Ik Eskimo Research Articles

Collaborative Filmmaking: An Open Space for Making Meaning, A Moral Ground for Ethnographic Film

I will discuss here the collaborative space between image maker and media subject, the space where I believe good documentary filmmaking happens. All documentary exists as a record of the relationship between filmmaker and subject. When I speak about collaboration here, I speak about the ground of that relationship. I am not discussing traditional collaboration between co-filmmakers, as between David and Judith MacDougall or Tim Asch, Patsy Asch and Linda Connor, nor am I speaking about media, often indigenous media, where co-subjects are the full makers. I am speaking about the most common form of documentary where maker and subject are different—different in cultural background or gender, social power, economics, language, filmmaking knowledge, etc. With little regard for differing levels of control, the term collaboration has long served as a politically acceptable catch-all description of most joint efforts. In documentary the term is tossed around to mean anything from the subject as informant to the sharing of differing skills to the subject introducing the crew into a community to the subject as co-producer. The type of lateral collaboration I'm proposing creates an open space for dialogue: a space for filmmakers to learn to pose the questions they do not originally know to ask, a place where film subjects select the fragments of their reality they deem significant to document, and a moral place where subjects and image makers can mediate their own representation. I will briefly describe the community collaborative filmmaking that my colleague Leonard Kamerling and I developed over the past twenty-three years at the Alaska Native Heritage Film Center (ANHFC), University of Alaska, working with Inupiaq and Yup'ik Eskimo communities Our collaborative approach has served us well as ethnographic filmmakers, and I also believe it has served the indigenous communities well in creating film documents they value and cherishWe first present our methods, our previous work and our goals to village residents and tribal leaders. If they grant us formal permission to make a film with them, we move into the village for two to four months. Every individual can refuse to be filmed at any time. Community members select who and what events will be filmed, and decide what will not be filmedThey make all translations and review edited versions of the films. Often we use a double or triple blind translation process to insure accuracy. Kamerling and I serve as co-directors, photographer, sound recordist and editor. We do claim authorship. We make aesthetic, technical, contextual and structural choices which we feel make the film accessible to western ethnographic and documentary audiences—limiting the running time (20-90 minutes), subtitling in English, identifying the environment, explicating identitiesWe also very consciously mediate the editing for the village audience—including all clans, images of deceased elders, special jokes, etc. We follow a verite/direct cinema style using western narrative dramatic devices such as pacing, formalist composition and elliptical editingWe try to maintain the temporal integrity of interviews, stories, and action sequences, and we show edited scenes to residents to make sure we haven't sacrificed vital elements or stylistic tonalities to the demands of compressing timeMost residents prefer longer versions of the material

Mother–Child Interaction Among the Alaskan Eskimos

This is an exploration of the world of the Yup'ik Eskimos, who live on the Bering seacoast in rural Alaska. The Eskimos have an ancient culture that has survived the harshest of environments. Although geographically isolated, the Eskimos have become increasingly acculturated to the Western culture. The authors studied maternal-child interaction and quality of the home environment in two remote villages and report their experiences, the Yup'ik Eskimo culture, research findings, and implications for nursing practice.

Always Getting Ready-Upterrlainarluta: Yu'pik Eskimo Subsistence in Southwest Alaska.

In this remarkable book, James Barker follows the Yup'ik Eskimo of Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta through their year's cycle, beginning with spring seal hunting and ending with the winter dancing that celebrates life on the land. Striking black-and-white photographs and accompanying text capture a people alert to every opportunity. Whether they are waiting for the weather to clear for hunting or preparing testimony on the effects of oil exploration, they are, in the words of Yup'ik Agnes Kelly Bostrom, always getting ready. For the Yup'ik, the realities of life on the delta have underlined the practicality of their traditional culture. Living in a difficult climate, far from job centers and sources of supplies, the Yup'ik still rely on the land for food and materials. Their fishing, sealing, trapping, and berry picking are not sentimental reminders of a bygone way of life. They are practical necessities, bringing in as much as a thousand pounds of food per capita in some villages. A flexible and innovative people, the Yup'ik have been quick to integrate snow machines, CB radios, and other items they find useful into their lifestyle. They have revived the traditions of potlatches and dances-banned for years by missionaries-composing new songs that comment on snow machine joyrides, bingo games, and basketball. James Barker has photographed the people of the delta for eighteen years. Like his Yup'ik friends and subjects, he has been ready at a moment's notice to participate in whale hunts, trapping trips, steam baths, and the annual exodus to fishcamp, one of the highlights of the year. The photographs and conversations he presents in this book are neither elegies nor souvenirs, but something more basic and more valuable. When there is a moment of real connection or understanding, he writes of his Yup'ik companions, then perhaps because we are different, I have a sense of catching something universal.

The “observational construction” in central (Alaskan) yup'ik Eskimo and (central) Siberian yupik Eskimo

Abstract In Central Yup'ik and Siberian Yupik Eskimo (and in Greenlandic, at least, as well) there is a construction where two events are linked, but loosely so in that there is no mechanism for affirming or denying an identity between the third person subject of the main event and the third person subject or object of the secondary event. That is, the apparatus of third person reflexive (or fourth person) verb endings is not used 1 In contrast to constructions built on the connective (or relative) verb moods, expressing causation, coincidence in time, contingency, etc., where reflexive third person endings on the dependent mood are obligatorily used to affirm identity with the subject of the main verb, and even more so the subordinative (or appositionalis or conjunctive) verb mood where the subject is obligatorially the same as that of the main verb. . I term this construction the observational construction.

