly be recruited until the future directions and organization of SI science in general had been established by the Commission report and the Castle’s response was in place. In the interim, Secretary Small appointed Under Secretary Dennis O’Connor to serve as Acting Director, and Ira Rubinoff, STRI’s very successful director who had been detailed to Washington for the year, took up residence at NMNH to assist O’Connor in fund-raising and other areas. However, in April, just as O’Connor’s efforts were beginning to produce some real progress at NMNH, he announced he was leaving his position as Under Secretary and Acting Director of NMNH at the end of May to take the senior science position at the University of Maryland. Soon after, Ross Simons, Assistant Director for Science at NMNH, underwent emergency by-pass surgury, taking him out of service for several weeks, and Carolyn Rose, Chair of Anthropology, announced that she would step down, ill with uterine cancer. The current science leadership vacuum and the long history of difficulties experienced at NMNH in maintaining leadership continuity convinced the Commission to release an interim report that was transmitted to the Regents and the Secretary in early May. Directed largely at leadership issues, the report recommended that international searches be instituted immediately to fill the empty posts at NMNH and in the Under Secretary’s office with individuals with eminent scientific credentials, and in the case of NMNH, with museum and management skills. The report also noted that the structure and organization of Smithsonian science was essentially sound and did not need major reorganization. At time of printing, it remains to be seen where this roller-coaster ride will take SI science. The Commission is scheduled to make its final recommendations in December, but the budget that has been laid out for the next few years is extremely grim, especially for FY03, in which the Institution currently has an $12.8 million shortfall in salaries and expenses. At the same time, Secretary Small is committed to raise $1.8 billion for renovation of facilities and exhibitions. Given the national budgetary situation and overseas agendas, the prospects for the near future are as bleak as any faced since the 1940s. On the brighter side, however, the work of the Science Commission has demonstrated that the state of Smithsonian science is generally excellent and plays an important role in the national science agenda. While improvements can be made in many areas, it seems likely that the recommendations made by the Commission will lead to a new vigor when institutional priorities will hopefully return once again to the traditional mother lode of the Smithsonian--its scholarship, its science, and its collections--which are the truly priceless gems of the Institution. Smithsonian Institution Science Commission Members: (standing from left) Warren Wagner, Peter Raven, Robert Kirshner, Simon Levin, Jeremy Jackson, Stephen Hubbell, Beryl Simpson, Ilka Feller, William Fitzhugh, Douglas Erwin, Peter Crane (seated from left) Marvalee Wake, Yolanda Moses, Jeremy Sabloff, James Baker, Alice Alldridge, Bruce Campbell. ASC Newsletter 7 A S C A N C H O R A G E TREASURES FROM THE PAST: THE ALASKAN COLLECTIONS PROJECT By Aron Crowell Two delegations of Elders from Unalakleet, Nome, and Gambell recently visited the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. to look at clothing, tools, and other items made long ago by Native residents of Norton Sound and St. Lawrence Island. The Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center in Anchorage arranged the trips in May and September 2001 as part of its statewide Alaska Collections Project funded by the Rasmusen Foundation, Phillips Petroleum and the Museum Loan Network. Kawerak and its Eskimo Heritage Program, directed by Branson Tungiyan, helped organize the trips, with additional help from Art Ivanoff, Repatriation Officer for the Unalakleet Tribal Council. Elders visited two different Smithsonian museums – the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) – to carry out their work. The result of the project will be an educational web site featuring information provided by the Elders, in addition to museum exhibitions and educational materials for use in the schools. Kawerak region Elders who have participated in this exciting program are Jacob Ahwinona (Nome), Francis Charles (Unalakleet), Anna Etageak (Unalakleet), Oscar Koutachak (Unalakleet), Theresa Nanouk (Unalakleet), Estelle Oosevaseuk (Gambell), and Marie Saclamana (Nome). Dr. Aron Crowell, described the goals and results of the Alaska Collections Project at the Bering Straits Regional Elders and Youth Conference in May. He noted that important connections between past and present were explored during the discussions in Washington. Among the most important is the subsistence way of life. Hunting, fishing, and the harvest of wild plant foods remain an essential part of Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yup’ik life today. As Francis Charles stated, “We live out in the country most of the time. Well, all my life. I still go out hunting for my food – greens, berries, drive my own motor and boat.” The participants provided valuable information about a wide range of other topics, from the manufacture of skin clothing and kayaks to traditional medical practices. Anna Etageak drew on her life-long experience as a skin sewer to describe the process of making waterproof parkas and tent coverings from seal intestines. Oscar Koutchak demonstrated the use of the mi’kaq (crooked knife) for carving wooden bowls and Estelle Oosevaseuk explained the game called meteghlluwaaq, in which each player tosses a handful of small ivory birds into the air to see how many will land right side up. All of the Elders helped to record the names of the objects in their Native languages. To help share the results of the Alaska Collections Project, Kaniqsirugut News will publish several photographs of Kawerak region items from the Smithsonian in each issue, along with some of the Elders’ comments. We invite readers to write us with additional facts or memories about how these items were made and used. NET FOR BELUGA WHALES by Jennifer McCarty (reprinted from Kaniqsirugut News) “My son Peter makes his own nets.” —Theresa Nanouk, Unalakleet “One night my dad caught six beluga in a net. They were towing two whales, one on each side of the boat, and four were being towed in the back.” —Oscar Koutchak, Unalakleet On May 7 through to May 11 of last year, Unalakleet Elders Anna Etageak, Theresa Nanouk, Oscar Koutchak and Frances Charles travelled to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. as part of the statewide Alaska Collections Project, sponsored by the National Museum of Natural History’s Arctic Studies Center, with the National Musuem of the American Indian. Several groups of Elders from all around Alaska are studying objects in the Smithsonian collections and providing information that will be shared through exhibitions, a web site, and classroom materials. As a way to continue the reciprocal exchange of information, the Arctic Studies Center is publishing articles similar to this one in Nome’s Bering Straits regional newsletter, Kaniqsirugut News. The last issue of Kaniqsirugut News featured Iñupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yupik ice-scratchers used for seal hunting; in this article, we are featuring the whale net pictured below. Additional objects will be featured in future issues. Inupiaq people made beluga whale nets similar to this one for hundreds of years. This particular net was probably made in the late 1800s to the early 1900s in Unalakleet. Traditionally, these nets were made of long strips of oogrook (bearded seal) skin (known to some as “babiche”). The strips are woven together. Softened in the sea and stretched out to its full length, the resulting whale net would be about 80 feet long. It had a very large mesh—larger than those made to catch king salmon, which have a mesh size of about 8 ¾ inches. Today, hunters use king salmon nets for catching belugas. Few, however, use babiche. Most people, Oscar said, have king salmon nets made with 72-strand cotton twine. Oscar Koutchak explained that it takes two people to make babiche—one to hold one end while the other holds the opposite end with one hand and cuts very thin strips with the other. “Pretty soon the seal skin comes to nothing,” Koutchak said. “It’s all hanging to dry, they stretch it longways around,” he said, making a circular motion above his head. “When it dries real good…it contracts, gets real hard. It’s better than rope.” Attached to a whale net like this one would be wooden floats tied to the top edge of the net about every eight or ten feet using a two to three foot length of seal rope. Rocks would be used for sinkers, along the bottom edge and two larger anchoring rocks would be tied to the bottom on each end. Theresa Nanouk explained where the nets were set, “They set it out in the ocean, where it’s deep, so when the whales go by, they get caught in there.” Oscar Koutchak clarified that someone setting a net would have to go out different distances depending on where along the Bering Sea coastline that Net for beluga whales, from the collection of the National Museum of the American Indian ASC Newsletter 8 person was located. “Up in Egavik,” he said, “in front of my wife’s family’s house, [they set the net] about 150 feet from the shore. It’s real deep there.” In the springtime, Koutchak said beluga whales follow the Norton Sound shoreline and pass Unalakleet on their way to the high arctic to molt. Through their picture window Koutchak and his wife would see the whales traveling in pods: “One time, the sun was just in a perfect position for them when they were migrating…must have been about a mile, mile and a half out, and my wife, she said, ‘Look out there!’ And I looked, and there were some spouts—the sun was over there—just a perfect position for the spouts…they kept going…must have been about 30 or 40 beluga.” Koutchak said that if they are caught, they can’t back out and escape: “…they struggle enough that the net goes deeper and deeper and gets caught around the beluga’s neck”, he says. When the whale is finally caught people go out in boats and pull the whale in, dragging it through the water to the sandy shore, where it is butchered. We asked Nanouk how beluga muktuk (the blubber and thick skin of the whale) is shared. She replied matter- of-factly but with a twinkle in her eye, “Well, you just have to tell everybody they have to come get some, a piece. While you’re cutting it.” AN INTENSE EXPERIENCE IN WASHINGTON, D.C. by Branson Tungiyan On September 8 through the 18th, I had the priviledge of accompanying a group of Elders from Alaska’s Bering Strait region to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. The intent of this trip was to identify and name objects for the Arctic Studies Center’s Alaska Collections Project, but the timing led to unexpected events. The Elders on this second Alaska Collections Project trip were Estelle Oozevaseuk - Gambell/St. Lawrence Island, Marie Saclamana - King Island/Nome, and Jacob Ahwinona - White Mountain/Nome. Also with the group were Aron Crowell, Director of the Arctic Studies Center Program in Anchorage and Suzi Jones, Deputy Director of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. Unlike the first group of Elders—who were all from Unalakleet—this group was comprised of different groups from the Bering Strait region. The objects that were initially planned to be examined, identified, and named would have been a much greater number than the Unalakleet group. Due to events that occurred on September 11, 2001, they were not. However, these Elders did their best, especially as two language groups - Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yupik - were represented. Much discussion, at times lengthy, occurred between the Smithsonian staff and the Elders. Many stories were told in order to give the background history of certain objects from the Bering Strait/Norton Sound/ St. Lawrence Island collections. It was on the second day of identifying and naming objects at NMAI that this became an “intense” experience. We were busy looking at some of the most unique objects, when Terry Snowball, a staff member of NMAI, came in and told us that we better take a coffee break. Then, he told us what had happened: terrorist-hijacked planes had crashed into the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon. What shocking news that was! And to watch the events unfolding on the television…it was unbelievable! The whole world seemed to have stopped with that single moment. At this time, I want to say a little about Terry Snowball. He had asked us the previous day if we would like to have buffalo stew. Of course, I said “yes” because myself and the Elders had never tried it. Well, he had brought the stew that morning for our lunch. But then all federal buildings had to be evacuated. Mr. Snowball took all of us, including some staff members, to his house in Waldorf, Maryland. And of course then we were able to have that stew. Such great generosity will never be forgotten. Bill Fitzhugh is another person that shows great admiration for Native people. Bill Fitzhugh is the Director for the Arctic Studies Center at the Smithsonian Institution. The kind hospitality that he provides to the visitors—he always invites all the visitors for a “smorgasbord” at his house—is unforgettable. This was indeed a memorable trip. I can remember the pleased reactions from the staffers when Estelle Oozevaseuk tried to demonstrate a game with meteghlluwaaghet, or small ivory birds. Another time, Jabob Ahwinona tried to unfold a sealskin gut raincoat, which had become dry from many years of storage. These small events that happened on this trip made it more enjoyable, especially under the circumstances. There was also a little birthday party for Estelle Oozevseuk’s 83 years in Igor Krupnik’s office. Finally, it was rejuvenating, particularly for the Elders, to visit Chesapeake Bay and to see the ocean, as it reminded them of their subsistence livelihood back in Alaska. Although we didn’t identify as many objects as the first group, we accomplished what we were there to do. There is a great wealth of historical objects at the Smithsonian Institution that would be exciting for any Elder. I believe that the Alaska Collections Project is making all Alaska Natives aware for the first time that the Smithsonian has so many carefully preserved Alaska Native objects from the past. Looking at these objects once again brings up wonderful memories about our ancestors and the things they once used. In conclusion, I would like to thank Aron Crowell, for making it possible, Jennifer McCarty for her logistical help, Suzi Jones, Bill Fitzhugh, Elizabeth Ward, Stephen Loring, Igor Krupnik, Lars Krutak, Terry Snowball, Jim Pepper Henry, and all of the other staffers that made us feel welcome on this “intense” but still rewarding trip to Washington, DC. Again, thank you on behalf of Estelle Oozevaseuk, Marie Saclamana, and Jacob Ahwinona and myself, Branson Tungiyan. Jacob Ahwinona, Inupiaq of Nome, (right) and Branson Tungiyan of St. Lawrence Island, study an ivory pipe. Elder Estelle Oozevaseuk, of St. Lawrence Island, at NMAI’s CRC ASC Newsletter 9 AN INTERN’S ACCOUNT OF YUP’IK VISIT By Frank Zeccola The latest consultation visit, on April 22-26, 2002, included Yup’ik Elders from the Yukon-Kuskokwin Delta region. I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon observing and absorbing this process, and below I have recorded my perceptions of the event. I arrived at the Museum Support Center shortly after lunchtime, just as the objects were being taken out of storage for discussion, and the consultation was about to begin. The four Yup’ik Elders sit around a rectangular table, talking quietly, joking and laughing with each other as everything is carefully and meticulously prepared. The lighting for the camera is adjusted, fresh tapes are placed in the two tape machines on the table, the microphones are set up, and the documents explaining the items in the collection are sorted through. As I take my seat to the right of the table, I am fully aware that I am a part of something very special. For although this is the third day of looking at and discussing the collections with this group of Elders and researchers, it is clearly visible that everyone in the room still felt the excitement of experiencing something incredible. When everything is ready, Dr. Aron Crowell steps to the front of the table to introduce me to the group. Sitting at the head of the table on the left side is Dr. Joan Hamilton from Chevak, translator and Director of the Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center and Museum in Bethel, Alaska. The Yup’ik man to her right is Mr. John Phillip Sr., from Kangiganak at the mouth of the Kuskokwim River. Mrs. Neva Rivers from Hooper Bay and Mrs. Virginia Minock from Pilot Station, on the lower Yukon River, sit to the right of Mr. Phillip. Also present is Dr. Anne Fienup-Riordan, an expert on the Yup’ik region, Dr. Suzi Jones, Deputy Director of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, videographer Barbara Johnson, and Jennifer McCarty, Alaska Outreach Coordinator for the Arctic Studies Center. After these brief introductions, the first object is presented. The examination of each object will serve as a starting point for discussion of cultural, social, and spiritual insight. Each participant wears white gloves, taking special care in handling the artifacts. Dr. Crowell reads aloud the collection information, which indicates that the object is a model of a fish trap, acquired by the museum in 1910. It is a long, cylindrical, conical, hollow wooden trap made from split willow wood. The Elders converse in Yup’ik for some time, Mr. Phillip speaking mostly at first. These conversations in the Native language last for long stretches of time throughout the event, as the museum representatives sit quietly waiting for the translation. Finally, Mr. Phillip comments that the trap is “very well made” from split willow, a wood that is very pliable and easy to shape. Another native conversation ensues, shorter this time, and then Dr. Hamilton explains that traps of this type was were used to catch blackfish as well as otters and minks. The inner core is designed so that, once inside the trap, the animal is unable to get out. Trappers measure a mink-sized opening with three fingers, and an otter-sized opening with a balled fist. One trap can hold up to five minks. The Yup’ik hunters would set these traps in small streams during October or November, and would check them every other day until summertime. Although the discussion of the fish trap pertains mostly to the trap itself, the next object stimulates a deeper cultural discussion. Dr. Crowell introduces a “crooked knife” with a metal blade at one end and a sharp point made from walrus rib bone at the other. The Elders recognize the piece immediately, nodding their heads and smiling. They announce that all men used these knives for a variety of different purposes, including the mending of kayaks, digging, and cutting hair. Yup’ik children were taught to use these knives at an early age, honing their skills by cutting little things such as tree branches, and then progressing to bigger tasks. This prompts the Elders to discuss how, rather than being spoken of in terms of age and birthdays, Yup’ik people are evaluated in terms of experience, measured partially by the skills that they have acquired in hunting, fishing, and using tools such as knives and bows. Mr. Phillip recalls a time when he felt that he was ready to begin to learn how to use a rifle, but the Elders of his village told him “it’s not time yet.” The children never questioned the opinions of older people, and Mr. Phillip had to wait. The next object is a bow collected for the Smithsonian by Edward W. Nelson in 1888. Mr. Phillip remarks that he does not recognize the style of the bow, although he knows immediately that it is constructed from hardwood. He remembers making bows like this one for his grandchildren. Both boys and girls were taught to use the bows as children. In fact, both boys and girls were taught many skills for hunting, fishing, and gathering. The bow was used on the land to hunt bear and caribou, and at sea to hunt seals and birds. These bows were also used in war, and Mr. Phillip explains that stories are still told about famous battles. When the children were young, they used smaller bows and arrows without points for practice, and then graduated to larger bows when they developed their skills. At this time, I realize that I must head back to my desk downtown. I leave quietly, and on the way back reflect on what I have just witnessed. These objects, taken from the communities in which they were made, and used, over 100 years ago, are finally now literally back in the hands of representatives from these communities for a few brief days. It is obvious that everyone is pleased to have participated in this “reunion.” I am grateful for the opportunity to have witnessed such a special event, and I shall remember it always. Yup’ik Elders (seated from left) Virginia Minock, Neva Rivers, John Phillip Sr. and Joan Hamilton examine Alaskan artifacts. Aron Crowell (foreground) and Bill Fitzhugh (background) look on. ASC Newsletter 10 LOOKING BOTH WAYS EXHIBITION OPENS IN HOMER, ALASKA By Aron Crowell The Arctic Studies Center exhibition Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People wrapped up its presentation at the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak on April 6 and moved to the Pratt Museum in Homer, where it opened on May 3. Homer (pop. 12,000) is located at the entrance to Kachemak Bay in lower Cook Inlet, a part of coastal Alaska where indigenous Alutiiq people have resided for many thousands of years. On May 17, almost 100 Alutiiq residents of Homer and four nearby villages – Nanwalek, Port Graham, Seldovia, and Ninilchik – arrived by car, bush plane, and fishing boat to participate in a community reception at the Pratt. The Cook Inlet villages have built strong cultural programs in recent years, including an Alutiiq language immersion pre-school, well-known dance groups, archaeology projects, and a revival of kayak building and other traditional arts. Elders and artists from the area have worked closely with the Pratt Museum to mount Tamamta Katuhluta (Everyone Coming Together) an ambitious semi-annual cultural festival. Several residents, including language teacher and culture-bearer Feona Sawden and the late educator Lydia Robart were important contributors to the community-based development of the Looking Both Ways exhibition. Elder, seal- hunter, and kayak builder Nick Tanape of Nanwalek has also played an important role in the indigenous cultural renaissance of the Cook Inlet area. Events hosted by the Pratt with funding from the Alaska Humanities Forum included an evening reception where guests feasted on fruits of the local subsistence harvest: salmon, halibut, seal oil, akutaq (“Eskimo ice cream” made from berries and shortening), and chewy marine invertebrates called uhhRtaq in the Alutiiq language (in English, chitons). Chitons are also known locally as baidarkies, from the Russian for “little boat,” based on their resemblance to traditional watercraft of the region. Representatives of each village welcomed the exhibit at a breakfast gathering the next morning, where curator Aron Crowell and Elder/ advisor Lucille Antowak Davis were guest speakers. The installation of Looking Both Ways at the Pratt Museum was made possible through the dedicated work of the museum’s staff, including director Michael Hawfield, education curator Gale Parsons, and collections curator Betsy Webb. The installation team was led by Alaska tour coordinator Judy Baletka (Anchorage Museum of History and Art) and by Rick Pelasara and Craig Huzway of the Smithsonian’s Office of Exhibits Central. Looking Both Ways will be at the Pratt through September 13, followed by appearances at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, the Alaska State Museum in Juneau, and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The exhibition catalog is available from the University of Alaska Press (www.uaf.edu/uapress or 1-888-252-6657) and educational materials (video, CD-ROM, and classroom guide) may be purchased through the Arctic Studies Center web site (www.mnh.si.edu/arctic). VIKINGS IN CANADA by Elisabeth Ward With Norwegian horses, royalty and a Viking ship on hand, Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga opened at the Canadian Museum of Civilisation in Hull, Quebec on May 7th. This magnificent museum, with undulating walls and large interior spaces, sits on the Ottawa River, just across from the Canadian Parliament Building. After spending a few days at the museum working with the staff, giving pre-opening tours and media interviews, Bill Fitzhugh was inspired to declare the museum the finest museum in North America to great applause of the assembled crowd on opening night, including King Haakon and Queen Sonja of Norway, Governor General of Canada Adrienne Clarkson, and Premier Jonathan Motzfeldt of Greenland. However, the impressiveness of the venue and the dedication of the staff were not the only factors that made this an excellent place to hold the Viking exhibition. The CMC was an important lender to the exhibition, supplying most of the artifacts that dealt with the question of contact between Norse and Native peoples, and Patricia Sutherland was a member of the original curatorial team responsible for developing the exhibition content. From the very outset the CMC was identified as one of the leading venues for the exhibition tour. Beyond the significant involvement of the CMC staff, the history of the Norse in North America is truly a Canadian story, and as such this exhibition, celebrating the 1,000 year anniversary of the arrival of Vikings in North America, belongs in Canada’s capital more than anywhere else in the world. All the authentic Viking and Norse artifacts found in North America, save one - the Norse penny from Maine - were found in Canada. This contradicts early theories of Norse explorations in North America, based on the sagas, which assumed that Leif Eriksson and his followers would have naturally continued southward. One of the main points of the exhibition was new reserach analyzing the northern perspective of the Norse, and their proclivity for arctic and sub-arctic environments rather than temperate regions. Of course, the exhibition was meant to highlight this information. In fact, the reason why the exhibition was organized in the United States and toured so extensively there was a Nordic Council decision based on the large population of Nordic descendants in the US who know so little about recent research into their Viking ancestors. Bill Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward were therefore surprised when an Ottawa citizen review of the exhibition took pains to point out the lack of U.S. participation in the Viking past, save through E X H I B I T I O N S Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga opening at CMC in Ottawa, May 7, ASC Newsletter 11 the popular conception of Scandinavian immigrants to the U.S. The reporter who started his article on the exhibition with, “Americans are suffering from a severe case of Viking envy,” while trying to be a bit tongue in cheek, seemed to enjoy the education gap between Americans and Canadians when it comes to understanding the historic role of the Vikings. From reading the review, which included such gems as, “the Canadian museum..