Radio Script
1999

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Subsistence and Art
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INTRO: Mention subsistence, and many of us think of hunting and fishing by the state's Native people. Probably few of us think about art. Yet, to Alaska Natives, art made from materials gathered from the land is an important part of their subsistence culture. Doug Schneider has more, next on Arctic Science Journeys.

STORY: For thousands of years, Alaska's Native Indians and Eskimos have subsisted off the game, fish and other resources gathered from the land. What wasn't used for food and clothing--such things as ivory and baleen--was used to create art. Even today, subsistence provides the materials for Native art, says Dr. Molly Lee, an anthropologist at the University of Alaska Museum.

LEE: "I think it's probably all implicit in their hunting activities. But mostly it's about food, and it's about their identity as an Alaska Native person--to bring in the meat and parenthetically all the other products that go along with it that are used for subsistence activity or the making of art."

Yet, Dr. Lee says the importance of subsistence to Native art has been largely overlooked in the ongoing debate over subsistence rights.

LEE: "That's very true. Chase Hensel, who's an anthropologist in Alaska, has written a wonderful book called "Telling Ourselves," which is about the symbolic dimension of subsistence activities. And he argues that the activities of going out and hunting are very much a part of the identity of Native people and many of the art products made from the taking of these animals actually are equally symbolic."

Alaska Natives' subsistence lifestyle is often the inspiration for Native art, according to Amber Lincoln, a recently graduated anthropology student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

LINCOLN: "Subsistence is important to art in a way that people are making and selling images of subsistence hunting, of subsistence gathering. And so they are important icons for Alaska Native art."

While subsistence provides the raw materials, completed works are often sold in a growing marketplace for Native art. Amber Lincoln says money raised from the sale of art helps Natives purchase boats, guns, gas and other tools they need to lead a traditional lifestyle.

LINCOLN: "Historically, Alaska Natives have sold crafts and art to non-Natives as supplemental income. That's a long historical fact, starting with explorers and whalers. And so that's continued up through the present. But also it's an Alaskan Native way of making money because it allows a subsistence lifestyle by allowing people to do the activities they have traditionally done, and it also allows for subsistence."

And, perhaps as another connection between tradition and commerce, Alaska's Native artworks have begun to show up for sale on several web sites on the internet.

OUTRO: With thanks to the Alaska Sea Grant Program and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, this is Doug Schneider for Arctic Science Journeys.

Dr. Molly Lee, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Curator of Ethnology
University of Alaska Museum
907-474-7828
ffmcl@uaf.edu

Amber Lincoln
P.O. Box 84885
Fairbanks, Alaska 99708
907-479-2098
fsaal1@uaf.edu

If you'd like more information about Alaska Native art, check out these websites:

http://www.uaf.edu/museum/index.html
http://www.alaska-art.com/
http://www.asd.k12.ak.us/schools/William_Tyson/TysonHomePage.html
http://www.ulimaaq.com