The Yup'ik relationships of qiluliuryaraq (processing intestine)

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Author
Carrlee, Ellen
Chair
Schweitzer, Peter
Committee
Koester, David
Lee, Molly
Hill, Erica
Plattet, Patrick
Keyword
Intestines
Southwest Alaska
Yupik
Food
Clothing
Material culture
Social life and customs
Yupik customs
Hunting
Yupik rites and ceremonies
Metadata
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URI
http://hdl.handle.net/11122/12386
Abstract
This project explores multiple Native cultural contexts that intersect in the use and understanding of intestine. Gut (tissues of internal organs including stomach, intestine, bladder and esophagus) as a raw material was historically used by many circumpolar cultures to make items like drums, raincoats, hats, windows, sails, containers, and hunting floats. These items are abundant in museum collections, but rarely seen today in cultural practice or the art market. Intestine is a natural material that was replaced by synthetic materials, but its dual physical properties of protection and permeability are the only features replicated by plastics. Examination of intestine as an obsolete material reveals both changes and resilience in different kinds of relationships. Emphasizing the meaning and materiality of gut over analysis of artifacts made from it emphasizes interactions among human, animal, and spiritual beings over formalistic approaches privileging object interpretations. Preferential investigation of a raw material over finished artifacts focuses the study on actions and values in Native places. Fieldwork components for this study include documentation of indigenous gut processing, sewing and repair workshops in museum contexts, processing fresh intestine in the Yup'ik village of Scammon Bay, and discussion of gut with Yup'ik cultural experts. The theoretical approach uses Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a foundation, animated with practice theory and relational ontology. Since ANT creates space for human, animal, and object agency, reciprocal relationships among these actors will be explored through frameworks of materiality, object biography, gender studies, animal personhood, and the gift. This endeavor may promote a new model for the use of material culture to illuminate Native values. In the case of intestine, its decline in use connects to changes in technology and spirituality while resilience and revitalization of gut technology promotes identity and demonstrates traditional values.
Description
Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2020
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction -- 1.1. Background -- 1.2. Gut as an Alaska Native traditional technology -- 1.3. Gut as an obsolete material -- 1.4. Gaps in gut knowledge -- 1.5. The research question. Chapter 2: Literature review -- 2.1. Overview of anthropological scholarship on Yup'ik culture -- 2.2. Indigenous accounts -- 2.3. Ceremonial accounts and spiritual concerns -- 2.3.1. Nakaciuryaraq: Bladder Festival -- 2.3.2. Elriq (The Feast for the Dead) -- 2.3.3. Kevgiq (The Messenger Feast) -- 2.3.4. First catch and Uqiquq (The Seal Party) -- 2.3.5. Imarnin (the gut raincoat) -- 2.4. Suppression of ceremonies -- 2.5. Curation and meaning -- 2.6. Accounts of processing -- 2.7. Scammon Bay. Chapter 3: Theoretical orientation and methodology -- 3.1. The network: all the agents -- 3.2. Human agents theorized through practice and gender -- 3.2.1. Pierre Bourdieu -- 3.2.2. Gender -- 3.3. Animal agents theorized through personhood and the gift -- 3.3.1. Marcel Mauss -- 3.4. Object agents theorized through materiality and biography -- 3.4.1. Alfred Gell -- 3.5. Agents in the network and relational ontology -- 3.6. Methodology to investigate networks and agents -- 3.7. Object agents: raincoat, gut-making, foods -- 3.7.1. The Imarnin as an object of shared interest -- 3.7.2. Intestine processing and the merits of "making it" -- 3.7.3. Yup'ik foods -- 3.8. Animal agents -- 3.9. Human agents in various fields of practice -- 3.9.1. Agents in institutions -- 3.9.2. Agents at Native events -- 3.9.3. Key agent: my collaborator -- 3.10. Conduct during participant-observation of village networks -- 3.11. Documentation of a village network. Chapter 4: Findings about networks and agents -- 4.1. The museum network -- 4.1.1. The Burke Museum in Seattle -- 4.1.2. The Cordova Museum -- 4.1.3. The Yupiit Piciryarait Museum in Bethel -- 4.2.1. Animal agents: where, when, and which? -- 4.2.3. Object agents: what do people bring hunting? -- 4.2.4. Human agents: who goes hunting? How are animals caught and shared? -- 4.3. The subsistence processing network -- 4.3.1. Uquq (seal oil) -- 4.3.2. Cooking and cuisine -- 4.4. Food networks -- 4.4.1. Pukuk (to pick all the meat from the bones) -- 4.5. The family network -- 4.5.1. Maqiyaraq (the way of steambathing) -- 4.6. The messenger feast network -- 4.7. The spiritual network -- 4.7.1. The women's meeting -- 4.7.2. Chuna McIntyre -- 4.8. The learning network -- 4.8.1. The Ulak household -- 4.8.2. The classroom -- 4.8.3. The shop -- 4.8.4. Learning in non-verbal ways. Chapter 5: Findings about intestine -- 5.1. Procuring the intestine -- 5.2. Removing the outer layer (Muscularis externa) -- 5.3. Removing the inner layer (muscosa) -- 5.4. Soaking -- 5.5. Drying -- 5.6. Cutting. Chapter 6: Analysis of agents in the network -- 6.1. Weather as an agent -- 6.2. Spirits as agents -- 6.3. Gendered agents -- 6.4. Gut is not an agent? -- 6.5. Failure of the Imarnin as a methodological tool. Chapter 7: Conclusions -- 7.1. Obsolescence and structuralist transformations -- 7.2. Obsolescence and spirituality -- 7.3. Revitalization and continuation: "What kind of person are you?" -- 7.3.1. Of givers and takers -- 7.6. Future directions -- 7.7. Broader impacts -- References.
Date
2020-12
Type
Thesis
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