[got] thanked in fine print at the back of the catalogue along with Iceland, Greenland and all the other American allies,” one would think the exhibition left Canada out, which is surely not the case. It was a sobering example of the realities of Canadian-US politics. One thing the reviews of the exhibition certainly were correct to identify was the exciting new research being done on the CMC Arctic archaeological collections by Patricia Sutherland. This research points to contacts between the Norse in Greenland and the Dorset, a paleo-eskimo population that lived in Arctic Canada from 500 B.C. to 1300 A.D. Pat Sutherland’s Helluland Project has been looking at the collections of Father Rouselliere’s archaeological digs at Dorset sites on Baffin Island and Richard Jordans 1977-8 excavations at the Avagalik Island site in northern Labrador as part of the Smithsonian-Bryn Mawr Torngat Project. Evidence from woven animal hairs, wooden artifacts, and depictions of human faces may yet prove more extensive contact between Norse and Dorset, if the radiocarbon dates can be reconciled. The excitement of a black-tie gala, argumentative media, and intriguing new research made the opening of Vikings at the CMC truly an event to remember. MODREN MONGOLIA EXHIBIT OPENS AND FIELDWORK HEATS UP! by Elise Krueger On July 3rd, NMNH opened a new exhibit illustrating the experiences of modern day Mongolians and Genghis Kahn’s continuing legacy in the region. Entilted Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan, the exhibit consists of a collection of artifacts, photographs and hands-on displays, which allow the visitors to experience Mongolian life. The University of Pennsylvania’s Paula Sabloff organized this exhibit with assistance from the National Museum of Mongolian History, which contributed many of the items on display. Dr. Sabloff and Dr. Ichinnorov, Director of the NMMH, were on hand to officially open the exhibition at NMNH, the second stop on its tour after premiering at the University of Pennsylvania. Modern Mongolia runs from July 3rd to October 31st at NMNH, and is accompanied by a book of the same title edited by Paula Sabloff. Perhaps one of the most exciting features of the exhibit are the three life-size gers, traditional Mongolian homes, which illustrate how the nomadic Mongolian lifestyle has changed over the last century. One of the purposes of Modern Mongolia is to show how the shifts in 20thcentury governments, from feudal to communist, and then to democratic, have affected the everyday lives of both nomads and settled communities. Each ger recreates a Mongolian home as it would most likely have existed under each of the three political systems. Using material culture to express political change in an exhibition is a novel approach developed by Dr. Sabloff, who is a political anthropologist. Also key to this exhibit are four films, made specifically for this exhibition, which provide a historic background to the exhibit, helping to clarify the relationship between Genghis Kahn and present-day Mongolians and their democratic ideals, some eight centuries later. Mongolians are turning to Genghis Khan’s administration as a model of an endemic state political system which depended on regional and individual level participation. Unique to the installation of the exhibition in Washington is a cast of a Mongolian deerstone, thanks to the efforts of Bill Fitzhugh. On Bill’s trip to Mongolia summer 2001, he was greatly impressed by the beauty, mystery, and antiquity of these Bronze Age monuments. So he convinced the two model-makers of the SI Office of Exhibits Central, Carolyn Thome and Paul Rhymer, to travel with him to Mongolia this summer and make a cast of a stone in situ, creating a replica back in their studio. Installing a cast of a deerstone at the Smithsonian should demonstrate for museum visitors the unique heritage of Mongolians and the richness of their culture. This cast will be the first deerstone to be exhibited outside of Mongolia. In conjunction with the exhibition, and as a follow up to Bill’s trip to Mongolia last summer, NMNH and the ASC has begun a new research initiative focused on Mongolia. Bill Fitzhugh and Matt Gallon recently visited Mongolia along with NMNH anthropologist Dan Rogers, and botanists Paula Depriest and Susan Lutz in order to look at deerstone sites, reindeer herding patterns and lichen diversity, and the development of urban centers. We will have more about this in future additions of the ASC Newsletter as this long-term multi-disciplinary research program evolves. The opening up of Mongolia has created a unique and exciting opportunity which Bill hopes will inspire new interest among western scholars in this little-known and only recently accessible area of Central Asia. Elisabeth Ward explains the significance of Viking artifacts at the CMC opening. Inside view of ger illustrating early 20th century feudal life in Mongolia. This ger along with two other half gers display different periods in recent Mongolian history. ASC Newsletter 12 O U T R E A C H WEBSITE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY By Elisabeth Ward In 1994, the world wide web revolution was just gaining speed: companies were becoming aware of the possibilities of e-business, researchers were excited about the free exchange of information, and brave individuals began setting up personal pages. But the internet had hardly become the mainstay of our daily lives, both at work and at home, that it is today. In those uncertain waters, the Arctic Studies Center first established its web presence, which went live in 1995. Because very few units at the Smithsonian at this time had generated websites, there were no rules or templates to guide the ASC in its endeavor. Consequently, in helping to pioneer a Smithsonian style website, Ted Timreck of Timreck Productions, who had collaborated with Bill Fitzhugh on film projects, solicited his friends John and Kathy Prusinki of S2N Media to help design the new site. The end product was a site teeming with information as befitting the knowledge contained at the Smithsonian, paired with a liberal use of bright colors and backgrounds. The site featured articles about current issues, including repatriation, research at the National Science Foundation, an overview of ASC research in Yamal, a virtual version of the Crossroads of the Continents exhibition, and an announcement of the creation of our Alaskan Office. And so a standard of informative and attractive website design was established. Furthermore, the inclusion of the extremely popular “Polar Pairs” game, intended to help kids learn about arctic animals, made the site attractive to a wide audience, and over the years this combination has earned the site a number of awards for excellence in educational and humanities based websites. Since the development of the first ASC website, we have continued to add new features, particularly information about exhibition projects such as Yupik Mask: Our Way of Making Prayer and Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. For our other major exhibition projects, Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, and Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People, we developed independent websites linked to the ASC site highlighted as features. These projects were able to include a web presence primarily because they were well funded, and money was set aside for developing a website. Such was not the case with the ASC website in general. For over six years, the content originally posted on the site sat virtually untouched, save a few minor and critical changes. That alone The new and improved Arctic Studies Center homepage. warranted a fresh look at the content to determine if it truly reflected the ASC’s expansion over the years. At the same time, the general web environment had evolved as well: people are more savvy about utilizing the web for specific information; technological advances had increased screen size and multi-media capabilities; and an esthetic of easily navigable sites had definitely emerged, along with Smithsonian guidelines of accessibility. Thanks to the support of the National Museum of the American Indian, our own ASC funds secured from sales of the Viking catalogue, and some grant funds from the Rasmusson Foundation, Nippon Foundation, and Smithsonian Scholarly Studies Funds, we were able to cobble together enough money to give the ASC site a badly needed facelift, and to add several new components. We were fortunate that S2N Media was able to fit this project into their busy schedule after submitting a wonderful, cost effective bid. We were also lucky to have the assistance of Sara Gonzales, a student from the University of California, San Diego, whose internship focused on the website update. Her fresh perspective on the site and her dedicated work in gathering all of the pieces together were a tremendous help. The first phase of the facelift is now complete, and we invite you to see, and hopefully admire, the results, posted at www.mnh.si.edu/arctic. You’ll notice a new homepage look and feel, which includes a watermark of the circumpolar world. Fortunately, during her stay with us, Sara had pointed out something the rest of us had missed: the original ASC website had no map of the Arctic! So, we tried to rectify that both on the homepage and as a downloadable PDF file in the “Resources” section. Sara spent a great deal of time developing additional components for that section by pouring over the many comments we have received over the years from visitors, resulting in an arctic glossary, frequently asked questions, and updated weblinks. This section also contains “Tools for Teachers” a listing of educational material such as teachers guides, CD Roms, and videos we have produced in conjunction with our projects. We hope to be able to expand on these offerings in the future. Another newly created section of the website is “Publications.” This link lists our newsletter issues, the exhibition catalogues we have worked on, and several of the more important staff publications, as well as ways people can obtain these publications. But the main purpose of this section is to highlight our newly created series, Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology (see article page 20). The first title, Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897 1902, is now available, just in time for the 100 year Jesup anniversary. Our website contains information about the volume ASC Newsletter 13 and an order form for the book. Unfortunately, the Smithsonian cannot process orders directly from our website, but we hope many people will e-mail, fax, or mail us the form to support our efforts in independent scholarly publishing. We will certainly be updating this section of the website as new titles are added, including Honoring our Elders: The History of North American Arctic Archaeology, a festschrift in honor of Elmer Harp, which will be available this fall. The Alaska Office pages were also revamped to expresses more accurately the special mandate of that office to work with and for Native Alaskans. Several other components were edited, and a few, such as “Northern Clans, Northern Peoples,” were deleted in lieu of a forthcoming statement of the Kennewick Man controversy by the Anthropology Department as a whole. The staff pages were updated, with a friendlier bio statement and more recent photographs, and a listing of internship possibilities has been posted, originally developed by the ASC outreach coordinator in Anchorage, Jennifer McCarty. In addition to these major changes, throughout the website you will notice an attractive and easy to use side navigation tool bar, which we hope will encourage people to explore our entire site. But wait, there is more! This is but phase one of the update. The next two phases will focus on developing new components based on recent and ongoing research that is presently not represented on our website. Perhaps the most glaring omission is a component focusing on Labrador, where Stephen Loring and Bill Fitzhugh have been working for years, and where most of our important research discoveries have been made. We continue to look for funds for a major website, but in the meantime, we plan to develop a modest component that captures the people, places, and history of Labrador. In addition, we will be posting a wonderful new component on the Ainu exhibition which utilizes 360 degree views of each exhibit room, close ups of objects with captions, video clips of Chisato Dubreiul, Bill Fitzhugh, and others discussing the exhibition, and Ainu music. Finally, the Alaska Collection Project (see pages 7-9), which is itself still in its early stages, will require a major web presence to fulfill its mandate to make the collections accessible to Native communities, which we hope to begin in the fall. So, bookmark us and keep checking back! ATANARJUAT PREMIERES By Frank Zeccola On Friday night, February 15th, 2002, Zacharias Kunuk’s award winning film Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, the first-ever dramatic film with an all-Inuit production and Inuit language screenplay, premiered at the National Geographic Society headquarters in the Gilbert H. Grosvenor Auditorium. Sponsored by National Geographic and the Embassy of Canada, the film was screened in a benefit for National Geographic’s new “Cultures Initiative” which aimes to preserve cultures at risk. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner won the prestigious Camera d’Or prize at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where the film premiered, and was recently named Best Canadian Feature at the Toronto International Film Festival. Retelling a thousand-year-old traditional Inuit legend, Atanarjuat paints a simple love story set in the 16th century arctic region of Igloolik. The Inuit cast, consisting of Natar Ungulaaq, Peter-Henry Amatsiaq, Lucy Tulugarjuk, and Sylvia Ivalu, portray the tale of true love conquering an arranged marriage while presenting the traditional Inuit way of life, from the elaborate facial tattoos worn by women to the hunter’s sleds built from caribou antlers and sinew. Throughout the film, director Zacharias Kunuk illustrates the importance of putting group needs above individual desires as he simultaneously destroys the aboriginal stereotypes which plague native people today. The film opened commercially in the United States on June 7th, 2002. Zacharias Kunuk was recognized by the Smithsonian Institution in 1993, when he was awarded the Andris Slapins Memorial Film Award, by the Arctic Studies Center, for his film entitled “Nunaqpa.” When Kunuk began writing films in the 1980’s, he explored different ways of telling his people’s story based on Inuit oral storytelling traditions, which have been silenced by fifty years of religious propaganda, schools, television, and popular movie portrayals of Native Americans. Kunuk’s quest has been to bring Inuit storytelling into the new Millennium, to give a voice to Inuit elders before they pass away, to strengthen the Inuit community through an accurate representation of Inuit life, and to save Inuit people from repression. The Slapins Award, funded by a grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding supports filmmakers working with northern voices and communities. The award is named for Andris Slapins, a Latvian filmmaker who conducted film projects with the Smithsonian in Siberia, Alaska, and Labrador in the late 1980’s. Slapins is best known in North America for his contributions to Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska, a travelling exhibition produced jointly by the Smithsonian, the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR, and Canadian and American museums. Slapins also documented the demise of the Soviet Union, and was killed by snipers in January of 1991while filming a populist uprising on Latvia’s interior ministry in Riga, for a follow-up to the 1990 film “Homeland,” by Juris Podnieks which Slapins filmed. The Slapins award is a memorial honoring the life and work of Andris Slapins, and is given by the ASC to his colleagues as they document northern peoples and cultures in a manner consistent with Andris’s ideals of honesty, beauty, art, respect, and courage. Previous recipients of the award include: 1991: Mark Soosaar for “Man of Kihnu Island” and Woman of Kihnu” 1992: Asen Balikci and Mark Badger for “Siberia through Siberian Eyes” 1993: Zacharias Kunuk for “Nunaqpa” 1994: Andrei Golovnev, of Tobolosk, Russia, for “Gods of Yamal” 1995: Nigel Markham, of St. John’s Newfoundland, for “Hunters and Brothers” 1997: Sven Haakanson, of Kodiak, Alaska, for “Nenets Reindeer Herders of Yamal, Western Siberia” 1998: Sara Elder, of Buffalo New York, for “Shooting Films with Alaskan Native Communities: A Retrospective Look at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, 1972-1998" 2000: Katherine Harris, of the Micmac tribe, for “Spirit World” The commercial showing of Kunuk’s Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner demonstrates the maturing of native films from under- acknowledged masterpieces to widespread commercial successes. To promote the future success of northern filmmakers, a session at the World Archeological Conference in Washington DC in 2003 will be held by the ASC to support native films. That will mark the end of the annual Andris Slapins award, which has been generously supported by The Trust for Mutual Understanding. ASC Newsletter 14 R E S E A R C H RESEARCH IN IGLOOLIK, NUNAVUT By Jennifer Shannon In 2004, the National Museum of the American Indian, currently under construction on the national Mall in Washington, DC, will open its doors to the public. The inaugural exhibitions will include three galleries featuring 26 Native communities from throughout the Western Hemisphere. Each gallery is developed through direct and ongoing consultation with Native community members. During each phase of exhibit development, community members select, revise and approve the content of their exhibit. This iterative process, with community-defined content and community-directed research, reflects the NMAI’s commitment to Native authority and self-representation. The Inuit community of Igloolik, Nunavut, will be one of eight Native communities represented in the Our Lives gallery, which focuses on contemporary Native identities. Located on a small island in Foxe Basin, Igloolik is a community of approximately 1300 people who live in prefabricated houses situated along the arch of Turton Bay, facing a flat expanse of ice and snow that reaches to the horizon. Behind the town lies the only piece of elevated land on the island—a small hill, or plateau—where the community’s cemeteries are located. Igloolik was selected as part of this inaugural exhibition for a number of reasons. Geographically, at the time that work began on the Our Lives gallery, no community from the eastern arctic or the new Native territory of Nunavut was represented in the inaugural exhibitions. The Inullariit Society’s Oral History project (containing interviews with elders since the early 1980s) and the Igloolik Research Center drew us to this particular community within the territory, as did its reputation for cultural initiatives between elders and youth. In addition, the Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, its archive headquarters and the Social and Development Council are all located in this small community. In June 2001, I traveled to Igloolik with Cynthia Chavez, curator of the Our Lives gallery, to invite the community to participate in the exhibition. At this time, the town seemed deserted because most of the Igloolik residents were camping out on the land for the summer, a tradition that the Inuit have practiced for hundreds of years. But, we met with members of the Inullariit Society (an elders’ society), who accepted our invitation and designated a group of six “co-curators” with whom we would work closely to develop the exhibit. These elders recommended that we plan our next visit for the fall, when more people would be in town after returning from camping out on the land, and the children would be back in school. I returned to Igloolik that November, and then again in April 2002. During these visits, it was important to develop the content for the exhibit, as well as to encourage wider community participation and awareness of the project. As the Lead Researcher for the Our Lives gallery, I conducted workshops with the co-curators, gave presentations to high school classes, held meetings for young people, attended student council and youth committee meetings, talked about our project on the local radio station, attended Hamlet Council meetings and conducted individual interviews with community members of all ages. I also put up posters about the exhibit and visited the various organizations in town. During my April trip, a man with whom I was visiting in the community suggested that I go seal hunting with him to experience life out on the land, and to see people dressed in sealskin boots at the floe edge. When I asked how long we would be gone, he said we would be back in time for the hockey game on TV— the Toronto Maple Leafs were playing the Rangers that evening. However, the hunting trip that afternoon was postponed for a few hours because his Internet connection at work was down and he needed to send off an email before closing up for the day. Unfortunately, the wind picked up, and, because of the poor weather conditions, we decided to cancel the trip. I have yet to experience being out on the land. To be with people as they are in town, and to not share their life on the land, is to understand only half of what this community and their lives are about. For this reason, community consultation and participation is so important to these exhibits. From our perspective, the community members are the experts on their own lives and their community: they bring their own experiences, insights and direction into how their community should be presented and what information and materials should be included in their exhibit. From there, NMAI provides the means, resources, suggestions and expertise on how to organize and create the exhibit. Now that we have established a relationship and ongoing consultation with community members, we realize there are many more reasons why this community is a valuable component to a gallery that confronts stereotypes and takes on complex issues of Native identity, the challenges that face Native people, and the strategies they use to create and maintain the balance and vibrancy of their communities today. In Igloolik, a hunting trip can be postponed due to slow Internet connections, or shortened to catch a game on TV. People wear caribou skin parkas with Gore-Tex pants, or hunt using gaffs made with metal hooks lashed to ice hockey sticks. There are teen dances with strobe lights and Daft Punk, and Return of the Sun festivals with qulliqs (stone oil lamps) and ayaya songs. Walking past peoples’ yards, I saw frozen seals, stretched caribou skins, Skidoos, sleds, Jeeps, a dog team, and even a violin. When I was invited into peoples’ homes, there were teapot collections, scary movies, country foods (like caribou meat) in containers on the kitchen