Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska (review)

Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska is the catalog based on an exhibit of the same name that opened at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art in May 2010 and was curated by the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The exhibit and exhibit catalog focus on six hundred items collected from Alaska in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Smithsonian Institution has a long history with indigenous peoples, and although most of that history has been a poster child for colonial curatorial practices, major changes have taken place, and new ideas are emerging. This publication illustrates a new paradigm based on a collaborative process with indigenous community members. The collection featured in the publication (and exhibit) were developed through dialogue and exchange with indigenous scientists and scholars from Alaska. In the foreword, written by the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History director, Cristián Samper, the new approach is made clear. Samper mentions the long history of collecting from Alaska dating back to the mid-nineteenth century and the significant changes in the Smithsonian's relationship with indigenous peoples. Today, in the twenty-first century, Indigenous knowledge and interpretation are enriching the data of the collections housed at museums and institutions like the Smithsonian. Even the rhetoric is changing: the term "masterwork" is found throughout Samper's foreword and in Aron Crowell's introductory section. The term "masterwork" has been previously used exclusively for European "high-art" pieces but in this example refers to the indigenous pieces in the exhibit and collections from Alaska.

Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage has nine sections or chapters that focus on some of the major regions and Indigenous people of those areas. Each chapter or section is written by an Indigenous person from the specific area they are writing about. Each essay captures the diversity and depth of knowledge and uniqueness of each region. The chapters or sections include Iñupiaq, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Yup'ik, Unangax, Sugpiaq, Athabascan, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian. Each section also includes a shorter narrative on aspects of belief systems, hunting, clan knowledge, and art. It would be impossible to have one book define Alaska's Indigenous peoples, and this publication represents a wide array of voices that express the wide-ranging diversity of Alaska's Indigenous cultures.

The highlight of the publication is the beautiful color plates of the images. The images really are impressive. These are carefully photographed, and the "masterworks" speak for themselves. The power, creativity, and functionality of Indigenous societies is defined beautifully in this book. Each image also has an informative narrative that places the piece within its cultural context. This is another new change in Indigenous museum collections. The cultural contextual knowledge is presented and provides added depth that is valuable in understanding and appreciating Alaska Native culture and history.

The publication has clothing, masks, and ceremonial items that also illustrate the connection to land and environment. Drums made of driftwood and marine mammal stomach, box drums, and garments made from seal gut, fur, and moose, caribou, and seal hides illustrate the deep ties to the environment and use of materials in that environment. The uses of hunting and fishing implements and the variety of basketry are sublime and are represented as being tied to a particular way of life. It is important to note that although the items from this publication were made in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Indigenous people who made them are a contemporary people and not frozen in time. The aspect of change and adaptation is made clear, especially in the chapter on the Sugpiaq by Dr. Gordon Pullar. The Russian and later the American colonial governments did institute major changes, but Dr. Pullar also includes more contemporary events, such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which destroyed an ecosystem that the Sugpiaq depended upon for their daily sustenance...