Ingalik (Deg Xitʼan, Degexitʼan, Deg Hit'an), Shageluk Search this
Object Type:
Mitten
Place:
Shageluk, Yukon River Valley / Innoko River, Alaska, United States, North America
Notes:
IDENTIFIED AS FISH SKIN MITTENS WITH SEAL SKIN PALMS BY FRAN REED, 2/1999.
Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=504 , retrieved 8-19-2012: Waterproof Mittens Salmon skin can be processed into durable, waterproof leather, and was traditionally used for boots, mittens, and pants. These Deg Hit'an mittens from Shageluk have "Eskimo-style" waterproof stitching and palms of from seal skin. They may have been made locally or traded upriver into the Yukon River basin from Yup'ik residents of the Bering Sea coast.
This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
Illus. Fig. 4.24 p. 165 in Thompson, Judy. 2013. Women's work, women's art: nineteenth-century northern Athapaskan clothing. Gatineau: Canadian Museum of Civilization. Identified as mittens, Deg Hit'an, fish skin (backs), sealskin (palms and inner thumbs), sinew.