floor, fermented walrus meat outside in the snow next to the porch and the Lord’s Prayer hanging on the wall. Igloolik is a place where each person and each family strikes their own balance, and the people are adjusting—not to being either traditional or innovative—but to find, as one Inuk explained to me, “what works.” COINCIDENCE OR SYMBOL? STUDIES OF GREENLANDIC CLOTHING By Mariane Petersen Between March 29-31, I attended a conference entitled “Arctic Clothing of North America, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland,” as the representative of the Greenland National Museum and Archives. The conference was held at the British Museum in London, England, and was hosted by the Department of Ethnography. Three Greenlandic women skin-sewers also participated. Today, many Greenlandic women still continue to make skin clothing, including those at the Arnat Ilinniarfiat, The Women’s High School in Sisimiut, West Greenland, who carry on ancient skin treatment and ASC Newsletter 15 sewing traditions, and others who produce modern clothing woven from tanned skins. Each of the women discussed different aspects of Greenlandic clothing: the national costume, the use of different skins in these garments, and the production of replicas of the Qilakitsoq Mummy costumes for a museum in Greenland. I also contributed to the conference as a participant. Our conservator and I displayed and discussed various traditional Greenlandic costume parts, including costumes made from the skins of birds, foxes and seals, as well as the amaat, which is a special garment use by women which has a large hood for carrying a baby. Polar bear skin trousers for men and boys, short fox-skin trousers for women, and footwear were also presented. All of these costumes had been used at some point between the late nineteenth century and the 1930’s and were part of a return from the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen to the Greenland National Museum and Archives. The return included costumes and parts of costumes collected originally from the Thule area in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as other costumes from various parts of Greenland dating to this same period. My contribution focused primarily on two of these costumes which raised several complicated questions that have interested me for years, and I have still been unable to completely answer them. The questions were addressed to the audience, accompanied by slides displaying these phenomena. I am hoping readers of this article can also help me discover the answers. One of the questions concerns the presence of fox claws that are found in the fox-skin trousers of Thule women; the other question is the meaning of a strange boot pattern found in the footwear of the Ammassalik District in East Greenland from the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. When I examined the costumes that were returned to Greenland, I noticed that the women’s fox-skin trousers had fox paws placed between the legs. The paws projected backwards below the crotch and were sewn on both sides so that the claws faced in opposite directions with a short distance between them. On one pair of trousers there were fox-paws with three claws on each side facing one another, and on another there were two claws. Immediately I wondered what could be the meaning of these paws and their positioning? Why were the claws placed just there, between the legs? Are they symbols? If so, what do they symbolize? Even on a pair of fox-skin trousers of more recent date, I found similar fox-paws with one claw on each side. First we began looking for possible explanations in the Thule area, where the costumes were found. We sent an enquiry to the Qaanaq/Thule museum requesting assistance and ideas from elderly people who might remember the meaning of these paws, but these enquiries produced no satisfactory answers. So I adopted a more direct approach and began asking people myself. Most people thought the appearance of these claws indicated that the seamstresses were attempting to use every part of the fox in making their clothing while others thought it probably meant nothing. The first answer seems to make the most sense. But then why leave the claws in the trousers? And why place them between the legs? It is possible that the people in Thule have repressed their knowledge of the meaning of these trousers because they associate them with heathen times. Such repression is common among Thule area people in modern times. Still, it is not likely that everyone has simply forgotten the explanation, for these trousers were used only a few generations ago. I have also tried to find an explanation for these claws in various books dealing specifically with costumes in the Thule area, but so far I have not come across this phenomenon. To this day, I have received no concrete answers. The answers I have been given have been qualified with much uncertainty, and so these vague answers cannot be considered proper explanations. Can it be that no one has ever noticed the phenomenon? It would appear so! I am sure it would have been discussed if anyone from the outside had known about it. The other subject of the conference, just as fascinating to me, was the strange form of footwear worn by the Ammassalik population until the beginning of the twentieth century. On this form of West Greenlandic footwear, the sole is sewn directly onto the upper leather. Furthermore, in certain cases, especially in gala kamiks used on special occasions, intermediate layers, known as pussarut, which are folded white strips of depilated, frost-bleached seal skin, were sewn between the upper leather and the sole. On the East Greenlandic kamiks from the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, there could be up to nine layers of folded skin strips between the upper leather and the sole. With the many layers, the upper leather of the kamik takes on a strange, elevated form. Do these many layers of sealskin mean something? Was it merely a fashion phenomenon? Or was it used to demonstrate the tremendous sewing skills of the wives, or perhaps to compare the skills of one wife with those of another? Certainly, the more intermediate layers there are in the footwear, the more dexterous one must be in order to sew them all together. Was it an indication of the seamstress’s vanity? Could it have something to do with making the footwear as waterproof as possible? Over the years, I have tried to uncover these answers by asking elderly people in the Ammassalik district, although I have not received any clear responses. I have also looked in books that deal with cultural elements in the Ammassalik area. These have provided no answers either. Has the meaning of this phenomenon been forgotten or perhaps repressed? After all, these kamiks are also from the time when the East Greenlanders were still heathens. I received some interesting information just before I went to London for the conference. I informed one of my acquaintances, who comes from the Close up of women’s fox skin pants, with fox teeth still attached, from Thule, Northwest Greenland. A man’s boot, from Ammassalik, East Greenland. ASC Newsletter 16 Ikpik River The Ikpik river flows out from Lake Gillian whose source begins with the melt water pouring out from beneath the Barnes Ice cap. The water along the course from the ice cap to the sea is cold, turbulent and where confined by the steep banks of the river, has powerful currents. It is a river one can hear as well as see as it rushes toward the sea. Near its mouth, it has carved deeply into the south bank creating a fascinating panorama by exposing a vertical expanse of ground ice. It is one of several rivers in the region supporting a seasonal population of arctic char. I found no traces of a sappotit, a traditional stone fish weir, probably because the strong currents made building them impractical. I named the place Killinga simply meaning... the edge, for future reference. Killinga Ikpik River derives its Inuktitut name Ikpik from the high prominent hill dominating the area. About 300 m up river from the Father Fournier site you begin to encounter small, undistinguished inuksuit generally in a line leading inland. Another 120 m. along a ridge paralleling the river takes you to Killinga. This is the first site I found. It is a beautiful place to behold. One faces the rushing river with a 10 m high backdrop of exposed ground ice on its other side. The patterns on the ground ice face are striking and tempt the imagination with all manner of fanciful imagery. The roaring and rushing river in the foreground creates the illusion that you are swiftly moving. I mentioned earlier favored locations related to habitation and hunting. There is another type of favored location where one goes to find solace, wonder about things or pay respect to the entities embedded in one’s belief. At Killinga, if you look very carefully, a circle about 4.5 m in diameter can be discerned surrounded by several small and simple inuksuk-like structures. To the left of and very close to the circle is an obvious sitting place with a small Iga fireplace. Nearby, are two separate little Piqattarviit child’s play areas no larger than one’s outstretched arms. Small stones of various colors and little pieces of bone representing things in the children’s imagination have been placed there. Close by was a very old tent ring flush with the ground and only large enough for a single family. About midway up the slope of the Ikpik the high hill, is a large caribou cache with the antlers placed upon its top. It is here where one can hear the roar of the torrent up river. On the particular day I was at the Ikpik River site the sea was glass calm. Large flocks of Pitsiulaaqs, sea pigeons or black guillemots were drifting about upon their own reflections and far out upon the horizon one could see a thin white line. It was the sea ice that never completely disappears, moving to the pull of tide and push of wind. Flying SSE from Ikpik to the Piling Lake area takes you across some of the most interesting terrain in the entire region. It has valleys, steep cliffs, worn down mountains, numerous rivers and Flint Lake whose opaque and emerald green waters originate at the Barnes Ice Cap. It is possible to see caribou trails along some of the valleys from the air. There are a few inuksuit in the area whose location suggest trail indicators when traveling in winter. We did find one site of particular interest. It consisted of a narrow valley about1 km. in length, flanked by steep ridges on each side and tapered to a narrow passage about 35 m. wide. Strung across the narrow end were several, evenly spaced inuksuit which were about the size of a human. The lichens growing across, where the stones of the inuksuit contacted one another suggested that the site was used when caribou were hunted with lances and bow and arrow. It was the practice in those times for women and children to frighten the caribou so that Ammassalik area, that the question of this East Greenlandic phenomenon still bothers me, and that I would like to find an explanation. This acquaintance contacted an elderly relative, who told us that his grandmother used to know a prosperous hunter’s wife who was good at sewing skins. The woman, we were told, used to sew seven layers between the upper leather and the soles of kamiks. Why exactly seven layers? I asked. Does the figure seven mean something? Is it a coincidence? The person I contacted could not explain it. And although the conference was great exposure for the question, no answers were provided. These are two very interesting issues with which someone may be able to help us. If you have any information regarding any of these questions, please contact me at the Greenland National Museum. IKPIK JOURNAL EXCERPTS Ethnogeography in the Piling Lake area of Central Baffin Island, 2001 by Norman Hallendy Foreword This is a portion from a much longer, more detailed report. The report along with 156 photographs of objects sites and other features was written to accompany the 2001 field report on the work carried out by the Geological Survey (GSC) of Canada in central Baffin Island. Dr. Marc St-Onge, GSC project coordinator and leader of the Central Baffin Project, invited me to join the field party for a brief period during the summer of 01. The invitation provided an opportunity to look around for possible traces of human habitation. Rhoda Inuksuk, an interesting woman born in the Piling area informed me that there are many very old Inuit sites in the region and that her ancestors hunted there as long as anyone can remember. Background An educated guess as to where it was possible to find some traces of human presence in the area was based on likely areas where hunters would have set up seasonal camps, fly camps and built caches as well as potential hunting areas. The term inigijuminaqtun in the Dorset dialect means favoured locations. The term utirnigiit means traces of coming and going, found at favoured locations. Searching for inigijuminaqtun requires looking for places having some or all of the following: fresh water nearby; natural shelter from the prevailing wind; convenient access to the sea; a safe landing place; nearby rocks which can be arranged to make caches, shelters, fireplaces etc.; hauling out places where large sea mammals can be conveniently butchered. One should also be observant of the surrounding vegetation particularly the lack or abundance of it as well as its color and concentration. Lush patches of grasses, sedges and brightly flowering plants may indicate where faunal remains are present or the sunken remains of an ancient dwelling may exist. Nunarait is a general term in Inuktitut once used to denote fauna and flora of little relevance. In southwest Baffin it referred to the abundant flora which grows upon old sites. The presence of bright orange lichen Xanthoria elegans likes growing on bones and rocks white washed by birds and can indicate hauling out places or where animals were butchered. ASC Newsletter 17 they would flee toward the waiting hunters. The valley with its steep sides and a gate of inuksuit at its narrowest point formed a perfect corral confining the caribou for slaughter. From an ethnogeographic perspective, it is the behavior of caribou that defines the patterns of human activity in the Piling. Having spent spring and early summer in the vicinity of the Barnes Ice Cap they move toward the coast in mid-summer and fall. Further down the coast from Piling, they tend to move back and forth along the coast. Sixty-nine caches were examined in the Piling area ... all were empty. Very few caches were hastily built. The majority were carefully constructed to protect their contents over a long period. This indicates that the caribou were hunted mainly in the fall when the animals were in their prime. Those killed earlier would have been quickly consumed and their skins fit only for sleeping upon. Caribou cached in the late spring and summer often become infested with maggots the meat is then fit only for dog food. Inuktitut place names can be very helpful in trying to understand the nature and character of place. For example, in the area where we were, was a place named Amaroktalik meaning “where the wolves are” this would indicate an area which supported a sustainable caribou population. A reasonable extension of this logic would lead one to speculate that hunting activity took place in the area over a considerable time. In turn, caches, temporary camps, hunting blinds and inuksuit would likely be found in the area, as it turned out, they were. Inuksullarik About 35 km SSW from base camp is Inuksulik Lake, “the place of the important inuksuk”. On the north shore at near the mid point of the lake is an extraordinary site. As the name of the lake implies, it is the place of the very important inuksuk. From a distance this stone figure standing about 2.5 m high upon a ridge resembles an inunnguaq, the figure in human like form rather than an inuksuk, that which acts in the capacity of a human. Upon examining this remarkable figure I realized that it was indeed an inuksuk. What was unique about its construction was that it was constructed of long fairly regular unworked stone which was not just stacked but carefully cribbed as one would construct a crib for a dock. Of the hundreds of inuksuit I have documented I have never come across an inuksuk constructed in this manner. What at first resembled arms, were pointers, one pointing inland and the other toward the sea. Lying about the base of the inuksuk were other pointers. Because the inuksuk was built in a crib fashion one could insert a pointer in any one of the following four points: toward the sea, toward the caribou trails inland, southward to the caribou trails along the coast and northward to the places of importance at Piling and to Satorssuaq the Baird Peninsula. This inuksuk referred to as an inuksullarik because of its importance, with its movable pointers was indeed a remarkable construction. Looking carefully into the crevices of the inuksullarik I could find no tunnijait “gifts” usually in the form of a few cartridges or perhaps an interestingly shaped stone etc. left by hunters or some member of the family. Off to the northern side of the inuksullarik were two large napataq single stone inuksuit. They ranged in size from 2.1 m to 1.8 m in height. Examining the Rhisocarpon growing between the joints of the inuksullarik suggested that the construction was at least 200 years old. Quite close to the inuksullarik was a small temporary shelter made of rocks less than 2 m in diameter If one walked from the inuksullarik down a slope and across the tundra to a small outcrop 91 m distant, you would discover a single line of inuksuit each about knee high as if connecting a landing place to the inuksullarik upon the ridge. This connection was unfamiliar to me but I was to see it again on another site a few days later. I believe that the Inuksullarik site was a major coordination point. Standing at the site one can see other inuksuit far in the distance. In turn, the Inuksullarik can be seen from a considerable distance from all directions. It is situated between three main travel routes leading inland to where caribou were hunted. Kattimavik: The Ceremonial Site On the north side of the tip of Index Point between Piling Lake and Piling Bay is a impressive site occupying about 85 sq. m. It has numerous features the most prominent being two separate stone walled meeting places, hence the reason for naming the place Kattimavik. The stone walls are about shoulder high and each structure is approximately 7.6 m in diameter. Curiously, every structure of this kind that I have come across whether in south Baffin, or in the Keewatin have been (give or take a fraction of a meter) between 7 and 7.8 m in diameter. Given the location of the site straddling the sea and a lake, elevated enough for adequate protection, having abundant loose rock that could be moved easily and facing the setting sun made it an ideal location for gatherings, feasts, ceremonies and games. The following features were recorded: 5 inuksuit, 1 work or meat drying platform, 7 unknown stone structures, 9 single upright stones (napataq), 4 qajaq or kamutik stands, 1 fireplace (iga), 61 tent rings, 78 well constructed caches with three containing a few caribou remains and the two meeting places. In all, we recorded 168 features in the immediate vicinity but I’m certain more are thereabouts. Down by the water’s edge is a small midden containing a few seal bones and several broken caribou bones. All the bone matter has lichen growing upon it, mostly xanthoria. The most notable bone material found on the site was the upper part of a small bowhead whale’s skull. In all Multi-directional Inuksuk with remaining “arms” pointing toward the sea and in the opposite direction toward caribou hunting grounds. The inuksuk in the foreground is a nalunaikkutaq, a “deconfuser”, marking an alignment of inuksuit leading inland. (Photo by Norman Hallendy, Tuklilik Project.) ASC Newsletter 18 probability the whale became stranded in the nearby shallows and would have occasioned much feasting as well as providing material for sled runners, snow knives, fuel for oil lamps, rafters for dwellings, cutting boards, ulu handles etc. The Initiation Site Of the sites discovered this was the site that beguiled me. It too is located on one of the points in the Piling Lake area. Sitting atop a ridge about 30 m from the water’s edge on the north side is an unusual circle of 15 inuksuit forming a circle approximately 23 m in diameter. There is one particular inuksuk from which one sees clearly the form of an almost perfect circle. From this perspective one also sees the opening to a small enclosure situated in the middle of the circle. Nearby is a large flat stone at table height with a small inuksuk standing on top at one end. The uncovered enclosure made of stone, is only large enough to contain a seated figure. Three small inuksuit stand side by side from the end of the “table”. Close by and within the circle are two objects resembling very small graves. I don’t know what they are nor what, if anything, lies hidden within. The inuksuit varying in size from 1 -1.5 m in height are well constructed and include napataq single upright stones which give the place an eerie appearance from a distance. The site is absolutely clean. I’ve noticed sites in southwest Baffin and in the Keewatin where one is required to be respectful saqqijaaringialik were always clean except for perhaps a fragment of bone left by a fox. Whether I had discovered a saqqijaaringialik or an angaku’habvik a shaman’s initiation place I was not absolutely sure. I am sure it is one or the other and probably the latter. I lean toward this conclusion because the site resembles an angaku’habvik I was taken to at Arviatjuaq in the Keewatin several years ago. This site is interesting because of the enclosure at its center, the table like structure and a series of strange parallel markings in the surface of the granite all of which are encircled by inuksuit. There is a distinct and well-worn pathway leading to the site and opposite to this pathway and parallel to it, is another less traveled pathway. Auyuittuq The land that never melts: The Barnes Ice Cap Unquestionably, the most important feature in this part of Baffin is Auyuittuq, the Barnes Ice Cap. Its irregular shape, 23 km at its narrowest and 58 km at its widest point resembles a slab of rising bread dough. Undoubtedly every person who has studied this ice cap sees it in the context of their discipline. As an ethnogeographer who has learned his skill while traveling with the Inuit I tend to view Auyuittuq as the shaper of the landscape, the determiner of weather, the source of fast flowing rivers that carved the valleys thus providing caribou trails. Its water floods the western flatlands and fills the ponds where clouds of snow geese return to nest year after year. It pours vast quantities of fresh water into the sea and by altering its salinity affects the the sea’s ecosystem in this entire region. A very old Inuktitut term comes to mind in describing the nature of Auyuittuq, its Siqqitiqtuq meaning, the very power of transformation. On July 20, 2001 we set our helicopter down on top of Auyuittuq. Looking about, we saw only ice. It seemed as if all the clouds in our sky arose from the shimmering horizon that encircled us. We stood transfixed in a vast brightness. We could hear muffled sounds from somewhere deep beneath us. Torrents of crystal clear water which had been set free from its icy state burst from the surface carving its way toward the unseen sea. All about our feet were little indentations in the ice about the size of one¹s cupped hands. Each was filled with melt water. In each water filled indentation were tiny little plant like organisms without roots stems or leaves... we call algae. There they were, not much larger than specs of dust getting all their nutritional needs from sunlight and as a world wide group, these tiny little specs of living matter were photosynthesizing the bulk of the oxygen of our planet. We were in the presence of a place that filled us with a lasting sense of awe and wonder. Summary and Thanks I was surprised by the apparent lack of available information concerning the human experience related to the Piling area. Artifacts ranging from whalebone sled runners, Thule-style dwellings, stone fox traps to an enameled chamber pot and other more recent articles suggest considerable activity over a sustained period in the Piling Lake area. Perhaps the stories and accounts if ever recorded, lie in the archives in Igloolik or buried in the files of the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project The leading questions in my mind are “what is the nature of the big picture?” How does Auyuittuq influence the weather and the entire ecosystem of the area including the sea life? Why... would a place so far from home be it Igloolik or Kangiqtugaapik (Clyde River) have: such an impressive ceremonial site, a carefully constructed initiation site, semi-permanent dwellings, hundreds of inuksuit, and countless caches created by a people so dependent on a single source of food, caribou? And what lies to the south of Piling where the caribou move back and forth along the coast? Is there more? NJAL’S SAGA LANDSCAPE STUDY by Elisabeth Ward “They went up to Raudaskrida and waited. From there they could see the others when they rode west from Dal. The sun was