b. Aqlitiiq (Dance Mittens)

–Sarah Diver

Dance Mittens as Material and Ceremonial Objects

The dance mittens (aqlitiiq) shown above are made with sealskin leather with puffin beaks attached to the surface with sinew. These mittens, when danced, likely made a distinctive rattling noise as the puffin beaks clacked against one another. Because stealth was essential to hunting most mammals, the noise-making quality of these mittens designates them as fit for solely ceremonial use in addition to their lack of functional sectioned appendages. A qupak, or regional hem design, lines the cuffs of these special ceremonial mittens, symbolizing their belonging to Inupiaq regalia – like a parka.[1] Furthermore, the polar bear trim on these mittens further signifies their special use.[2] The Inupiaq could only obtain polar bear fur and skin through trade or when there were enough men available to take down the large animal, which rarely happened during long hunts on the ice.[3] Polar bears were usually encountered by seal hunters, who competed with the bears for the same prey, or when a bear happened to wander into a village looking for food.[4] Subsequently, polar bear fur was rare and highly valued for its exceptionally insulating properties.[5] Furthermore, polar bear fur symbolized both the adeptness of the team of hunters required to take down the animal, and thus more broadly, symbolized the community’s efforts in hunting, processing, and utilizing the enormous animal’s body, aligning the village with the powerful inua of the polar bear.[6] Because precious polar bear fur was used to trim these dance mittens, we can imagine how the trim invokes the community’s relationship with such a rare and large animal, demonstrating the strength of the hosting community in a public forum like an inter-village ceremonial dance.

Click here for a link to a webpage containing discussion of these dance mittens by Inupiaq elder Sylvester Ayek

Finally, the size of these mittens, which when worn, would have engulfed the whole arm. Imitating a bird’s wing, the construction of these mittens likely referenced the myth of the Eagle Mother that informs the Eagle-Wolf dance, which was performed during the Messenger Feast.[7] Most of the main tenants of the Eagle-Wolf myth contain the following four main plot details: 1) a hunter kills an eagle, 2) the hunter learns from the Eagle Mother to sing, dance, and feast which allows the killed eagle’s spirit to be reborn, 3) the hunter hears the steady rhythm of the Eagle Mother’s heart, and 4) the hunter learns to make a drum that sounds like the Eagle Mother’s heart.[8] In some areas, the hunter learns to dance by seeing four swallows disappear into four holes on the side of a hill, and when the swallows emerge, they are transformed into dancing wolves.[9] Keeping this story in mind, the dance mittens perhaps imitate the wings of the transformed swallows, and the rattle of the puffin beaks allow the dancers to keep time to the beat of the Eagle Mother’s heart.

 

Dance Mittens in the Avery Properties Drawings

Drawings B, C, and D demonstrate how these dance mittens would have been used in performance. The attention the artist has given to detailing the individual puffin beaks indicates how sound was likely an important part of performative clothing. One can imagine the rattling sound the mittens would have made with a forceful gesture, similar to the way the figures’ arms are extended in Drawing C.  Likewise, Drawings B and D show us how the mittens were worn presumably before and after the swallows become wolves; their continual use throughout the performance likely communicated the transformative aspect of the story through continuity.

[1] Martin, Cyd. “Caribou, Reindeer and Rickrack: Some Factors Inlfuencing Cultural Change in Northern Alaska, 1880-1940.” In Arctic Clothing of North America – Alaska, Canada, Greenland, edited by J.C.H. King, Birgit Pauksztat, and Robert Storrie, 121-26. Montreal and Kingston: Mc-Gill-Queen’s University Press, 2005.

[2] Issenman, Betty. “From Earth, Sea, and Sky.” Chap. 3 In Sinews of Survival : The Living Legacy of Inuit Clothing, 33. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997.

[3] Burch, Ernest S. “The Economic Process.” Chap. 4 In Social Life in Northwest Alaska : The Structure of Iñupiaq Eskimo Nations, 170-71. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2006.

[4] Ibid, 170.

[5] Issenman, Betty. “From Earth, Sea, and Sky.” Chap. 3 In Sinews of Survival : The Living Legacy of Inuit Clothing, 33. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997.

[6] Burch, Ernest S. “The Economic Process.” Chap. 4 In Social Life in Northwest Alaska : The Structure of Iñupiaq Eskimo Nations, 170-71. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2006.

[7] Kingston, Deanna M., Lucy Tanaqiq Koyuk, and Earl Aisana Mayac. “The Story of the King Island Wolf Dance, Then and Now.” Western Folklore 60, no. 4 (2001): 263-78.

[8] Ibid, 265.

[9] Ibid.