Not Just a Pretty Face: Dolls and Human Figurines in Alaska Native Cultures

"The exhibition of 'Not just a pretty face,' which opened at the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks ... in June 1999, celebrates the many uses of dolls and human figurines from Alaska Native cultures past and present. The exhibition is drawn almost exclusively from the museum's collection of dolls and human miniatures from Alaska Native cultures. It includes several thousand figures from Alaska's prehistoric and early historic periods and is one of the largest and most representative public collections of historic and modern Alaska Native dolls in existence. All six ethnic groups in Alaska--the Inupiaq and Yupik Eskimos, the Aleuts and Alutiiqs, as well as the Athabascan and Northwest Coast Indians--are represented in the collection, though Central Yupik and St. Lawrence Island Yupik collections of human figures are largest. This essay describes the various purposes dolls and human figurines have served in Alaska Native cultures past and present. We have drawn on a wide variety of sources: published, archival, and oral history furnished by the exhibition's Advisory Team"--P. 3.