shining and the skies were clear that day. Thrain came riding down from Dal along the gravel plain. Lambi said, “shields are shining over there at Raudaskrida when the sun hits them; some men must be waiting there in ambush.” “Then,” said Train, “let’s turn and ride down along the river. They will come to meet us if they have Shaman’s initiation site - Piling lake area. (Photo by Norman Hallendy, Tukilik Project.) ASC Newsletter 19 any business with us.” -excerpt of Njal’s Saga from The Complete Sagas of Icelanders. When I first began reading the Icelandic sagas in college, I was captivated by descriptions like the one above. Beyond the compelling characters, the understated drama masked by sparse dialogue, and the quick action, it was the sense of place and movement across the landscape that I immediately connected with. When reading them in the original old Icelandic, I derived great pleasure from parsing the names of places to discover that the party was not just waiting, as in the example above, at “Raudaskrida,” an anonymous place, but rather they were waiting at the Red Cliffs. Somehow understanding the component parts of place names, and seeing the logic behind them, made them far more memorable. And in my trips around the island with my Icelandic relatives, I had developed a keen interest in the geography of Iceland, which the sagas only fueled by helping me understand the significance of such places as Ingolfsholti, the spot where Ingolfur, the first settler of Iceland, made landfall. It was like being let into a secret society through learning the special handshake: I now had the means to transform Iceland’s strangeness into something very familiar. In literary studies of the sagas, the symbolism of the landscape is remarked upon, and of course philologists rejoice at the abundant use of compounds for place names. Closer to anthropology, folklorists have often tried to claim the sagas as their own, arguing that they are an oral tradition written down rather than a work of literature. Indeed, many Scandinavian folktales contain explanations for landscape features and place names, with tales relating that small islands just off of a given shore are actually three giants frozen by the benevolent landspirits, etc. It was in this vein that I first began to think about the relationship of the sagas to the average Icelander. Unlike literature, and more like a living folktale tradition, the sagas are known, retold, and remembered by every Icelander. With constant reminders of Saga Age people and places everywhere in the landscape, it is virtually unavoidable. So when Igor Krupnik and Ted Birkedal of the National Parks Service began discussing plans for a volume on the cultural importance of landscapes, I could not resist chiming in with my own observations of the importance of landscapes in Iceland, especially saga landscapes. As Igor’s project grew into a volume on northern ethnographic landscapes, he invited me to contribute a chapter on Iceland to round out the circumpolar perspective. I immediately decided that a place I had heard of in southern Iceland, called the Saga Center, where bus tours were conducted for tourist to take them through the “saga landscape,” would be an ideal focal point for such a chapter. However, the problem was I had never been to the Saga Center: I had just seen fliers about it several summers earlier. With no research funds, I discussed how I might be able to make a site visit to the Saga Center with Icelandic Ambassador Jon Baldvin Hannibalsson and Atli Asmundsson of the Foreign Ministry. Ambassador Hannibalsson thought about it for a moment, then suggested I be in touch with Arthur Bjorgvin Bollason, the director of the Saga Center, and a “true patriot” who would be pleased to have his center be the Icelandic focus for this multi- national volume. Arthur proved to be a most accommodating host, arranging complementary housing for me at a lovely summer house on the “River Hillside” just down the road from the house of Gunnar, the hero character in Njal’s Saga. Thanks also to Icelandair for providing my travel tickets. I spent 10 days at the Saga Center, experiencing life in the valley where the Raudaskrida rises above the gravel plain of a glacial river, in the Rangasysla region of southwestern Iceland. That region is now known also as Njalasloð, the area where Njal’s Saga took place. The Saga Center is both the product and the producer of this concept whereby a story is paired in a very literal sense with the landscape. Tourists take a bus ride which begins at the farm where the opening lines of Njal’s Saga are set. The bus tour then proceeds through the landscape, encountering the places in roughly the same order that readers would encounter them if reading the saga themselves. A bus guide/narrator fills in the gaps between places, and makes other observations about the landscape. While many details are left out, a visitor who takes the bus tour really does come to know the saga and the landscape at the same time. To my American sensibilities, the tour bus with guide had a Disney like quality to it, but I soon came to appreciate through interviews with the local guides that what was being presented was not the fabrication of a marketing man or tourism expert, but rather the outgrowth of a centuries-old tradition in the region which has kept the characters and the place-names a source of endless discussion and pleasure. The visitors on the bus tours— normally groups comprised either of Icelanders or of foreign tourists, surprisingly in almost equal amounts— were also generous in sharing their reflections on the Njalasloð experience. Though some came well versed in the saga (including one couple who were honeymooning in Iceland after the groom had finished a degree in Old English), most were more interested in learning about the landscape. I found that the bus tour provided a wonderful means for local guides to represent their area to national and international visitors, a juncture of local identity informing national identity. My research at Njalasloð proved to be a more intellectually complex situation than I had imagined, underscoring for me the central place that sagas hold in the Icelandic conception of self. In a practice-oriented mode, Igor hopes that this unique example of how landscapes of cultural importance can be preserved and presented to the public in a meaningful way will be compelling for the National Park Service, which commissioned this volume, perhaps proving an example of what can be done elsewhere. Many thanks to Arthur Bjorgvin for bringing his insights as co-author to the article for the volume, which will be forthcoming in the fall. Raudaskrida, the Red Cliffs, in Southwest Iceland. One of many landscapes figuring in Njal’s Saga. ASC Newsletter 20 P U B L I C A T I O N PUBLICATION UPDATE: GATEWAYS LEADS THE WAY by Elisabeth Ward In January of 2002, a shipment of 40 boxes of the book Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1898-1902 arrived on the dock of the National Museum of Natural History. This engaging volume—full of insight into the lives and work of the members of the Jesup Expedition team and the modern applications their research is finding today—is wonderfully illustrated by over 70 archival photographs in 364 pages, including index. With our stock on hand, the Arctic Studies Center began filling orders for Gateways in early February. If you would like one, the book sells for $18 (shipping included). Please fill out the order form enclosed in this newsletter. The successful printing of the Gateways volume was the culmination of a full year of work, and an incredible learning curve for the Arctic Studies Center. When Bill Fitzhugh and Igor Krupnik first conceived of the ASC publication series, and Bill talked Igor into being its main editor and Elisabeth Ward into being the production manager, there was no readily available blue-print to follow: academic-research- center-turned-publishing-house is not unheard of, but how such a model should work within the structure of the ever-changing Smithsonian was another matter all together. Thankfully, there were a few people willing to offer their advice, including Tish O’Connor of Perpetual Press, Kathy Sims of Sim Design, and Duke Johns of the Smithsonian Institution Press who all knew about the Arctic Studies Center’s desire to try out desk-top publishing, and offered much sage advice and contact names. There are also a number of useful websites for small publishers, which proved to be immensely helpful, especially in locating printers specializing in small print runs. Perhaps the greatest assistance was the recommendation of some freelance editors, including Nancy Levine and Nancy Benco. Our two Nancy’s set to work, each on separate projects. Nancy Levine edited the Gateways volume, even employing a bit of her under-utilized Russian language skills, and heroically agreed to also proofread it for us (although her eyes may have regretted it). Nancy Benco jumped into our next prepared volume, Honoring Our Elders: The History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology, exercised her considerable knowledge of archaeology and editing, a unique and valuable pairing. After the Gateways manuscript was cleaned-up by Nancy Levine, Elisabeth worked with a designer, Anya Vinokour, to whip the manuscript into a Page Maker file, which took quite a bit longer than expected, thanks to less-than-suitable computer systems and unanticipated hurdles such as discovering photos that look good on one’s monitor often print horribly! Many thanks to the patient folks at United Book Press, especially Steve Reim, for teaching us the right way to color-correct photographs. Other, more anticipated challenges included determining where to store the books at the Smithsonian (“Just ignore the ‘no storage allowed here’ sign…”). It became quickly apparent that in addition to the demands of printing a book, once the book is finished, the work is not done! Publicity for the series, especially through update of the Arctic Studies Center website (see page 12) became the next priority, and then it was necessary to set up a database to track orders and create invoices. Elisabeth just now in June managed to establish a system for processing credit card orders (though we request those be limited to international customers only), but with that, the various pieces are now in place for the Arctic Studies Center to become an efficient distribution house. Well, not to make excuses, but all of this, coupled with our small staff size and competing priorities, made our original goal of completing both Gateways and Elders within months of each other truly unattainable. Thankfully, Igor and Stephen Loring had other publication projects (see below) to keep the momentum going, and as always, there are more on the way! But for now, all attention is on Honoring Our Elders: The History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology. Edited by William Fitzhugh, Stephen Loring, and Daniel Odess, this publication delightfully mixes data-rich analytical papers with more personal accounts of leading figures in the field of Arctic Archaeology. The papers were assembled in honor of Elmer Harp’s 80th birthday in 1992, and we had sincerely hoped for it to be completed by his 90th birthday this last April. It was a frustrating experience in getting the book publisehd that convinced us to start our own series. We now anticipate a mid-fall completion date. With the help of two terrific interns, Lori Beth Mahaney and Elise Krueger, Elders is now in the final layout stages, and after proofreading and final edits, will be off to the printer early in the fall. With apologies to Elmer and our patient authors, we believe the volume will be a valuable contribution to our many colleagues, and also a welcoming introduction to any newcomers. And of course, we are accepting advance orders! Also forthcoming in the Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology series will be Akuzilleput Igaqullghet: Our Words Put to Paper. This Sourcebook of St. Lawrence Island Heritage and History, edited by Igor Krupnik, Willis Walunga and Vera Metcalf and compiled by Igor Krupnik and Lars Krutak was first printed in small numbers in 2000 (See ASC NL #9). This new printing will be copyright 2002, 464 pages, with over 130 historical photographs and will be number 3 in the ASC Series, available this fall. MAKIVIK CORPORATION AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION By Stephen Loring A guiding tenet of the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center has always been that there is a special relationship between the Center and members of the descendant communities from which the Institution’s ethnological collections were derived. Perhaps nowhere is this more keenly felt than it is when working with community members from the Inuit and Innu villages in Nunavik and Nitassinan (the land that appears on many maps as the “Quebec-Labrador peninsula”). The Institution’s interests in northern Labrador extend back to 1860 when geologists attached to Igor Krupnik, Elisabeth Ward and Bill Fitzhugh with Gateways the first title in the ASC publication series, Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology. ASC Newsletter 21 the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey first visited the region to observe a solar eclipse. However, it was the opportunity of placing a Smithsonian naturalist at the Hudson Bay Company’s post at Ft. Chimo (near today’s community of Kuujjuaq in Nunavik) during the International Polar Geophysical Year in 1881-1883 that really cemented the association. The Smithsonian’s “man in Nunavik” was Lucien Turner (1848-1909) arguably one of the most able and productive field scientists of his day. A gifted naturalist and polyglot, Turner conducted research in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands prior to his stint among the Inuit and Innu of northern Quebec and adjacent Labrador. While in the “Ungava District” Turner amassed the largest and earliest systematically collected corpus of artifacts and clothing from the inhabitants of the region that has been preserved: a collection now housed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Turner’s ethnographic monograph based on his Ungava experience, Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay Territory (originally published in 1894), long a classic in northern anthropology, has recently been reissued by the Smithsonian Institution Press through the generous auspices of Makivik Corporation and the Avataq Cultural Institute, that it might be available to scholars and to new generations of Inuit and Innu students. Makivik, created as part of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, is the non-profit organization owned by the Inuit of Nunavik. Its mandate includes a full range of activities and initiatives that focus on the political, social and economic development of Inuit in Nunavik. Makivik’s support of the publication is a further example of the interaction and cooperation that has come to characterize relations between the Smithsonian Institution and northern indigenous communities in Alaska and Canada. On November 14, 2001 Makivik leadership and members of the Avataq Cultural Institute traveled from Nunavik to Washington to attend a reception held at the Canadian Embassy to celebrate the launch of the republication of Turner’s monograph. The delegation consisted of Adamie Alaku, the Vice-President of Economic Development for Makivik, Stephen Hendrie, Robbie Watt of the Avataq Cultural Institute and Rhoda Kokkiapik from Inukjuaq. The impetus for the collaborative publishing venture goes back to a fortuitous meeting between then Makivik C.E.O. Zebedee Nungak and Stephen Loring at the British Museum in 1996 at a conference on the history of photography in the Arctic. Subsequently Mr. Nungak made several trips to Washington during which he was able to study the objects that Turner had collected among his ancestors as well as examine the photographs that Turner took. These photographs are the earliest that survive from the region. Nungak’s passion for Nunavik history and his commitment to educational and heritage initiatives were critical to getting support from Makivik that enabled the Smithsonian Institution Press to republish Turner’s book and include a number of the hitherto-unpublished photographs to appear. In his remarks at the Embassy reception Mr. Alaku addressed the significance of Lucien Turner’s collection to the Inuit of Nunavik, “Over a hundred years ago Lucien Turner was a visitor to the largest trading post in our region. He wrote his experience down on paper, took time to draw what he saw and used existing photographic technology to snap images of a past that to us is extremely valuable.” Prior to the reception the Makivik delegation had the opportunity to visit the Museum Support Center to see first-hand the objects that Turner had collected and which have been so lovingly cared for for more than a a hundred and twenty years. Far ranging discussions on the future of the collection and how portions of it may someday return to the country of its origin. Fast forward nearly six months to Montreal, April 24, 2002, where a Canadian launch for the Turner volume was organized by Makivik’s Lisa Koperqualuk and Rhoda Kokiapik. The Smithsonian Institution Press had arranged with McGill-Queen’s University Press to publish and distribute Turner’s Ethnology of the Ungava District in Canada. The launch was celebrated with a reception at the historic McCord Museum and proved to be a festive affair to which many Inuit in the Montreal area were invited. Several speakers including Moira McCaffrey (McCord Ethnology Curator), Charlie Arngak (Avataq President), Adamie Alaku and Stephen Hendrie all noted how the Turner publication bespoke of a new cooperative and collaborative era in the relationships between museums and indigenous communities. A short slide lecture by Stephen Loring traced the route of Turner’s collection from Kuujjuaq to Washington and elaborated on some of the stories that the objects told. Finally, there was a delightful presentation of throat singing by Rita Novalinga and Minnie Amidlak which was also a fitting reminder about the permanence and continuity of many aspects of “traditional” culture and the arts. Preliminary discussions were made with Makivik and Avataq concerning the possibilities of sending a few of the Turner artifacts “home” to Kuujjuaq on the occasion of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference which is to be held in Kuujjuaq in August of 2002. Hopefully we will be able to report on the success of these negotiations in a forth-coming newsletter. CANADIAN EMBASSY LAUNCH OF THE EARTH IS FASTER NOW by Igor Krupnik On May 15th, 2002, the Canadian Embassy in Washington hosted another book launch reception that featured one more recent publication initiated by the ASC. This volume, some 380 pages, is titled The Earth Is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change. It was compiled and co-edited by Igor Krupnik and Dyanna Jolly, and it was published by the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS), with funding from the NSF Arctic Social Science Program ( see ASC NL #9). The volume is a good illustration of the ASC’s long-standing cooperation with our Canadian colleagues, this time in a new field: the documentation of indigenous knowledge coupled with climate (From Left) Louise Blais, Scott Mahler, Stephen Loring, Robbie Watt, and Adamie Alakuunveil the reprint of Ethnology of the Ungava District at the Canadian Embassy. ASC Newsletter 22 C O L L E C T I O N S MR. OKALIK, THE FIRST PREMIER OF NUNAVUT, VISITS THE SMITHSONIAN By Stephen Loring and Jennifer Shannon In April 1999, the creation of Nunavut was celebrated live by a satellite hook-up directly from Iqaluit to the Baird Auditorium in the Natural History Museum (via the Embassy of Canada). Two years and eight months later, the Arctic Studies Center and the National Museum of the American Indian were thrilled to host a brief visit from the first premier of Nunavut, the Honorable Mr. Paul Okalik. Mr. Okalik’s visit to Washington, December 2001, was part of a high-level economic mission to meet with U.S. government and State Department officials over matters pertaining to resource utilization and development in Nunavut and discussion over trade, including the export ban on marine mammal products. He was also very eager to meet with the American scientific community to promote cooperative research ventures in Nunavut. Born in Pangnirtung in 1964 Mr. Okalik went to high school in Iqaluit, then to the University of Carleton, and to law school at the University of Ottawa. In 1999 he was elected as a member of Nunavut’s first legislative assembly which subsequently chose him to become the first Premier of Nunavut. Nunavut is Canada’s newest political jurisdiction that was carved from the former Northwest Territories to create a new political home for the 25,000 Inuit of the eastern Canadian Arctic. The establishment of the new territory fulfilled Canada’s federal government’s promise in 1993 to give the Inuit the right to self-government and self-determination. On Monday evening Decmber 3rd, 2001 many Washingtonians and SI staff members had their first opportunity to meet the first head of government from Nunavut when Mr. Okalik spoke at the Meridian International Center as a guest of the Embassy of Canada. The walls of the Meridian Center were decked with artwork from an exhibition, Polar Extremes: Art From Frozen Places, that including the brilliant visionary prints of the Inuit artist Jessie Oonark. In his presentation Mr. Okalik spoke about the challenges of governing and developing sustainable economic opportunities and employment in the Arctic. Mr. Okalik spoke movingly about the challenges his government faces and told of the need for further development of transportation infrastructure to facilitate the movement of goods and services within Nunavut as well as between Nunavut and the rest of the world. It was only fifty years ago that the Inuit of Nunavut were self-sufficient hunters, living entirely off the products of the land; today, they are linked to global trade networks. Mr. Okalik summarized the long-history of political machinations and negotiations that finally lead, in 1999, to the creation of Nunavut. He spoke about Nunavut’s “consensus style government” that allowed legislative members to vote without party pressure. With self-government comes responsibility, Mr. Okalik said, “We recognize that we will make mistakes, but we appreciate that they will be our mistakes....We are free to create laws in those areas where we have authority.” Mr. Okalik spoke at some length about the nature of the Nunavut economy: the idiosyncrasies of the Inuit population (55% of the Inuit of Nunavut are between the ages of 15 and 24, a labor force of only about 11,000 people –42% of the population– and variable unemployment rates in the different communities scattered change research. In addition to the volume co-editor being Canadian, seven (out of 10) volume chapters were written by Canadians or by American scholars working in Canada. The volume opens with a foreword contributed by Jose Kusugak, the President of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (former Inuit Tapirisat of Canada), and it closes with an epilog, written by another Canadian, Fikret Berkes, from the University of Manitoba. Coincidentally, the book also happened to be printed in Canada. Hence, even though the topic was not exclusively Canadian, there were many reasons to celebrate this new publication at the Canadian Embassy at 501 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington D.C.. All this Canadian participation likely reflects Canada’s awareness of their important role as a country with a large arctic area and indigenous population. The event brought together over 60 arctic specialists, Smithsonian museum workers, media and embassy people, representatives from various government and environmental agencies, and staff workers from the ARCUS office in Fairbanks. Speakers included Igor, Dyanna Jolly, Bill Fitzhugh, and Jose Kusugak, the ITK President, who came to this reception from Ottawa, accompanied by Scot Nickels, Director of the ITK Environment Department, who was also a volume author. Several dozen copies of the new book were distributed at the party. We are very grateful to our host, Timothy J. Hodges, the Head of the Environment and Fisheries Section of the Canadian Embassy, and to his staff for their hospitality. We also promise to work very hard to have more ASC book-launch events in the future, and would be most pleased to be welcome back to the friendly Canadian Embassy located right across Pennsylvania Avenue from our Washington office. It was agreed that Igor and Dyanna would prepare an international collection of project papers under a new logo “Frontiers in Polar Social Sciences;” ARCUS would take responsibility for producing and distributing the volume. Once advanced, the book progressed with a speed that seemed unconventional to modern scientific cooperation. It took exactly a year: from the inception of the project in May 2001 to the day the volume was released at the next annual ARCUS meeting in Washington in May 2002; a remarkably short period of time for a full-size international collection of paperse. Maybe, it was the very title of our volume, The Earth is Faster Now, which facilitated the effort. The ASC