Always Getting Ready, Upterrlainarluta: Yup’ik Eskimo Subsistence in Southwest Alaska, by James H. Barker

Always Getting Ready, Upterrlainarluta: Yup’ik Eskimo Subsistence in Southwest Alaska, by James H. Barker

Clearing the Path: Metaphors to Live by in Yup'ik Eskimo Oral Tradition

Clearing the Path: Metaphors to Live by in Yup'ik Eskimo Oral Tradition

Legendary Birds in the Physical Landscape of the Yup'ik Eskimos

This account describes a unique research problem experienced by the author in the summer of 1985 conducting fieldwork on a federal, cultural resource management project in southwestern Alaska. The discussion the complex roleofthe anthropologist in the implementation of one specific component of Alaska Native Land Claims legislation, and testifies to the continued vitality of the oral tradition in contemporary Central Yup'ik Eskimo life.

Differential Deviance and Social Control Mechanisms Among Two Groups of Yup'ik Eskimo

This article explores the question of whether different social control mechanisms contribute to social disorganization and consequent deviance. Two groups of Yup'ik Eskimo were compared on reported felonies and misdemeanors. One group belongs to a sovereignty movement called the "Yupi'it Nation." Some member villages in this group have abolished their own tribal courts. The other group has maintained relationships with the state of Alaska and relies on Western law enforcement to maintain social order. There are statistically significant differences in amounts of reported felonies and misdemeanors. This may be due to differential deviance, differential reporting, or a combination of both. Because of the political position of the sovereignty villages, however, it seems clear that they are using more traditional methods of dealing with disruptive behavior. Use of traditional social control may contribute to social cohesiveness, thereby reducing deviance. Differential Deviance and Social Control Mechanisms.

Meaning in Mud: Yup'ik Eskimo Girls at Play

This study describes storyknifing as played by one group of girls in a Yup'ik Eskimo village. We describe the utensils, symbols, and stories used in this activity as well as the historical role storyknifing has played in traditional Eskimo culture. We found that despite the Westernization of the culture, storyknifing in this village continues to provide a forum for young girls to learn both cultural and cognitive knowledge.

The Real People and the Children of Thunder: The Yup'ik Eskimo Encounter with Moravian Missionaries John and Edith Kilbuck

The Real People and the Children of Thunder: The Yup'ik Eskimo Encounter with Moravian Missionaries John and Edith Kilbuck

Review: The Real People and the Children of Thunder: The Yup'ik Eskimo Encounter with Moravian Missionaries John and Edith Kilbuck, by Ruth Fienup-Riordan

Review: <i>The Real People and the Children of Thunder: The Yup'ik Eskimo Encounter with Moravian Missionaries John and Edith Kilbuck</i>, by Ruth Fienup-Riordan

The Real People and the Children of Thunder: The Yup'ik Eskimo Encounter with Moravian Missionaries John and Edith Kilbuck

The Real People and the Children of Thunder: The Yup'ik Eskimo Encounter with Moravian Missionaries John and Edith Kilbuck

The Real People and the Children of Thunder: The Yup'ik Eskimo Encounter with Moravian Missionaries John and Edith Kilbuck

The Real People and the Children of Thunder: The Yup'ik Eskimo Encounter with Moravian Missionaries John and Edith Kilbuck

Comparison of Central Alaskan Yup'ik Eskimo and Central Siberian Yupik Eskimo

Comparison of Central Alaskan Yup'ik Eskimo and Central Siberian Yupik Eskimo

A Cautionary Tale of Curriculum Development in Yup'ik Eskimo Communities

This article is a cautionary tale of an ongoing, six-year-old curriculum development project in southwest Alaska between the University of Alaska, local area schools, and Yup'ik Eskimo communities. This article suggests an alternative model of schooling that conceives of the school as a community institution, accepts conflict between school and the larger dominant society, and acknowledges communities' efforts in devising their own political institutions. EDUCATION, CURRICULUM, NATIVE ALASKAN EDUCATION, ETHNOGRAPHY, MINORITY EDUCATION

The Stress Conspiracy and Stress-Repelling Bases in the Central Yup'ik and Siberian Yupik Eskimo Languages

0. Introduction. There are two major phonological differences between the Yupik Eskimo languages and Inupiaq Eskimo.' One is the presence in Yupik of a fourth vowel, schwa, which is not found in Inupiaq (except marginally in Seward Peninsula Inupiaq). The other difference is that the Yupik languages all have ryhthmic systems in which alternating syllables are stressed subject to various modifications depending on the particular Yupik language and dialect within that language. Inupiaq has no such rhythmic stress system (although Seward Peninsula Inupiaq has a rhythmic process of consonant weakening paralleling the rhythmic stress system in neighboring Yupik areas).2 Central Yup'ik rhythmic stress was first touched on by Hinz (1944:5) and Swadesh 1955:34), discussed more by Bergsland (1967:211-12), and described in detail by Miyaoka (1971); it is further described by Reed et al. (1977). Siberian Yupik rhythmic stress is described by Krauss (1975). Alutiiq rhythmic stress has been extensively researched by Leer (ms.). Central Yup'ik rhythmic stress will be elaborated on by Miyaoka (forthcoming), and the three systems will be discussed together with the Siberian Yupik variants and Seward Peninsula Inupiaq in Krauss (forthcoming). In this article I discuss one very important aspect of the Yupik stress systems which results in morphologically conditioned modification of the

Role and Reference Related Subject Properties and Ergativity in Yup'Ik Eskimo and Tagalog

Role and Reference Related Subject Properties and Ergativity in Yup'Ik Eskimo and Tagalog