On display at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., is a group of animal-inspired objects from the NMAI collection made by artists throughout the Western Hemisphere. Among the plethora of masks, pottery and other artworks in this “Window on Collections” display is a polar bear less than 3 inches long. This small figurine may be easy to miss at first glance, but it deserves a closer look as it can tell much about the artist’s Yupik people.
This small polar bear depicted after it just caught a fish was carved by a Yupik high school student.
Moses Pungowiyi (Yupik), 1965; walrus ivory, paint; 2.6" x 1 " x 1". 25/6458
Photo by NMAI Staff
Siberian Yupik people have inhabited what they call Sivuqaq Island in the Bering Sea for at least two millennia. They are thought to have come from what is now Russia, where many Yupik still live. Today, this island, which is also known as St. Lawrence Island, is part of Alaska. The 1,100 Siberian Yupik people who live there (whose name is spelled Yupik rather than Yup’ik as in the rest of Alaska) depend on subsistence hunting of seals, polar bears, caribou, whales and fish. While protected from commercial hunting, walrus supply Alaska Native peoples with not only meat but also skins for clothing as well as bone and tusks that they carve into jewelry and sculptures, such as this polar bear created by a Yupik student named Moses Pungowiyi.
During the 1960s, Pungowiyi was a 10th grader at the Chemawa Indian School in Oregon. Like so many Native children from the late 1800s and into the mid-20th century, he may have been forced to leave his community to attend this government boarding school. Such institutions were designed to wipe out any trace of their Indigenous students’ cultures. Yet Pungowiyi showcased his traditional carving skills when he made this bear from a piece of ivory sent to him by his parents in 1965 to sell at his school’s art market. There, Edward Malin—a regional representative from the Indian Arts and Crafts Board (IACB) who had visited the school to attend a traditional dance performance—discovered the bear and bought it for only $5.
The U.S. Department of the Interior had established the IACB in 1935 to foster and develop Native arts. In 2000, the U.S. Congress appointed the NMAI to house the IACB’s headquarters collection of 6,300 works, including this bear. NMAI Curator Anya Montiel interviewed Malin about his IACB work in 2014. “It is not typical for an IACB specialist to buy from children at an Indian boarding school,” she said. “Malin explained that he hoped the IACB would have an exhibition on art made by Native children and teens. Yet that never happened.” So because of a chance encounter, this small bear can now be appreciated by many. It traveled a long way to tell its story.