contributed to the publication budget, in order to boost its print run and increase the distribution of this insightful work by social scientists and Arctic residents. We thank the ARCUS office in Fairbanks (and volume style editor and designer, Sue Mitchell, in particular) for this joint venture. The new book can be ordered for $20.00 (including shipping) from the ARCUS office in Fairbanks at arcus@arcus.org or www.arcus.org Co-editors Dyanna Jolly and Igor Krupnik at the launch, held at the Canadian Embassy, of The Earth is Faster Now. ASC Newsletter 23 Okalik invited the scientific community to work in Nunavut but reminded everyone that researchers had ethical responsibilities to work cooperatively with Nunavut citizens, communities and government to incorporate them into their research designs and to share with them their research results. In response to a question about the controversy last summer over competing American and Canadian research groups at the fossil forest site on Axel Heiberg Island, Mr. Okalik defended his government’s permitting process which approved the U.S. research design, “Nunavut supports good science and we made the right decision.” After beakfast, Premier Okalik’s party, including Embassy officials, Scott Clark (Assistant Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs for Nunavut), Annette Bourgeois (Press Secretary for the Office of the Premier), and Robert Carson (Mr. Okalik’s Principal Secretary) departed for a round of meetings on Capitol Hill and an early afternoon Press Conference. In the late afternoon, Mr. Okalik capped his first twenty-four hours in Washington with a visit to see the collections from Nunavut that are housed at the National Museum of the American Indian’s Cultural Resource Center. Mr. Okalik’s visit was co-hosted by Stephen Loring and Jennifer Shannon, Pat Nietfeld, Mark Clark, Anne Walters and Mary-Jane Lenz of the American Indian Museum’s staff. Introductions and welcoming remarks by the CRC staff were kept brief as the sense of excitement and enthusiasm in Mr. Okalik’s party became almost tangible. It was wonderful to watch the the weary professional politician, with all the cares and responsibilities of government, transform into a reflection of an Inumariit, one of the traditional Inuit with knowledge about the ways of living on the land. Such is the power of the old tools and objects in the museum’s collections, they evoke memory and pride. Mr. Okalik lapsed into reveries about camp experiences and life on the land as he handled stone lamps, dog whips, and harpoons that had been in use fifty years before he was born. The collections of beaded skin clothing and models of kayaks and umiaks were all very tangible connections to past Inuit experiences that spoke eloquently of Inuit accomplishments and humility, of the deep abiding connection to the place that has become Nunavut. Mr. Okalik’s party was also able to view the recently arrived and as yet unpacked and unaccessioned Bert and Helen H. Witt collection of contemporary Inuit art. This collection of several hundred prints, wall-hangings and stone carvings lovingly assembled by the Witt family and recently bequeathed to the NMAI, has by a single act, placed the NMAI in the vanguard of important collections of Inuit art. The Witt collection documents an art movement that is among the most significant developments of 20th- century art, one that recognizes the contribution of Inuit artistic across the territory), the challenges posed by economic development and protection of the environment (“In Nunavut, the environment is synonymous with our existence!”), concerns about climate change and global warming, and the hopes and aspirations of Inuit for the future. He concluded with a discussion of his government’s position on the traditional subsistence economy that is practiced in Nunavut and the articulation between hunters and the State. Hunting in Nunavut is a way of life. People there are still dependent on traditional subsistence practices to bring good nutritious food to the table. Hunting and fishing in Nunavut have the potential to provide economic diversification IF hunters were allowed to participate in commercial economies outside of the territory. Specifically the Nunavut government is committed to lobbying governments, in Canada and abroad, to change the quotas and restrictions that have been applied to the harvesting of some marine mammals. In particular, seals provides food and clothing that are a mainstay of Inuit tradition. Yet, because of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, some products of the hunt, especially seal skins and walrus ivory that once had a high market value and which brought critical capital back into the communities, can not readily be sold to outside markets. Mr. Okalik’s maintains that seal hunting in Nunavut is sustainable and at the heart of Inuit identity and values. “We have accomplished a lot already, but we still have a long way to go, Inuit hopes and dreams are mixed with the high expectation that there lives will change for the better.” The following morning, bright and early, Mr. Okalik hosted a breakfast at the Canadian Embassy for members of the Washington scientific community with research interests in Nunavut. Representatives from local universities as well as from many of the U.S. government agencies with Arctic research agendas (including N.S.F., N.O.A.A., N.A.S.A., Alaska Congressional offices, the Smithsonian Institution and the State Department, etc.) had the opportunity to hear Mr. Okalik summarize his government’s science policy. The government of Nunavut, according to Mr. Okalik, recognize the significance and the importance of encouraging and supporting a full-range of scientific investigations in their territory. They realize that many pressures confronting their fledgling government need the input and expertise of the best scientific researchers available. Issues including concerns over the consequences and impacts of global climate change; the alarming rise of air-borne atmospheric pollutants entering the arctic food-chain and ecosystem; the maintenance of healthy stocks of fish, birds and other wildlife on which Inuit culture depends; as well as the full-range of biological, geological and social science initiatives that contribute to the quality of life for Nunavut residents, are recognized for their importance to the future development and prosperousness of the region. Mr. Premieir Okalik and Stephen Loring examine two pieces of Baker Lake Tapestry from the Witt Collection at NMAI. ASC Newsletter 24 skills, talents and vision to a way of seeing and experiencing the world. Mr. Okalik knew several of the artists whose work was represented in the collection and his discovery of some of the famous Cape Dorset prints of the late-1960’s and 1970’s was like encountering old friends. Alas, time has a way of pressing in on one in the south that is so different from the passing of time when out in the country of Nunavut and soon, too soon, Mr. Okalik’s colleagues were reminding him of other commitments and other promises. It was with great reluctance that he had to take leave of the collections but not before expressing his pride and pleasure in the care the quallunaat had shown in caring and respecting the things his ancestors had made. It seems certain that Mr. Okalik’s visit marks the beginning of a long, bright future for the Nunavut collections at both the NMAI as well as at the NMNH, as the museum curators and conservators recognize their responsibilities to make these materials accessible for a wide range of educational and cultural uses throughout Nunavut. THE WAUGH COLLECTION PROJECT: ASC JOINS EFFORTS WITH THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN by Igor Krupnik and Stephen Loring 2002 was marked by a very successful new collaborative effort, part of the ongoing two-year cooperative agreement between the ASC and the National Museum of American Indian (NMAI) to analyze a new NMAI collection The Waugh Collection Project, is gradually evolving into a stable partnership that may bring substantial benefits to both participating institutions. In 2001, at the recommendation of Lars Krutak, Lou Stancari, Mary Jane Lenz, and Alain Bain, NMAI purchased Leuman M. Waugh’s collection of historical images, field notes, and film footage from the Rankin Museum of American Heritage in Ellerbe, North Carolina. Waugh was an acclaimed medical doctor and dentist who made several northern trips between 1915 and 1940, first as a recreational get-away and later, after he became more familiar with Labrador, as several research trips investigating Inuit dental health. He also served as a member of a special medical team aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Northland that visited and surveyed Native communities in the Bering Sea area and in Arctic Alaska, from Norton Sound to Siberia to Barrow in 1929 and 1930. It was during these trips that Waugh shot hundreds of photographs and lantern slides, as well as several film reels with documentary footage that depicted people and local scenery from about two dozen Native Alaskan communities. A collection of Waugh’s photographs and documentary records arrived.at the NMAI Support and Research Center (SRC) in Suitland, MD in July 2001, while his ivory carvings and ethnographic objects remained in the Rankin Museum in Ellerbe. Upon the collection’s arrival to the NMAI, Donna Rose and Edgar Hartley, photo collection assistants, began housing and processing the many hundreds of disjointed and disorganized prints, negatives, and slides, while Evelyn Moses, NMAI volunteer, did preliminary sorting of Waugh’s papers. Altogether, the Waugh photo collection acquired by the NMAI has at least 2,500 images of various formats—prints, negatives, color lantern slides, and large-size framed pictures—or about 5,000-6,000 individual pieces. The total number of identified images from Alaska is about 900 and from Eastern Canada about 1,100. In addition, some 500 images are unidentified and may belong to either of the two geographic areas. Numerous film reels and documentary records, such as letters, personal diaries, travel journals, reprints of Waugh publications and reports, are also included. The full evaluation of the collection may take several more months, as cataloguing and documentation of all images and written records progresses Faced with this new collection rich in northern ethnographic material, Bruce Bernstein, the NMAI Assistant Director for Cultural Resources, identified the Waugh collection as a promising target for a joint NMAI-ASC research project. Igor Krupnik and Stephen Loring were invited to serve as northern cultural experts for the Alaskan and Canadian sections of the Waugh photography, respectively. By that time, we were both already familiar with some northern images made by Waugh. In fact, quite a few of Waugh’s images made their way to personal files of Aleš Hrdlicka and Henry Collins at the Smithsonian National Anthropological Archives, since Waugh maintained good relationships with both Smithsonian anthropologists. A few of Waugh’s pictures from the NAA files were even reproduced in the St. Lawrence Island Sourcebook, Akuzilleput Igaqullghet: Our Words Put to Paper, produced by Igor and Lars in 2000 in cooperation with the communities of Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island. With this in mind, we both were very anxious to join the NMAI photo archives personnel in cataloguing and documenting the Waugh collection. In dealing with the Alaskan portion of the Waugh photo collection, it was decided that a new organization system had to be introduced from the beginning: one that featured modern communities and regional affiliation. Consequently, the Waugh images of special interest toAlaskan Native people were organized into eight groups, by region if possible: Nome-Norton Sound Area (90 images); St. Lawrence Island (over 130 images); Bering Strait and Siberia (about 100 images); Kotzebue and Kotzebue Sound (about 120 images); Northern Alaska (about 100 images); Pictures made ‘En Route’ from Seattle to Nome (some 60 images); Other Alaskan Images (at least 100-150 unlabeled lantern slides), and Unidentified Alaskan Images. Our starting point for organization of the Eastern Canadian section of Waugh photography was sorting it similarly into three major subdivisions reflecting their geographical focus: the Quebec North Shore; Newfoundland and Labrador. The distinction of the Labrador coastal villages is such that many of the Labrador images were very quickly recognized and grouped together. The corpus of Labrador imagery comes from Waugh’s extended cruise along the entire Labrador coast from the Strait of Belle Isle to the northern tip of Two Yupik girls from Savoonga, Alaska: Tagneghli, daughter of Smith Imingan, and Qaghiiq, daughter of Wangqetelen and Kesliq. Photo by Leuman M. Waugh, 1929 (?). NAA, Ales Hrdlicka Papers (negative number, SI 95-9741). Print now in the NMAI Waugh collection. ASC Newsletter 25 Killinek Island in Hudson’s Strait in 1927. This material contains much of great historical and social significance, such as depictions of Native families at the Moravian-Inuit communities that Waugh visited, including Makkovik, Hopedale, Uviluktok, Hebron and Burwell. The grouping “Quebec North Shore” is currently the most nebulous of the sets. It consists of well over five hundred photographs, which are for the most part of outdoor activities: canoeing, camping and fishing. These photographs document the recreational activities of Waugh and his companions on extended “wilderness” fishing trips between ca. 1915-1925. They would be of little interest but for the fact that there is a small (ca. 25) but significant corpus of imagery depicting Indian families (probably Cree and Innu, perhaps some Mikmaq) and guides that the Waugh party encountered. There is a much smaller set of images from Newfoundland that, like the Quebec North Shore group, is derived for the most part from a series of canoe trips in which the capture of large freshwater fish figures prominently. There is little of anthropological or social significance in these images, although on-going research maybe able to eventually identify Newfoundland Micmac Indian guides. Although the Waugh Collection Project is still in progress, it already is quite obvious that the new acquisition makes a significant contribution to the current NMAI archives of historical photography from the North. This is quite a monumental set of imagery, both in terms of sheer number of the added images (about 5,000) and in terms of its quality and content. The main value of the Waugh collection lies in its fairly precise chronological attribution; in the opportunity that the collection can be catalogued along the regional and, often, individual village lines; and in the large proportion of personal images (portraits) of Native people. Many of those individuals can be identified still by today’s elders, as was demonstrated by a pilot identification effort that took place in the community of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. Copies of some 100 images from this community made by Waugh in 1929 and 1930 were mailed there in February 2002. At our request, Mr. Willis Walunga, a local Yupik historian and a long-term ASC collaborator, engaged a group of local elders in review of unidentified Waugh photographs. The images were promptly returned to the NMAI, with the names of many pictured individuals restored by local experts. This information will be added to the NMAI photo collection database. Such a high share of the pictures of Native people and of village daily scenes makes the new collection an extremely valuable contribution to the existing set of the NMAI Alaskan and northern photography (which is primarily made of images of museum objects and/or northern landscapes). It makes the Waugh collection of special value to further public outreach and visual repatriation (“knowledge sharing”) efforts to be undertaken by the NMAI. Overall, it was a great pleasure and a unique research opportunity for both Igor and Stephen to join the NMAI Photo Archives personnel in reviewing the Waugh collection. We would like to express our deep gratitude to the staff members of the NMAI Photo collections, particularly to Lou Stancari, Photo Archive Specialist, and to Donna Rose, Photo Collection assistant. Their enthusiasm and dedication was truly infectious, and it became a key factor in the successful pursuit of the joint Waugh Collection Project, as was the always-welcoming attitude of other NMAI personnel. Our special thanks also go to Lars Krutak, NMAI Office of Repatriation, and to Bruce Bernstein, NMAI Assistant Director for Cultural Resources, and Sheree Bonaparte, Archivist, NMAI. It is only recently, with the rediscovery of Waugh’s photographic collection, that this largely forgotten public health official has gained a glimmer of recognition from anthropologists and northern historians. We hope that his numerous recently discovered images will help advance his name and standing among today’s descendants of the people in the northern communities, whom he once visited, and whose teeth he peered at and pulled out. THE SOCIAL LIFE OF LABRADOR’S ARCHAEOLOGICAL ARTIFACTS By Matt Gallon Archaeologists are faced with the daunting task of reconstructing the lives of people in the past primarily through the objects they left behind. In order to learn from these artifacts, archaeologists often find it useful to think about their “life-history.” For instance, hundreds or even thousands of years ago, a hunter transformed a block of Ramah chert into a beautiful point for the end of his harpoon. In mant casese the point outlived its maker, and was found later by archaeologists. After lying in the frozen ground of Labrador for so long, the past few decades at the Smithsonian must have been an exciting time in the lives of the many artifacts Bill Fitzhugh, Stephen Loring and others have brought back to Washington D.C. Despite having played a major role in the groundbreaking reconstruction of the culture-history of the eastern arctic, sometimes these artifacts can be heard rattling with excitement over the prospect of returning home to eastern Canada (on the other hand these noises may come from the on-going renovation of the roof above the ASC office). Matt Gallon and interns Kristin Skrabut and Julia DuPreis are helping hundreds of the artifacts from Labrador return to Elaine Anton at the Newfoundland Museum. Before they depart, however, these artifacts are the stars of their very own photo-shoot with the ASC’s brand new digital camera and photo-editing capabilities. Jim DiLoreto from the museum’s imaging office has graciously helped us develop our own digital photography studio and continues to help print copies of the images. In addition to the visual record, measurements and other important pieces of information about each artifact are stored in a database, which Matt is currently integrating with a GIS software program to allow greater spatial analysis of Labrador’s archaeological record. The GIS program will allow us to recreate the archaeological landscape with the exact location of many of the excavated artifacts in a ‘virtual’ Labrador. In this electronic world, we can raise the sea level to recreate the coastline as it may have appeared when Labrador’s earliest inhabitants made many of the artifacts now residing at the ASC. As many of the Labrador artifacts return to Canada after their southern vacation, we here at the ASC will have descriptions, virtual re-creations and digital photographs to remind us of the relatively brief period our ancient guests of honor visited us. Late Prehistoric Period Indian (Point Revenge) ramah chert point. Found at Oakes Bay in 1974 by Chris Nagle. ASC Newsletter 26 F I E L D W O R K ST. LAWRENCE GATEWAYS: ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE QUEBEC LOWER NORTH SHORE By Bill Fitzhugh and Matt Gallon In late July and August, 2001, Bill Fitzhugh conducted a preliminary archaeological survey of the Quebec Lower North Shore (LNS) from the Mingan Islands to the Strait of Belle Isle. This 300- mile section of rugged coast is one of the least-known regions of Northeastern North America, although being one of the first areas of the New World explored by Europeans – first by Vikings around A.D. 1000 and later by Basque and others in the early 16th century. Lacking a highway connection, its small Innu (Indian), English-, and French-speaking villages are among the most isolated settlements in the Gulf of St. Lawrence region today and are served only by steamer and light aircraft. Given this large poorly-known territory, our primary goal was to explore the region’s archaeological potential and identify sites for further study. The survey located more than thirty archaeological sites, most of which were found between Blanc Sablon and Cape Whittle, south of which cold subarctic conditions give way to the more temperate regions of the inner Gulf of St. Lawrence. Research was conducted aboard the Arctic Studies Center’s research vessel, Pitsiulak, which provided a safe and comfortable means of access and lodging in these inaccessible regions. Bill’s field team included: Captain Perry Colbourne; recent Bowdoin graduate Matthew Gallon; University of Washington student Cristie Boone; Laval MA student, Valerie Boudreault an Innu with much knowledge of this coast; photographer Will Richard; historian Selma Barkham, and Quebecois researcher René Levesque. Our primary goal was to explore unsolved problems such as (1) the western boundary, cultural relationships, and disappearance of the Maritime Archaic Indians who exploited the fish and marine mammals of the Gulf of St. Lawrence ca. 8000-3500 years ago; (2) the identity of the later, less maritime-adapted Indian cultures, (3) the southern limits of Dorset Paleoeskimo and historic Inuit (Eskimo) cultures; (4) evidence of trade and contacts between LNS cultures and their neighbors; and (5) the early history of European exploration and settlement by Vikings, Basque whalers, and other European groups, and their relations with Native peoples. Preliminary results of the survey are presented in our 2001 field report (Fitzhugh 2001). We plan to focus the coming field season on the region between Cape Whittle and Mouton Bay, an area of gorgeous scenery with rich fish and sea mammal resources. Two sites discovered in 2001 will be given particular attention: a 4000- year-old Maritime Archaic dwelling site (Petit Mécatina-2) and a spectacular Basque whaling site (Petit Mécatina-3). As always seems to happen, we found the Maritime Archaic site at dusk when it was too late to map, photograph, or test, and we had to leave the area that evening without returning. Nevertheless, we easily discerned the distinctive features of a large six-room long-house outlined in the high, ancient, raised beach, surrounded by cache pits and boulder mounds. A nearby raised beach of the same elevation (and therefore probably of similar age) contained large boulder structures similar to Maritime Archaic burial mounds known in Labrador. To date no MA dwellings have been found south of Hamilton Inlet in Labrador, making the Mécatina-2 finds important in extending the limit of this culture far into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and in providing information on house types, settlement patterns, and possibly burials. A few miles east of Mécatina-2 we found a Basque site (Mécatina-3) in a protected cove on the east side of Petit Mécatina peninsula. Here again, conditions for investigation were not ideal, as a fierce storm prevented us from taking detailed notes and photographs; but our test pits produced large amounts of roof tiles, iron spikes, bone, glass, and other European materials. The material was clearly Basque, and the site location conformed to the plotted position on 17th century Basque maps as “Petit Canada,” a whaling site dating to ca. 1590. The site is on a flat shelf of land on the north side of a small protected harbor that was ideal for ship anchorage and whale processing. To the north the site is bounded by a high cliff whose overhanging wall creates a rain shelter where the whalers must have constructed tile-roofed sheds as shown by the quantities of tiles found here. The dry deposits in the rain shadow of the cliff preserved organic materials of bone and wood that are rarely found in open sites. The open area below the cliff was covered with thick vegetation, but everywhere we tested we found roof tiles and spikes. Clearly, this is a very large and important site. The deep, cold waters adjacent to the site probably also preserve whale remains, artifacts, and perhaps even boat and ship remains, so we also plan some underwater exploration. In addition to the two sites on Petit Mécatina where we will be working this coming summer, our 2001 survey focused on several other areas of the 550km of coast between the Mingan Islands and Blanc-Sablon. In the Mingan National Park territory we discovered ten new sites and visited three important European sites that were previously known. Two of these historic period sites - explorer Louis Jolliet’s late 17th century trading post and naturalist Henri Puyjalon’s late 19th century gravesite - are connected with prominent figures in Quebec’s history and will play an important role in the development of tourism throughout the Lower North Shore. In the region between the Mingan Islands and Blanc-Sablon we discovered and documented 26 sites, including two