Alutiiq mask returns home to Kodiak
Gone for almost 200 years
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository in Kodiak has received an important artifact from a museum in Canada. Almost a year ago, the McMaster University Museum of Art in Ontario reached out to the Alutiiq Museum because they had a mask in its collection that came from Kodiak. That wooden artifact has now returned home.
The carved face has a heavy brow similar to other Alutiiq masks. Museum records suggest it may have been carved around 1820 during the time period Alaska was owned by Russia. An unusual feature of the mask, it is made of two pieces of wood and attached together with plant fiber. The face is also asymmetrical which is not a common feature in Alutiiq masks.
It was bought from a Montreal gallery in the 1980s and donated to the Ontario museum in 1991. Little else is known about the mask.
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