Gut parka for doll, red-dyed vertical stripe in front, red-dyed shoulders and cuffs, fur trimmed hood, cuffs and hem, inserts of green, blue and red wool yarn tufts overall.
2.1 Daily Garb and 6.2 Toys, Children’s Utensils, Objects used in the Education of Children
Accession date:
August 12, 1902
Context of use:
Parkas were a part of the Alaskan Native and Arctic wardrobe of heavy clothing that helped tolerate extreme weather, a “principle and essential” clothing article to Aleuts. Parkas were critical to battling frost, snow, wind, and freezing rain. Though water was of course essential for nutrition as well as travel, it also was an adversary, especially in the winter months. Seal skin was a common material, but usually a back up if there weren’t any puffins or spermophilus around. For larger sea mammals, intestinal skin was usually used and was where the only fur came from. Accounts of traditional Aleut parkas don’t align with the features seen in this model. Aleut parkas traditionally don’t have hoods and usually have a lot less fur, which indicates that the maker of this model was influenced by Russian clothing, or any other people living in a colder climate than the Aleutian Islands. Additionally, parkas were usually worn as a base layer, another coat sewn from grass, a kamleika, was worn on top and was a more lightweight and mobile clothing article. Parkas used to have a long flap that would nearly drag along the ground, but the flap was phased out in the 19th century as seen by this model, where there is no flap.
Department:
Native US and Canada (except California)
Dimensions:
length 34 centimeters
Comment:
cf. Hatt, Gudmund, and Kirsten Taylor. "Arctic Skin Clothing in Eurasia and America an Ethnographic Study." Arctic Anthropology 5, no. 2 (1969): 3-132. Korsun, Sergei A. "fieldwork on the commander islands aleuts." Alaska Journal of Anthropology 11, no. 1-2 (2013): 169-181. Turner, Lucien M., and Raymond L. Hudson. "An Aleutian Ethnography." (2008). Sturtevant, William C. Handbook of North American Indians. Edited by Warren L. D’Azevedo, David Damas, June Helm, Robert F. Heizer, Alfonso Ortiz, Wilcomb E. Washburn, Wayne Suttles, Ives Goddard, Deward E. Walker, Raymond J. DeMallie, Raymond D. Fogelson, Douglas H. Ubelaker, and Garrick A. Bailey. Vol. 5. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1984.