previously unknown Basque sites, several Maritime Archaic sites, a Paleoeskimo site (probably Groswater), several post-MA Indian sites, and several 19/20th century European sites. In addition we The St. Lawrence Field Team (from left to right) Will Richard, René Levesque, Perry Colbourne, Lynne Fitzhugh, Bill Fitzhugh, Cristie Boone, Matthew Gallon ASC Newsletter 27 inspected and documented several private collections containing prehistoric Indian materials. One of the goals of the project was to survey for signs of Inuit or Paleoeskimo culture sites along the Lower North Shore. Much to our surprise we found no evidence of the typical Inuit tent-rings or sod dwellings found just a short distance to the north along the Labrador coast. We did find some traces of the earlier Dorset and Groswater Paleoeskimos, but it appears that both groups were at the limit of their ranges between Blanc Sablon and Cape Whittle. In contrast to the absence of Inuit archaeology and limited Paleoeskimo remains, signs of Indian occupations were far more abundant in the outer coastal region. The early Indian Maritime Archaic culture seems to be more common in the eastern part of the Lower North Shores where high land occurs close to the coastline. The Maritime Archaic long-houses, caches, and possibly burial mounds on the boulder beaches of southern Petit Mécatina are presently the farthest south and west that these structures have been found. Our excavations at these sites in 2002 will hopefully identify what factors limited this culture’s southwestern expansion. Throughout the survey we inspected the private collections generously shared with us by the residents of Mingan, Kégashka, Baie Mouton and Brador. These collections and our own finds allowed us to confirm previous evidence for Indian (Saunders Complex and Proto-Innu) occupations of the Lower North Shore in the 3000 years after the Maritime Archaic period. Over time these Indian groups moved away from the outer coastal areas to site locations around the mouths of rivers and further into the interior. While much of the physical environment and climate of the Quebec Lower North Shore resembles the coast of central and southern Labrador, conditions here did not support the diverse number of Inuit and Paleoeskimo groups found further to the northeast. On the other hand our survey identified the use of raw materials like Ramah chert which indicate that Lower North Shore cultures were in frequent contact with their neighbors in Labrador throughtout the past 8000 years. Excavations this summer will focus on the nature of contact between Maritime Archaic groups of the Lower North Shore and Labrador, as well as possible contact between the Basque and local Native groups during the 16th century. The location of these contacts in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have made it an important gateway through which knowledge, culture and resources have been exchanged for thousands of years. THE MUMMIES FROM SALEKHARD, WEST SIBERIA By Natalia Fedorova The Yamal Archeological Expedition of the Institute of History and Archeology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been working in the territory of the north and north-west Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Region for almost ten years, in the Yamal, Cis-Ural, Shuryshkar regions to be exact. The expedition is being financed by the Administration of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Region. We began, if not from scratch, then at least from a lot of “blank spaces” on the archeological map. The Yamal peninsula, which is not only part of this territory but is also its symbol, was practically uninvestigated. In 1994, we completed our first step by publishing an archeological map of the Yamel-Nenets Autonomous Region. During the next five years, we excavated several sites that were fundamental to our historical re-constructions, such as the Ust-Poluy sacred place, the Tiutey-Sale 1 settlement, Yarte VI, and several others. We were also able, roughly, of course, to solve the question of how and when the Yamal peninsula was first settled, and to work out the main system of economic adaptation of its population to conditions in the far north. In 1997, our group, including the Smithsonian’s Bill Fitzhugh and Sven Haakanson, then at Harvard, made a trial dig near the Poluy River in the vicinity of the Zeleniy Yar settlement, to see what could be found. As chance had it, we found a human burial: a male in a wooden coffin with an iron combat knife, a small silver medallion near the left shoulder, and the bronze figure of a bird in the lower part of the grave. We estimated the burial had been constructed between the 7th and 9th centuries AD. We named this medieval necropolis Zeleniy Yar, after the near-by settlement. Up to the present , we have investigated twenty-seven burials and the territory between the graves, where we have found two sacred places containing metallic objects, clay vessels, and a metallurgical shop complex. All burials are placed in narrow, shallow excavations that show traces of wooden constructions (coffins made of logs or boat parts), and practically all have bedding materials at the bottom, and most are covered with birch bark. The individuals were found in extended position, face up, with hands alongside their bodies or over the pelvic bones, with their legs pointing toward the river, a positioning that may be connected with religious beliefs. Eleven of the burials, all males, had suffered deliberate destruction, including shattered or missing skulls, and chopped up skeletons. This was probably done to render protection from mysterious spells believed to emanate from the deceased. Other traces of “protective magic” may be indicated by the leather straps that were bound tightly around the bodies, as well as the use of beads or chains, and bronze anthropomorphic or birdlike figures that had been broken into pieces at the time of burial. We also found roughly cut fragments of copper cauldrons inside the graves. Such pots held a special, festive status in medieval times, and were probably used, like the many ceramic vessels found in heaps between the graves, for ritual ceremonies honoring the deceased. Such utensils continue to play a special role in burial rites in Zelenii Yar today. By dating the dominant ceramic Archaeologists excavating Zeleniy Yar, in western Siberia ASC Newsletter 28 complex, we calculated that the first burials were constructed between the 6th and 7th century and the latest sometime during the 12th century. At the end of the 2000 season we found the first mummified body. Burial No. 15 looked unusual even in the uppermost level of the grave. The pit was much wider than the previous ones we had discovered, and the birch bark covering bulged up more prominently, indicating it contained more than merely the bones of a buried child. When the birch bark was raised, we noticed well-preserved fur and human hair. Beneath a blanket of reindeer fur was the head of a mummified child, and the cheek, eye socket, eyelids, and even the eyelashes were clearly visible. The face glistened with a black luster, and long, thick black hair lay beside the face. We took all possible measures to preserve the mummy, speculating that it was a girl. The DNA analysis of the mummy, conducted by A.B. Poltaraus and E.E. Kylikov of the Institute of Molecular Biology of the Russian Academy of the Sciences, concluded that the sex of the mummy is in fact female, and the racial and genetic type resembled a modern European. During the 2001 season, we discovered four more mummies. The first three, Burials 23, 24, and 25, were found at the southern end of the site. Judging by the small size of the pits we thought the burials probably belonged to children. Under the fill layer we found more or less boat-shaped log sarcophagi with relatively flat “sterns” which were turned towards the forest and sharp noses pointing in the direction of the river. On top, the construction was fully closed and slightly convex. Beneath the wood covers we discovered a layer of fur that was bound by copper hoops 5 or 6 cm wide, roughly cut from the copper vessels mentioned earlier. There were four or five bands over each mummy, and their faces were covered with mask-like copper plates. The three burials had been prepared in exactly the same manner, except for a few minor details. For example, turf had been placed over the fur of the first burial, in which we found leaves, twigs, and plant roots. The second burial contained high quality fur, dark-brown and lustrous, and the third came forth with long, fur boots, in excellent condition, bound with straps of black leather, undoubtedly as a third layer of protection. Inside the fur bundles, the mummies of children were preserved to varying degrees. Some details stunned us, evoking complicated emotions that, in many other instances, are far removed from the sober, cold eye of the archeologist. The flesh of each mummy was dark black. One child had a mop of wonderful hair, another a small hand so well preserved that we could see the lines in the skin of the bent fingers. We tried to observe these details as strictly archeological objects, although not all of us could easily do so. From morning until night we worked with the utmost vigor and care to preserve the mummies. Although endless arguments threatened to lead us nowhere, we arrived at several compromises, such as deciding to pack the upper layers separately, and the remaining layers as a whole. The entire process was taped on video, numerous photographs were taken, detailed descriptions were recorded in the register book, and many drawings were made. The fur and the bronze were packed in foil, then wrapped in paper, and descriptions of the objects and where they were found were inscribed on each package. The most difficult task was removing the mummified remains without damaging them, but we accomplished this by clearing away the earth around the burial and raising the mummies on sheets of plywood. The mummies were then covered with several layers of bandage and foil. When they began to resemble the Egyptian ones and had acquired some stability and firmness, we placed them in specially prepared wooden boxes. The boxes were nailed shut and placed in the shade. On the last day of the expedition’s work, to the north of the burial site near the remains of a metal-working shop where we found traces of iron, copper, and bronze, we found a long and narrow grave pit, Burial No.27. A wooden sarcophagus collapsed when we tapped it. After the layer of wood had been removed, a great surprise lay in store for us: practically the whole individual was covered with a copper plate from feet to chest. We had never observed first-hand such detailed ritual. Extremely well-preserved fur coverings, binding belts, a bronze buckle with a bear’s head, an iron hatchet, and several arrowheads damaged by corrosion were also found. It is impossible to describe what we felt at that moment. When we had calmed down, we studied the many well-preserved details: the high skull, the protruding nose, the heavy chin, the reddish moustache and hair. Perhaps the term “expression of the face” seems somewhat incorrect when speaking of the deceased, but he most certainly had a look of high importance. It was extremely difficult to remove and bandage this mummy. First, because the man was tall: 165 cm from head to foot, without the clothes and constructions around him, and the size of the wooden box was 1.80 by 0.90 m. Second, it was 3 am and everyone was dead tired, and third, we were afraid to make mistakes, the result of which could include the loss of such a well-preserved mummy, a factor that was quite unforgivable. But, to our great relief, all went well. The male mummy from Burial No. 27 is presently in Moscow at the Scientific Research Center of Biomedical Technologies (VILAR). The other three are being studied by staff members of the Ural institutes of the Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Ecology of Plants and Animals, and members of the microbiology section at the Ural State Medical Academy, directed by Professor A. G. Sergeyev and whose laboratory is directed by S. V. Lebedev. They will conduct DNA analysis to determine the sex, race, and genetic type of the mummies and will attempt to discover the diseases that led to the deaths of the children. Our geneticist colleagues are also currently exchanging information and specimens with their Moscow counterparts from A. B. Poltaraus group. Specialists from the Institute of Hunting and Fur Trade, in particular N. I. Mordvinov, analyzed the fur from the burials and determined that they belong to six different types: reindeer, beaver, sable, wolverine, dog, and bear. N. I. Mordvinov concluded that the tanning of the hides was of very high quality. N. A. Aleksashenko, who personally took part in the diggings and who specializes in the study of ancient trade, in collaboration with ethnographer E. V. Perevalova, is studying the clothes and shoes from the children’s burials. Among other findings, they have uncovered small fragments Mummy bound with copper bands. ASC Newsletter 29 of copper and bronze artifacts beneath the heels of the children’s boots. D. I. Razhev has undertaken the laboratory work of cleaning and carrying out anthropometric analysis of the mummified remains. The Presidium of the Ural Section of the Russian Academy of Sciences has financed the purchasing of a special refrigerator for storing the mummies and fur clothing. I would like to express my gratitude to those of my colleagues who took part in the digging in Zeleniy Yar and in the heated debates on our finds and their destiny. There would have been nothing without your participation. I am grateful to my Salekhard friends from the Administration of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Region Committee for Science, to the concern Yamalinform, to the Yamal- Nenets Museum of Local Lore, and to many others who have helped and supported us. A great many thanks are due to specialists of the Scientific Research Center of Biomedical Technologies (VILAR), who undertook the preservation of our finds, and also to colleagues from the Institute of Molecular Biology and the Ural State Medical Academy. If we are successful in raising the standard of quality of our research, their responsibility for this has not been small. The work was carried out with the support of grant from the various institutions mentioned earlier. GENGHIS KHAN RIDES AGAIN! MONGOLIAN EXHIBITION AND NEW RESEARCH PROGRAMS By Bill Fitzhugh In last year’s newsletter we reported briefly on a project Bill Fitzhugh and Steven Young (Northern Studies Center) participated in last June, when they were invited to join an expedition to visit the Tsaatan (Dukha) people. The project was instigated by Ed Nef, Director of the Inlingua Language School of Arlington. Va. Ed also runs a language school in Ulaanbaatar, the capitol of Mongolia, and during recent years he became acquainted with the Tsaatan’s struggle for survival as a tiny reindeer-herding minority in the northern taiga and tundra of Hovsgol province in northern Mongolia. During the past year our exploratory work in 2001 blossomed into a substantive program of education, research, and humanitarian enterprises reaching beyond the Arctic Studies Center into other areas of the Natural History Museum and the Smithsonian and elsewhere. Returning from the field in June 2001, we lobbied NMNH to accept an exhibition developed by Paula Sabloff at the University Museum (Upenn). Her show, Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan, had been developed with the National Museum of Mongolian History (NMMH) and featured ethnography and political anthropology of 20th century Mongolia as it passed successively through stages of feudalism and communism into a modern democratic state after emerging from decades of Soviet domination in the early 1990s. Using the collections of the NMMH and assistance of its history curator, Dashdendev Bumaa, Paula has assembled an exciting exhibition that will entice many into the rarely-exhibited field of political anthropology. The show opened at Natural History on 3 July during the Smithsonian Folklife Festival which, by happy circumstance this year, featured the cultures, arts, foods, and music of the Silk Road and included a Mongolian component among many other presentations of Central Asian life. In addition to Sabloff and Bumaa, the opening reception and festivities featured the Director of the NMMH, Dr. Sandui Idshinnorov, Embassy representatives, and strong representation from Mongolian arts and culture, some of whom presented fine works of art to the Smithsonian that are among the first objects from Mongolia ever to enter the Institution’s collections. We were also very pleased to have Ed Nef and Director of the Santis School and Foundation in Ulaanbaatar, Dooloojin Orgilmaa, present for the opening. Ed and Orgmilmaa not only facilitated our 2001 expedition to the Hovsgol region; they also helped organize our return visit in June of this year. It is not exactly a surprise that our research and fieldwork coincided with the Mongolian exhibition! Hatching public programs tied to research enterprises has been an ASC trademark for many years! In this case funding became the most difficult issue. ‘Exotic’ it is, with its age-old traditions and alluring past, Mongolian history, culture, environmental research, and education have not yet made their mark on the ledger-books of corporations, foundations, development banks, and government agencies. Hopefully we can change that history during coming years. Many of these organizations have been providing economic assistance to Mongolia as it has developed democratic institutions during the past decade. The North American-Mongolian Business Council and its director, Jalsa Urubsharov, and executive director, Steve Saunders, have been making major efforts in this area for the past several years, and there are now a score of businesses, including most prominently, mining, cashere, and tourism, that have taken the lead in developing Mongolia’s new free market economy. Although not present at the opening of the exhibition, a magnificent deerstone – symbol of Mongolia’s ancient heritage – will make its debut in the exhibition in mid-July. We decided to include a replica of a deerstone in the exhibition not only to symbolize the ancient Bronze Age heritage that is still such a prominent part of modern Mongolia, but to represent our emerging archaeological and anthropological research programs, begun in earnest this past month as Dan Rogers, Steven Young, Paula DePriest, and I initiated a series of linked research programs in central and northern Mongolia. Little-known and never previously exhibited outside of Mongolia and the Tuva and trans-Baikal region of southern Russia, the ca. 3000 year old Bronze Age deerstones are truly wonders of the ancient world! Varying from one to 3-4 meters in height, these stone plinths – mostly carved in beautiful beige or rose-colored granite – are memorial stones representing stylized human figures, mostly likely powerful leaders and warriors. Only one stone – the remarkable eight-foot tall Ushkin Uver monument – carries a human face, but most show earrings and a cross-hatched belts from which Preparing dinner in the northern Mongolia tundra is a task Tsaatan reindeer enjoy! ASC Newsletter 30 hang knives, axes, and other recognizeable Bronze Age implements. Between ‘head’ and waist, and sometimes below, the ‘body’ of the stone is embellished with carvings of large deer-like stags with swept-back racks of antlers and strange duckbill-like snouts. The stones carry other markings – dots, circles, and other forms – of unknown meaning, but the general sense of the imagery is that of deer-like transformational spirits engaged in assisting the deceased warrior’s passage into the sky-world. Esther Jacobson, the leading scholar of deerstone art and archaeology, considers them to be foundational to the origins of Scythian art which spread west from the Sayan-Tuva region into West-Central Asia and the trans- Caucasus in the first millennium B.C. In addition to casting a deerstone for the exhibition, one of our goals during the coming years will be to provide better dating control for the stones and to determine the role of the Hovsgol deerstones in the broader history of Bronze Age Central Asia. In addition, I harbor a suspicion that the art and concepts underlying the deerstones have broader implications for the art and spiritual beliefs of more eastern cultures, including those of Japan, Korea, northeast Asia, and the North Pacific region. These links have not yet been identified, but similarities between the deerstone spirit- imagery and the early art of the Amur peoples, Jomon, and ancient Eskimo art suggest a fruitful area for new research. During our June field season we tested the deerstone site at Erkhel Lake and obtained charcoal and bone (cremated horse) remains, mapped and photographed several sites, while Carolyn Thorne and Paul Rhymer of the Office of Central Exhibits cast the famous Ushkin Uver stone for the exhibit. We discussed with Mongolian authorities the possibility of initiating a deerstone replication program to reproduce these monuments as insurance against theft. During the past several years several of these stones have been removed from their natural settings, and at least one stone stolen from a site was recovered by the Muren police. Subject for millennia to damage caused by natural frost, animal rubbing, and lightning-strike damage, these ancient cultural treasures are now endangered as never before as knowledge of their existence spreads with tourism and international recognition. In addition to research on deerstones and Bronze Age burial traditions, our recent work included research on the Tsaatan reindeer-herders and their adaptation to changing conditions in their summer and winter pastures in the forest and tundra regions west of Lake Hovsgol. Paula DePriest and Sue Lutz worked with Tsaatan elders with knowledge of reindeer and the lichen they feed upon, and the changing patterns of reindeer forage as the animals move between summer tundra and winter taiga (forest) ranges. The lichens they collected will provide important taxonomic and economic information, and studies of the distribution and apparent expansion of dwarf birch and forest vegetation into the summer reindeer range Paul Rhymer and Carolyn Thome, of the SI Office of Exhibits Central, cast a Deerstone in preparation for the Modern Mongolia exhibit may be key to understanding the fate of the Tsaatan and their ancient way of life, which is currently threatened by vegetation changes linked to global warming and forest advance into their alpine tundra lichen-fields as well as by modern political and social changes making it difficult for this small (pop. 350) ethnic community to survive as a distinct cultural group as they have during the past. They remain one of the last peoples to practice a type of limited- range, alpine reindeer-herding that is distinct from the intensive reindeer-herding of arctic Eurasia as practiced by the Nenets, Sami, Chukchi and other arctic herders. Some theorize that the arctic pattern may have developed from the taiga form only during the past one thousand years and that the original domestication of reindeer occurred in places like northern Mongolia where forest- tundra hunters began to apply principles of domestication learned from horse, cattle, and caprine-breeders of the steppes. Here, in northern Mongolia, the close juxtaposition of ecological zones makes this region the prime location in Central Asia for the occurrence of such a technology transfer. We are therefore hopeful, as is Melinda Zeder, who hopes to study this problem, that our future research will produce archaeological samples of reindeer remains from several periods during the past 5000 years to test such an hypothesis. Our recent discovery of a large 4-5000 year old Neolithic site on the ‘Melody’ River at Soya, in the western Darkhat Valley, may provide a start in this direction. A final part of our growing Mongolian research program is being conducted by Daniel Rogers, who with Matt Gallon and Mongolian colleagues, with the assistance of Bill Honeychurch, has recently conducted a survey of medieval sites of the 12-15th centuries in central Mongolia. Beginning with the urban center Kharakhorum established by Genghis Khan, Dan has begun to explore the interesting problem of ‘nomadic empires and urbanism’ – an important but little-explored corner of anthropological theory. Nomads are not supposed to build cities or empires; but in Mongolia and much of Central Asia, they certainly did so on occasion. While these structures did not last forever and were often superceded by a complete absence of structure above family nomadism, the history of culture and civilization in Mongolia offers exciting new opportunities for an integrated Smithsonian research and educational programs in the coming years. The ASC’s ‘undercover’ agenda is to “annex” Mongolia – at least northern Mongolia and its pingos, permafrost, reindeer, and culture complexes – as an extension of the arctic world. Meanwhile, Steven Young, our botanical and paleocological colleague, plans to explore Mongolia’s role in the history of ancient Beringian landscapes. Steve has identified some intriguing, previously unsuspected links here, as well, and if so, Mongolia may have also played a more important role than we have