PALEO-INUITCULTURE, ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND (SIVUQAQ)

The object illustrated in this catalogue is a fine example of the functional, spiritual and aesthetic principles of Old Bering Sea culture. Functionally, we may interpret it as a form similar to a “wound plug,”used during traditional hunting of seals. Such devices would utilize the pointed end of the ivory to insert into a harpoon wound, preventing the total loss of the animal’s blood and also providing a secure place to lash ties to aid in hauling in the hunted game. An inverted form of the wound plug is, however, more likely to be the object seen here. Given that this particular tool is elegantly carved into the form of a bear’s head, and that the opposite, grooved end of the ivory is left undecorated, it is more likely that this device was used somewhat like a cork in a wine bottle, to create a“stopper” for a container fashioned from seal skin. Used as such, the decorated bear’s head would protrude from the opening, and the grooved end inserted into the container, with rawhide or reed lashing tied around the groove to close it.This explanation would also account for the prominent hole through the tool, which would provide a secure place to tie the lashing, as well as allow for the container to be suspended for carrying or hanging inside a dwelling.

Animal forms used to decorate tools often provide a sort of“label” or “icon” to describe its association. Fishing boxes containing lures, darts and harpoon components, for example, are usually decorated with ivory carvings of fish. Here, in what is seemingly a bear (albeit very much reduced in form to its simple ears, eyes, and closed mouth), we might guess that the object was used as the closure for a container used to store rendered bear fat. While Polar bear is not generally hunted for its meat, encounters with them by hunters are often fatal for either party. Wasting nothing, bear fat might be rendered for cooking and lamp oil, meat cooked, and skins (perhaps the most valued asset of the bear) processed for clothing and blankets.

Notable here is the linear decoration across the surface of the bear’s head. What I might describe as a stitching pattern, of a solid line attended with dashes, traces gracefully across the skeletal head. We see this sort of patterning in most Old Bering Sea art, in which the skeletal underlines of a living being are suggested, lending the animal a spiritual aspect. It connotes ancestral lineage, but also simply a reminder that what remains of life is but the hard skeleton within.

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