realized in Ice Age ecology and the peopling of the New World. ASC Newsletter 31 C O N F E R E N C E S MONGOLIA WORKSHOP by Matt Gallon On the 13th of March, 2002, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History hosted a workshop to explore current and potential areas of research in Mongolian studies. Representatives from Mongolia, including the Mongolian ambassador to the US, Jalbu Choinhor, and the Deputy Director of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Enkhtuvshin, met with individuals from the private sector, Department of State, Smithsonian and other institutions and universities for a day of presentations and discussion. Bill Fitzhugh and the Arctic Studies Center staff helped organize the meeting with financial assistance from Ross Simons, Associate Director for Research at NMNH. The workshop heralds a new period of Mongolian-focused activities at the Smithsonian. Curators from a variety of Smithsonian departments and Steven Young of the Center for Northern Studies in Wolcott, VT, are planning a long-term, multi- disciplinary, research program on Mongolia’s environment and cultures, which will complement the opening of the University of Pennsylvania’s exhibition Modern Mongolia at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in July of 2002. The idea for the research program originated last summer, when Bill and Steve participated in a humanitarian mission, organized by Ed Nef (Santis Inlingua Corp.), to deliver horses to the Tsaatan, a reindeer herding group in northern Mongolia whose way of life has come under increasing stress due to political, economic and climatic changes during the past decade. Bill and Steve were intrigued by the possible connections between the environment and cultures of Mongolia and other areas of the north they have previously studied. After returning to the United States, they encouraged other scholar at the Smithsonain and elsewhere to collaborate on an integrated research program in Mongolia. After Bill’s introductory remarks, Ed Nef discussed the history of the project and his humanitarian work with the Tsaatan. Clyde Goulden (Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia) reviewed his work on the natural history of northern Mongolia and its role in the creation of the Hovsgol World Heritage Project conservation area. Steve spoke about the similarities between Mongolia’s current environment and the paleo-environments of other areas of the arctic. He also discussed the many opportunities a research program would provide for training Mongolian students in the natural sciences. Bill outlined the potential for anthropological research of the past and present cultures of the Hovsgol region. He identified the need for further ethnographic work with the Tsaatan during this period of dramatic change in their culture. Archaeological investigations in this region may be able to determine if past contact with herders to the south initiated reindeer domestication here and then spread to other areas to the north. Bill also hypothesized that further research on the area’s Bronze Age stone monuments, known as “deerstones” due to their ornate carvings of flying elk, might shed light on the origin of early Eskimo art in the Bering Sea region. The focus on archaeology continued as William Honeychurch (Univ. of Michigan—Ann Arbor) described the results of his archaeological survey of the Egengulf River area in northern Mongolia. William is now investigating how the political organization and management strategies of the early nomadic confederations differed from other archaic states whose populations were mainly comprised of sedentary farmers. He also identified several other problems in Mongolian prehistory that archaeologists could address, such as the domestication of horses, the relationship between peripheral areas and state systems and the transition from the early Bronze Age into the confederation period. While showing the group some skulls from the Smithsonian collection, Doug Owsley (NMNH) explained how the study of human skeletons can shed light on ancient populations and migrations. Together with Dennis Stanford (NMNH), Owsley would like to investigate Mongolia’s Paleolithic populations in order to better understand the spread of humans from Central Asia into Northeast Asia and the Americas. Returning the focus to the contemporary inhabitants of Mongolia, Dan Plumley (Totem Project) described how he and his organization combat the rapid disintegration of the way of life of reindeer herders in northern Mongolia and Tuva Russia. He stressed the need to facilitate communication between these groups, which have been separated by the recently closed boundary between Mongolia and Russia, and develop ways to help them protect their environmental resources and traditional economy. Daniel Rogers (NMNH) outlined his interest in the cities built during the Khan period in Mongolia. Most people believe the empire of Genghis Khan and his relatives consisted of a nomadic horde of barbarians, and fail to realize that the Khan’s built a few urban centers, which were home to many talented artisans. Dan hopes that archaeological investigation of the empire’s little known urban centers will add another dimension to our understanding of history’s largest geographic empire and to the theory of transient urban and state systems. Paula Sabloff (Univ. of Pennsylvania), curator of the Modern Mongolia exhibition, described her work on contemporary Mongolians’ perceptions of democracy. Contrary to most Americans’ perceptions of Genghis Khan, Mongolians identify him as the father of their modern democratic principles. Through surveys and video interviews, Paula illustrated the similarities and differences between American and Mongolian ideas about democracy. Sas Carey (Life Energy Healing School, VT) explained how practitioners of traditional Mongolian medicine in the Gobi desert taught her about medicinal plants and healing techniques— knowledge that she now passes on to her students. Matthew Brady (Univ. of Pittsburgh) described how the University of Pittsburgh facilitates the exchange of Mongolian and American students. He also identified several opportunities for the exchange of students and scholars in the future. Several presentations focused on Mongolia’s plant life. Sonja Schmitz explored the potential for study of the genetic diversity among Mongolia’s plant populations. Gordon Jacoby (Lamont- Doherty Earth Observatory) presented a history of Mongolia’s climate, which he reconstructed using tree ring data. By analyzing cores taken from Siberian pine, Gordon identified changes in surface temperature over the past 1700 years. Paula DePreist, a lichen specialist at NMNH, brought a sample of lichens to help illustrate her interest in the botany of the Hovsgol region. She would like to investigate the effects of the reindeer’s grazing patterns on their favorite food, reindeer lichen, and the evolutionary and adaptive aspects of the reindeer-human relationship. Conservation biologist, Peter Leimgruber (CRC), described ASC Newsletter 32 how he helped train Mongolian biologists to monitor eastern Mongolia’s antelope population. He also commented on the potential to expand this project with both the antelope and other animal species in Mongolia. After the presentations some of the participants responded to what they had heard during the workshop. Maijargal Sanjmyakov, an art history scholar and wife of Ambassador Choinhor, spoke on behalf of the Embassy of Mongolia. She encouraged the Smithsonian to initiate a new period of research similar to that of the Ray Chapman Andrews period at the American Museum of Natural History in the early 1900s. Ambassador Joe Lake added his observations on the changes in Mongolia since he became the country’s first U.S. ambassador in the early 1990s. He views the increase in American scholarly research on Mongolia as one of the positive results of the country’s changing political climate. Dr. Enkhtuvshin (Mongolian Academy of Sciences) said that he was pleased to see that scientists from so many different fields are interested in conducting research in his country. He and his fellow Mongolians welcome American interest in their country and will try to assist future research programs with the hope of developing a closer working relationship between Mongolian and American scientists. The workshop concluded with a strong consensus that a coordinated research program would soon be organized, and that the workshop paved the way for future research collaboration. SMITHSONIAN ANTHROPOLOGY HONORED AGAIN AT SAA By Elisabeth Ward Last year, the Society for American Archaeology awarded Bill Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward the prestigious Book Award for Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Although we were extremely excited by the honor, we felt a bit shy about being so singled out. That situation was rectified this year, when Ruth Selig, Ann Kaupp, and Alison Brooks won the Award for Excellence in Public Education for their dedicated work over the years on AnthroNotes, a free publication of the Natural History Anthropology Department for teachers of anthropology that includes short articles on recent anthropological work and suggestions for activities in the classroom. This publication was initiated while Bill Fitzhugh was chair of the department, a mantle he is about to resume, so he was especially pleased. Although the lively reception after the awards ceremony, complete with a bouquet of balloons from Carolyn Rose who could not attend in person, was certainly the highlight of the meetings, Arctic Studies Center staff and associates also presented several papers. Bill and Elisabeth jointly presented a paper entitled “Engaging Scandinavian-American Identity through the Smithsonian’s Viking Exhibition” at a thoughtful, theoretically oriented session on archaeological representation in the museum context. Our paper focused on how the Viking exhibition, ostensibly about a culture that existed 1000 years ago, has become very relevant to modern Scandinavian-Americans. Thanks to Kelly Britt and David Goldstein, who organized the session with Heather Atherton, for including us. Ted Timreck, of Timreck Productions, who has worked with the Arctic Studies Center for years on documentaries and websites that bring our work to public attention, showed a film he is currently working on. He is producing a documentary on the “On Your Knees Cave” site, Alaska, where human remains from an individual thought to be over 10,000 years old was discovered, prompting a careful evaluation of how the site should be dealt with by both the archaeologist and the local Tlingit community. But the paper that best represented the Arctic Studies Center was certainly that given by Stephen Loring on his community archaeology project with the Innu and Inuit in Labrador. His paper was part of a session entitled, “Places in Mind: Archaeology as Applied Anthropology,” which included papers on such diverse projects as urban archaeology in historic black communities and work in Australia to promote tourism to outlying towns. All of the papers in the session, regardless of the specifics of the site discussed, shared a methodological approach whereby the archaeologists consciously, deliberately, and cooperatively involve community members whose cultural heritage is represented by the site in the development, execution, and interpretation of the site, though to varying degrees. Stephen’s paper garnished a great deal of interest by the session attendees given his rather unique emphasis on combining teaching Innu and Inuit students about archaeology while practicing traditional subsistence living strategies, many of which the students did not know before they left for the field. Like the conference as a whole, this session pointed to a future for archaeology that maintains a solid scientific basis while successfully creating a socially responsible, publicly aware, discipline. THE 4TH WORLD CONGRESS ON MUMMY STUDIES by Bruno Frohlich The “4th World Congress on Mummy Studies” was held in Nuuk (Godthåb) in Greenland from September 4th to 10th 2001. The Greenland National Museum and Archives acted as the official host for more than 100 congress participants from all over the world. Previous congresses have been held on the Island of Tenerife (Spain), in Columbia and Chile. Traditionally congresses have been held at locations where human mummified remains have been found and/or studied. Thus, Greenland was an obvious choice for the 4th Congress. The finds of the Qilakitsoq mummies in northwestern Greenland in 1972 resulted in one of the most comprehensive and multidiciplinary studies of any mummy finds in the world. At this time, the Qilakitsoq mummies are displayed at the Greenland National Museum and Archives in Nuuk. Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, proved to be an excellent host. The conference facilities were excellent, lodging and food Award winners Ruth Selig, Ann Kaupp, Alison Brooks recieved the SAA Award for Excellence in Public Education, from SAA PresidentRobert Kelly. ASC Newsletter 33 were in good Danish tradition outstanding, and the traditional great hospitality showed by the people of Nuuk was not alone wonderful but also a great experience. More than 70 papers and ten posters were presented covering a variety of topics including paleopathology, bog people, mummification methods, applied technology and analytical methods, mortuary archaeology, conservation, and special sessions on Greenland and Arctic archaeology, and the mummies from Llullaillaco (Argentina). The welcome and official opening ceremony was dominated by speeches by officials from the Greenland National Museum and Archives, The Greenland Home Rule, and local government officials. Ms. Lise Skifte Lennert, Minister of Culture, Education, Research and Church Affairs in Greenland set the tone for the congress by emphasizing the importance of an ethical and respectful treatment of all human remains including mummies and of the importance of studying such material and learning from this process. In addition to the scientific program, several lectures were organized for the general public. This included selected topics such as mummy studies, bog people and DNA analysis were particularly organized for the public and proved to be a great success. Niels Lynnerup of the Laboratory of Biological Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen gave an overview of mummy studies and emphasized the importance of non- destructive and non-invasive methods by showing slides depicting the research on the Qilakitsoq mummies and other human remains both from Greenland and Denmark. Christian Fisher of the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark presented new information about research on bog people and Søren Nørby from the University of Copenhagen gave a broad overview of DNA research and how it relates to archaeological and anthropological studies. The scientific sessions resulted in four days of activities included presentations on a variety of topics related to the study of human mummified remains and on Greenland and Arctic archaeology in general. The first day of talks included mostly reviews of archaeological research in Greenland and in the Eastern Arctic. Peter Schledermann from the Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary, summarized the present status on migrations into and within the North American Arctic area and discussed the dating of various Paleo and Neo Eskimo groups in Greenland. Of interest for most scholars of Greenland pre-history is the question about population replacement or population admixture. For example, did the Thule people, arriving in Northwestern Greenland around 1,150 AD replace an earlier, but now extinct population of Late Dorset people? or did the two groups blend together? Such questions have been reiterated over the years. As we will see later in this review, new research based on the extraction of mtDNA from human skeletal remains have helped solve some of these problems. Claus Andreassen of the Greenland National Museum and Archives summarized some of the more recent data and ideas on mortuary practices, on on-going issues related to possible contacts between Dorset and Thule people, and various migrations of Paleo-Eskimos and Neo-Eskimos into Greenland. Niels Lynnerup gave an excellent overview of the results from the multidiciplinary research on the Qilakitsoq mummies (see attached figure). The Qilakitsoq mummies were found in 1972 by two Greenlanders out on grouse hunting. A total of eight bodies, all fully dressed in excellent preserved skin clothes were retrieved and shipped to Copenhagen where they were studied until they were returned to the Greenland National Museum and Archives in 1982 where they now are on display. The study on the Qilakitsoq mummies is truly multidiciplinary, and an overall review of the results would be prohibitive in this article. However, they date to around 1450 AD. The eight mummified bodies included two children and six adult females. Because of the excellent preservation it was decided that the study of the four best preserved bodies should be non-destructive and non-invasive. Thus, a lot of the results have been obtained by non-destructive means, minute sampling from the surface and some biopsies. Indeed, extensive x-ray analysis was performed by one of major government hospitals in Denmark. More recently, CT scanning has been performed at the Nuuk hospital and it is the hope that such methods will reveal new and exciting information about the mummies. The session on mummification methods included presentation by Bernardo Arriaza of the University of Nevada (mummification of fetuses) and Felipe Cardenas-Arroyo of the Fundacion Erigaie, Bogota, Columbia (skull ‘overmodelling’ and brain extraction in Columbia). Torstein Sjøvold presented the latest find on the Tyrolean Iceman and discussed age at death determination using radiographic and microscopic methods. We also learned from Sjøvold that extensive CT scanning was originally carried out by completing 1 mm scan slices of the skull and mostly 8 mm scans of the post-cranial body. Although no details are available at this time, the 8 mm scan of the post-cranial body could have resulted in missing intrusive objects less than 8 mm in size, such as reported recently by Italian researchers. The segment on bog bodies included several ‘overview’ presentations. Two presentations may be representative of future trends in the studies of human remains: Pauline Asingh of the Moesgård Museum in Aarhus, Denmark presented the results from recent multidiciplinary research on the famous Iron-Age Grauballe bog man from Denmark. New scientific examinations include DNA analysis, CT scanning, paleopathology, preservation/conservation, odontology, C-14 dating, and much more. Robert Janaway of Bradford University in England presented a paper on taphonomic changes in buried bodies and associated materials in a northern England peat environment all based on experimentation. Bodies of buried pigs are monitored pertinent to changes in chemistry, temperature, and humidity to learn and establish rules for changes to carcasses deposited into a peat. Such research is very important The Qilakitsoq child found in northwest Greenland together with seven other Inuit, all well preserved in the cold and dry environment. The bodies have been dated to 1450 A.D., and are an excellent representation of the original Inuit/Thule people (Photo by Bruno Frolich, Courtesy of The Greenland National Museum and Archives.) ASC Newsletter 34 since it allows us to evaluate taphonomic processes and use such information in evaluating present and future finds. The Paleopathology section was dominated by a series of papers describing methodologies and techniques. Athur Aufderheide of the University of Minnesota gave two excellent presentations including one on the Paleoepidemiology of American Trypanosomiasis or Chagas’ disease. Aufderheide used DNA analysis to identify the presence of the parasite causing the Chagas’s disease. Otto Appenzeller from the NMHEMC Research Foundation, Albuquerque, New Mexico introduced a relatively new field of study: Paleoneurology. By studying 200 Egyptian mummy portraits and measuring 32 skulls all dated to about 2,000 BP Appenzeller showed that it is possible to diagnose individuals suffering from potential focal epilepsy, migraine (hemiplegic) and autonomic nervous system dysfunction. In general, the paleopathology presentations demonstrated exciting ways in which pathologists can deduct information from human mummified tissue. What was lacking in some of the presentations, however, was a clear and well defined purpose of the studies and how to apply the information into a greater picture of interpretation. The session on Applied Technology and Analytical methods included some very interesting papers on DNA analysis and the use of non-destructive and non-invasive techniques such as Computed Tomography (CT) and endoscopy. Dennis O’Rourke of the University of Utah, extracted mtDNA from prehistoric skeletons from the Thule culture, Dorset culture and from the Aleutian Islands. Analysis showed that the Thule samples are members of the mitochondrial haplogroup A, and the Dorset samples are members of haplogroup D. Statistical tests significantly separate Thule from Dorset, thus suggesting the ‘Dorset to Thule transition’ to be a population replacement rather than an interaction between the groups. Similar analysis of Sadlermiut skeletons shows the presence of both haplogroups A and D suggesting Sadlermiuts could be kind of remnants of a Dorset population but with a later genetical input from a Thule group. Finally, O’Rourke informed us that haplogroups A and D are both present in equal frequencies in three ancient Aleut skeletal populations as well as in modern Aleuts. This, according to O’Rourke, supports the hypothesis that the Aleutians have been populated by the same genetical population for at least 3,000 to 4,000 years. The Mortuary Archaeology Session completed the Congress’ official scientific program. Filipe Cardenas-Arroyo of the Fundacion Erigaie, Bogota, Columbia argued that Pre- Hispanic burials are “....social spaces representing the continuation of life after death through the use of symbolic icons such as mummies....” Thus, he concludes that Pre- Hispanic burials are symbols of life rather than death. Jane Buikstra of the University of New Mexico examined the role of mummies from La Laguna de Los Condores, Peru and argued that the mummies represented an ‘arrested’ and ‘liminal’ state with the bodies and spirits suspended between the living world and the generative cycles which creates new lives. For this reason, the mummies represent a dangerous and powerful entity. Three papers and three posters on Aleutian mortuary practices were presented by Birna Jonsdottir, David Hunt, and Bruno Frohlich, all from the Smithsonian Institution. Hunt reviewed the historical background and the curation of the institutions more than 30 Aleut mummies from Kagamil Island. Jonsdottir summarized her findings from the CT scanning of 32 mummies and concluded that non-destructive and non-invasive methods such as CT were powerful tools in studying such material and that destructive methods including complete autopsies could be avoided or minimized by the application of CT and biopsies. Frohlich reviewed our knowledge of Aleut mortuary practices and made suggestions for new approaches on how such data could be interpreted. In general, the three authors contend that traditional Aleut mortuary practices and spirituality continued after the arrival of the Russians in 1741 AD and even later after the sale of Russian America to United States of American in 1867. Most likely, traditional mortuary practices, including mummification continued well into the 20th century. Furthermore, they argue that the practice of mummification in the Aleutian Islands represent a temporary status where the contact and communication between the living and the dead’s spirit is important to ensure an orderly transfer of the spirit from the world of the living to ‘another world’. The Congress was ‘wrapped up’ by a special session on the Inca mummies from Mount Llullaillaco in Argentina. Bob Brier of the C. W. Post Campus of the Long Island University in New York expertly chaired presentations describing one of the most exciting and certainly extremely important find of well preserved human remains within the last decade. The 4th Mummy Congress was completed on September 10th and even the tragic events of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City created major travel disruptions for all of us especially if returning to the United States, it can be stated as a fact that the Congress was a great success and that the selection of Nuuk as the host city was an excellent choice. The 5th Mummy Congress will be held in Turin, Italy and is scheduled to take place during the summer of 2005. Old town of Nuuk where the 4th Annual Mummy Congress was held. (Photo by Bruno Frolich) ASC Newsletter 35 SNOWY OWL REPORT In February, the Arctic Studies Center webmail encountered a string of emails about snowy owls. Our website feature on arctic animals includes the snowy owl, and in the description, we originally had written that they are found only in the arctic. Well, this year is certainly the exception. We had several email reports of people who had seen snowy owls in such places as Vermont, England, and the Pacific Northwest. Then a reporter called asking if we’d heard anything about a crash in the lemming population in the arctic. Stephen suggested that the two might be related, since lemmings are the main source of food for snowy owls. Less lemmings means snowy owls have to go further afield to find food, including well south of the arctic. Given this information, we decided to amend our website to say that the snowy owl mostly lives in the arctic, but ranges further. While it seems likely that all of this is a real observable natural phenomena of this winter and spring, we can’t help but notice that this sudden burst of interest in snowy owls happens to coincide with the release of the Harry Potter movie, which features a snowy owl! VOICES OF DISCOVERY Last November the Smithsonian “Voices of Discovery” program, funded by Pfizer Foundation and collaborating with LEARN, an educational organization in Connecticut, organized a program entitled “Sailing into Southeastern Connecticut with the Smithsonian.” Scholars who participated in the program gave presentations revolving around the central theme of water: its historical impact and environmental importance. Several scholars from the Smithsonian were lucky enough to participate in this program, including Elisabeth Ward, who discussed the Viking voyages, circa 1000 A.D., Viking ships, cultural and territorial expansion, trade relations, and environmental impact. The Voices of Discovery program works to involve Smithsonian scholars with communities nationwide, providing educational opportunities for all ages. AN ABUNDANCE OF NEWSLETTERS If you’re wondering why you’ve recieved two newsletters in the past six months, its not because we’ve shifted to semi-annual production! We’re just trying to get back on track with our annual spring issue. Last year’s slippage resulted from our own tardiness being compounded by the events of September 11th, the Smithsonian anthrax mail paralysis, and the closure of the Smithsonian’s printing and duplication service. G I F T S PITSIULAK CONTINUES NORTHERN RESEARCH TRADITION In August of 2001, The University of Massachusetts officially transferred the deed and formal ownership of the Research Vessel Pitsiulak to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. On that occasion, Dr. Tony Morse, Research Professor in geology at the University of Massachusetts, offered the vessel to the Smithsonian to support “the finest kind of science and scholarship in the North,” noting the research accomplishments made by the Arctic Studies Center’s use of Pitsiulak and the extensive record of rebuilding and maintenance of the vessel by the Smithsonian over the past two decades. In the transfer documents addressed to NMNH Associate Director for Science, Ross Simons, Dr. Morse B E R G Y B I T S expressed the hope that the donation would enable the Smithsonian to pursue it long-time commitment to northern research and that the vessel would give new life to this research tradition. Dr. Morse built the R/V Pitsuilak in 1971 with NSF support and was the vessel’s Master for many years. His family, including his wife, Dorothy Forbes Morse, and their daughter Sophie Morse, worked and lived aboard the vessel in Labrador for several seasons in the 1970s. Dr. Morse noted that the collaboration with Fitzhugh and his NMNH team during the period of his research on the bedrock geology of coastal Labrador “did much to enhance the efficiency and safety of our research programs in this difficult area.” After Morse finished his field studies he agreed to loan Pitsiulak to Fitzhugh for the Smithsonian’s Torngat Project (1977-78) and later to its Frobisher project in Baffin Island in the early 1990s. Sophie joined the Smithsonian team for the Frobisher work as First Mate and soon became the vessel’s operations officer. Dr. Morse was introduced to Labrador in 1949 by Cdr. David C. Nutt, USNR, who was then skipper of the 100-foot schooner Blue Dolphin, which was then engaged in oceanographic and geographic studies in Labrador. While on board, Dr. Morse assisted Dartmouth College archeologist Elmer Harp in various field studies, during which they discovered the important Port au Choix Dorset site in northern Newfoundland. Commander Nutt received his early training in northern regions while sailing with Capt. Bob Bartlett to North Greenland and Ellesmere Island aboard schooner Effie M. Morrissey. Later he was promoted to Exec on Schooner Bowdoin under Capt. Donald MacMillan, who was conducting geographical studies in Labrador and Greenland, ultimately became skipper of the USN hydrographic vessel Sumner, as well as a task force commander in the Pacific. During World War II, Captain Bartlett enlisted the aid of the Morrissey in search of an Arctic air route to support the ferrying of fighter planes to Britain. Coincidentally, the senior officer on that enterprise was Harvard physiologist Dr. Alexander Forbes, USNR, the great uncle of Dr. Morse’s wife, Dorothy Forbes Morse. Dr. Forbes book, Quest for a Northern Air Route, vividly describes his search for the Arctic air route, and his work describing pioneering work in air-photo mapping, published as Mapping Northern Labrador From the Air in 1932, remains unsurpassed. Dr. Morse has encouraged the Arctic Studies Center to “enjoy this rather remarkable thread of history of a great schooner and a web of connections down the line from Bob Bartlett through my own dear mentor David Nutt and my dearly remembered great uncle-in-law, Alex Forbes, and through them to R/V Pitsiulak, all connected in turn to Captain Sophie Morse.” Well chronicled, Tony! And now to be well-remembered! A W A R D S The Alaska Federation of Natives’ Denali Award was presented this year, to Ann Fienup-Riordan, a Research Associate with the Arctic Studies Center, for her work with Native Alaskans. Over the past 30 years she has been helping the Yup’ik preserve their history and traditions, including curating the exhibition Agayuliyararput (Our Way of Making Prayer): The Living Tradition of Yupik Masks. The award was presented at the annual AFN convention, held in Anchorage. During her acceptance speech she thanked the Yup’ik for sharing their knowledge with her and explained how her research agenda has changed over the ASC Newsletter 36 previous decades, moving from personal interests towards those of the Yup’ik people, such as Yup’ik masks and lore. We congratulate Ann, a model of a thoughtful, respectful, and highly productive scholar on this well-deserved honor. C O M I N G S A N D G O I N G S The unexpected departure of Carolyn Rose as Chairman of the Department of Anthropology, due to illness, and the appointment of Bill Fitzhugh in her place, was by far the most noteworthy professional change last year in the Anthropology Department. We all miss Carolyn’s guidance and compassion, and sincerely hope for her full recovery and speedy return to work. Bill anticipates his new duties as Chairman will occupy a large percentage of his time, and is depending on Aron Crowell, Stephen Loring, Igor Krupnik, and Elisabeth Ward to keep the Arctic Studies Center on mission. To aid in these efforts, an energetic, intelligent, and skilled team member has been added: Matthew Gallon. A 2001 graduate of Bowdoin College. Matt assisted in the survey of the Quebec Lower North Shore last summer and has proven to be an indispensable research assistant. Aron Crowell and Jennifer McCarty are similarly pleased to have the assistance of Rita Eagle in the Anchorage office, who has been compiling the information gathered during the Alaska Collection Project while completing her degree at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. The other researcher at the Arctic Studies Center this year was Vladimir Pitulko, from the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. A long time associate of our Russian arctic projects, Pitulko helped Bill and Igor organize an English translation of Leonid Khlobystin’s Archaeology of Taimyr and continued his research on the Zhokov Island and the 25-27,000 year old Yana River site, eastern Sakha on the Laptev sea coast. He follows Lynda Gullason, who completed her fellowship with us last year just in time to give birth to a beautiful baby. Pitulko will be back this fall to complete his fellowship work. To a few other colleagues, we’ve had to say a more lasting good-bye. Nikki Sandoval, who was instrumental in the hire of Jennifer McCarty and a respected member of NMAI’s National Outreach Team, has left NMAI for a position at XXXX. Slightly more far afield, our long-term friend at the Canadian Embassy, Louise Blaise, who was an elegant, thoughtful, and very supportive Cultural Counselor for many years, has been posted to Japan, where she will serve as Press Officer. We wish both of them well. This year has also seen its share of interns, adding to the cycle of comings and goings. Sara Gonzales from the University of California, San Diego, spent January through March with us, working on our website update and allowing us to enjoy the thrill of graduate school acceptances. Best of luck to you! Sara’s friend Frank Zeccola agreed to utilize his English skills on editing our newsletter this spring as he finished up at the University of Maryland. Lori Beth Mahaney from George Washington University jumped in this spring to assist with the Elders volume, and also worked on the Newsletter. However, our summer intern Elise Kruger has the distinction of finishing not only the newsletter, but also the Elders volume. Other summer interns include Iris Hahn, whose work on the linguistics of the Kensington Runestone will be highlighted next issue, and Katura Reynolds, a Master’s student studying scientific illustration and a pleasure to have in the office. Speaking of Saras, Sara Ganeire has returned from her Morman missionary tour in Argentina and is now planning “what next” at home in California. We’d be delighted if her path keeps us in sight! ALASKA OUTREACH COORDINATOR JOINS ASC A new Outreach Coordinator joined the staff of the NMNH’s Arctic Studies Center last fall. Jennifer McCarty, who is Iñupiaq (a.k.a. “Eskimo”) and Scotch-Irish American, had been working as a contractor at the ASC prior to being hired in early September of 2001. The position is funded by the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and is situated in the Alaska Office of the ASC. The ASC’s Alaska Office is supported and housed by the Anchorage Museum of History and Art in Anchorage, Alaska. “I am very excited to be here,” commented Ms. McCarty about her new appointment. “In this position, I have the opportunity to interact with individuals, communities and organizations, and help them develop their ideas about improving or even starting culture centers and museums throughout Alaska. I very much want to thank NMAI’s Nikki Sandoval and NMNH’s Aron Crowell for bringing me into the Arctic Studies Center and NMAI Community Services teams.” Last winter, McCarty developed a pamphlet describing internship and training opportunities from ASC, NMAI and NMNH’s Office of Fellowships and Grants, distributed statewide to native Culture Centers and Museums, native corporations and individuals. She then gave presentations about NMAI and ASC at the Bering Straits Regional Elders and Youth Conference in Nome, Alaska and in a teleconference for the Culture Centers and Museums Consortium Group. McCarty’s main responsibility is to assist Alaska Office Director Aron Crowell with the Alaska Collections Project, created to develop and disseminate knowledge of the Smithsonian’s Alaskan collections in cooperation with Alaska Native Elders from communities around the state. Objects from Alaska are housed in Suitland, Maryland at both the NMNH’s Anthropology section at the Museum Support Center (MSC) and in NMAI’s Community Resource Center (CRC) as well. McCarty coordinates outreach efforts between the Smithsonian and the Alaska Native community. She is responsible for bringing several groups of Alaska Native Elders to the MSC and the CRC to examine objects from their cultural area in Alaska. The information that they share will form the basis for an exhibit, a website and educational material. Three such groups have already visited the collections. Such visits will continue into 2003, and in 2004 will be followed by an exhibition at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. In addition to her other responsibilities is the opportunity to field questions about the Arctic Studies Center, the NMAI’s Community Services program. She is available to contact for assistance in developing ideas for improving and starting culture centers and museums throughout Alaska; and for individuals interested in learning more about opportunities the Smithsonian has for students (High School and beyond), Elders, community scholars, artists, and museum staff. 2002 ASC Summer Interns (from left) Katura Reynolds, Iris Hahn and Elise Krueger ASC Newsletter 37 I N M E M O R I A M SEPTEMBER 11TH VICTIMS The last page of this newsletter has often been reserved for the annual obituaries of the distinguished arctic anthropologists and close colleagues who have touched the lives and minds of ASC staff. As it came time to produce this year’s newsletter, we were gratified to realize that arctic anthropologists have a remarkable tenacity for life. We admire Elmer Harp, Frederica De Laguna, and other elders of our “Arctic clan” for their strength and longevity. The volume dedicated to Elmer and in honor of many other arctic anthropologists from his generation has certainly tested the patience as well as teh longevity of its authors, will be completed this summer for distribution in the early fall. Yet even if this year had seen the passing of one of our close associates, the jarring events of September 11th have altered our common vision of the trauma of individual, natural deaths. We would therefore like to take this opportunity to remember those who were killed on that day. None of us here at the Arctic Studies Center personally knew any victims of either the World Trade Center or the Pentagon tragedies. Though we did not experience close losses in our families, one should be thankful for a cultural mechanism that allows those without an immediate personal grief to process the horror of such an event. As with other tragic events that shocked the nation - the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster - it seems that everyone can recall their personal story of exactly how they learned of the tragedy, exactly what one was doing on September 11th. In remembering that day so clearly, we all remember the communal loss and we culturally share in the grief. For the staff of the Arctic Studies Center, September 11th was not so unlike other days. We were all spread hither and yon, doing various things. Bill Fitzhugh was getting ready for an 11am flight to Houston, where he was supposed to give a Viking lecture. Aron Crowell was in Suitland Maryland with a delegation of Native Alaskan elders and leaders from the Norton Sound area as part of the Alaska Collection Project. Igor Krupnik was at home preparing for his next trip to St. Lawrence Island for fieldwork. Stephen Loring was in Labrador. Elisabeth Ward was alone in the ASC offices downtown on the Mall attending to daily duties. None of us was watching the news. And then the phone calls started coming in – Elisabeth’s brother called her, and then she called Bill at home, still uncertain what was going on. As they were on the phone, Bill’s shaking voice said more than his words, “The World Trade Tower just collapsed, it just collapsed.” Shortly after he received a phone call from Aron, who had heard the news in Maryland. He and the delegation of Elders from Nome and Gambell had been invited down to the home of Terry Snowball, an NMAI employee, in southern Maryland, hopefully far enough away from Washington to be out of danger. Though safe, Elders Jacob Ahwinona, Estelle Oozevaseuk, and Marie Saclamana were very upset, and doubly concerned since many of them needed to get home to Alaska and the flights were canceled for many days. Their friends and family back home were especially worried about them being so close to the seat of government. Everyone expected another attack. Back in D.C., from the windows of the ASC looking out onto the Mall, Elisabeth could see a thick column of black smoke blowing in from the west, where the Pentagon lies. Smithsonian staff were not sure what to do, and huddled around whatever television was available. A loud noise was interpreted as a car bomb, and there were rumors that the State Department had been hit, as everyone grew increasingly worried. Finally, around 11am, a note from the Director instructed us to vacate the building. The streets of Washington were a surreal scene: business men poured out of their offices, walking home; cars were clogging the intersections, no one getting anywhere; conflicting reports of the status of the metro where flying about, as everyone asked each other which metro stations and lines were okay or closed. As Bill, Aron, Igor, and Elisabeth attempted to sort out what best to do back in Washington, Stephen Loring’s experience of the tragedy of September 11th is surely one of the more unique. Stephen had been conducting fieldwork in the interior of Labrador, searching for traces of Innu land-use and tenure. With three companions he was traversing a difficult portage route down the Adlatok River Valley, west of Hopedale. Stephen and his friends only heard the news of the events of the 11th some ten days later when they made a call out on their satellite phone to let their friends and families know of their whereabouts and progress. We suspect he must have been among the last people on earth to learn about the tragedy. We all reported to the office the next day despite the museum’s offer of liberal leave to demonstrate our resilience, our defiance against terrorism, the only way we could. The Elders likewise returned to the Suitland collection facilities and tackled the work of examining collections from their villages, even as it became increasingly clear that flights would be delayed for many days. The rest of us were a bit less productive, as we tried to process the shock of that traumatic day. For many days afterward, we were overwhelmed by a stream of anxious phone calls, email messages, faxes, and letters of condolences from our colleagues and friends in Canada, Russia, Norway, Britain, France, Japan, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Iceland, Greenland, as well as from all across the United States. We extend a sincere thanks to the many colleagues who wrote to express their concern, sympathy, and solidarity during and after September 11th. And such are the stories we recall when the question is asked, “Where were you that day?” By sharing them with you, we mean to acknowledge the gravity of that day and to express how much the tragic deaths of so many people affected us all. ASC photography collection ASC Newsletter 38 STAFF PUBLICATIONS Aron Crowell 2001 “Looking Both Ways” in Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People. Edited by Aron L. Crowell, Amy F. Steffian, and Gordon L. Pullar. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks. 2001 “Ukgwepet – “Our Beliefs”: Alutiiq Spiritual Life and Traditions” with Jeff Leer. In Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People. Edited by Aron L. Crowell, Amy F. Steffian, and Gordon L. Pullar. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks. 2002 One Century at a Time: The Alutiiq People of Kodiak Island. The Harriman Expedition Retraced, 2001. In press. 2002 New Dynamics of Cultural Research and Representation in Alaska. In North Meets North: The First Northern Research Forum. Northern Research Forum, Akyreyi, Iceland. William Fitzhugh 2001 Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897 1902. Igor Krupnik and William W. Fitzhugh, editors. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthroplogy, 1. Washington D.C.: Arctic Studies Center. 2001 “Foreword.” In: Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897 1902. Igor Krupnik and William W. Fitzhugh, editors. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthroplogy, 1. Washington D.C.: Arctic Studies Center. 2002 “Yamal to Greenland: Global connections in Circumpolar Archaeology.” In Archaeology: The Widening Debate, edited by Barry Cunliffe, Wendy Davies, and Colin Renfrew, pgs. 91-144. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2002 “Origin of Museum Anthropology of the Smithsonian Institution and Beyond” In Anthropology, History, and American Indians: Essays in Honor of William Curtis Sturtevant, edited by William L. Merrill and Ives Goddard. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 44:179-200. Washington, Government Printing Office. Igor Krupnik 2001 Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897 1902. Igor Krupnik and William W. Fitzhugh, editors. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthroplogy, 1. Washington D.C.: Arctic Studies Center. 2001 “A Jesup Bibliography.” In: Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897 1902. Igor Krupnik and William W. Fitzhugh, editors. pgs 297- 316. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthroplogy, 1. Washington D.C.: Arctic Studies Center. 2002 The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change. Igor Krupnik and Dyanna Jolly, editors. Arctic Research Consortium of the United States: Fairbanks. Stephen Loring 2001 “Introduction to Lucien M. Turner and the Beginnings of Smithsonian Anthropology in the North. In Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay Territory [orig.1894], by Lucien M. Turner. Classics of Smithsonian Anthropology. pp. vii-xxxii, Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington. Elisabeth Ward 2001 “Northern Europe.” In, Peoples of the World, edited by K.M. Kostyal. Pp. 164-174. Washington D.C.: National Geographic. With Keith E. Ward. 2001 “Mythic Explorers and Warrior Poets.” Terra Magazine 38 (4): 3-5. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Arctic Studies Center: Anchorage Office: Department of Anthropology Arctic Studies Center Natural History Building, MRC 112 at the Rasmuson Center Smithsonian Institution 121 West 7th Avenue P.O. Box 37012 Anchorage, AK 99501 10th and Constitution N.W. (907) 343-6162 Washington, D.C. 20013-7012 (907) 343-6130 (fax) (202) 357-2682 (202) 357-2684 (fax) or visit our website at http://www.mnh.si.edu/arctic ARCTIC STUDIES CENTER STAFF: William Fitzhugh, Director and Curator: fitzhugh.william@nmnh.si.edu Aron Crowell, Alaska Director and Anthropologist: acrowell@alaska.net Stephen Loring, Museum Anthropologist: loring.stephen@nmnh.si.edu Igor Krupnik, Ethnologist: krupnik.igor@nmnh.si.edu Elisabeth Ward, Museum Specialist: ward.elisabeth@nmnh.si.edu Jennifer McCarty, Alaska Outreach Coordinator: mccartyjj@ci.anchorage.ak.us Matthew Gallon, Research Assistant: gallon.matthew@nmnh.si.edu RESEARCH ASSOCIATES: Noel Broadbent, University of Umeå Ernest Burch Jr., Harrisburg, PA. Anne Fineup-Riordan, Anchorage, AK. Joan Gero, American University Norman Hallendy, Carp, Ontario Daniel Odess, University of Alaska, Fairbanks Douglas Siegal-Causey, Harvard University STEERING COMMITTEE: Douglas Anderson Ted Birkedal Ernest Burch Anne Fineup-Riordan Jana Harcharek Aldona Jonaitis Susan Kaplan Gordon Pullar Patricia Wolf William Workman Rosita Worl Miranda Wright Steven Young CONTACT INFORMATION This newsletter has been produced by Frank Zeccola, Editor; Elise Krueger, Designer; and Elisabeth Ward, Manager Please note the change of address, in D.C., to avoid mail irradiation delays and damage. ASC Newsletter 39 Order Form for Arctic Studies Center Publications Title of publication ordering: Please send me: : Number of copies Ship to: Name Address City State Country ZIP or Postal Code Total amount enclosed: Please fax or mail this form to: Arctic Studies Center Smithsonian Institution PO Box 37012 National Museum Natural History, Rm 307 MRC 0112 Washington, DC 20013-7012 Credit Card Information: Credit card number: Type of card (visa, mastercard, etc): Expiration date: Phone: (202) 357- 2682Fax: (202) 357- 2684 Signature: Payment Method: check money order credit card (for international orders only: allow 6 to 8 weeks in processing) Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Chisato O. Dubreuil. 1999. Paperback $49.95 Hardcover $75.00 (CD also available at no cost) Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897-1902. Edited by Igor Krupink and William W. Fitzhugh. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 1, 2001. $18.00 (with shipping) Akuzilleput Igaqullghet: Our words Put to Paper. Edited by Igor Krupink, Willis Walunga, and Vera Metcalf. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 3. 2002. $18.00 (with shipping) - available after September 2002 The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change. Edited by Igor Krupink and Dyanna Jolly. ARCUS, 2002. $18.00 (with shipping) (limited number of copies; also available at www.arcus.org) Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward. Available from SI Press (www.sipress.si.edu) Paperback $34.95 Hardcover $60.00 Thank you for supporting the Arctic Studies Center and its research! Presorted Standard Postage & Fees Paid Sm ithsonian Institution G -94 A rctic Studies C enter D epartm ent of A nthropology N atural H istory Building, M RC 112 Sm ithsonian Insitution P.O . Box 37012 10th and C onstitution N .W . W ashington, D .C. 20013-7012 O fficial B usiness Penalty for Private U se $300