The weather has changed for the worst. Mind you we never expected this to be a beach type holiday. It is both cold and damp today – but we had come to Alaska prepared so we layered up and set off to the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. Luckily we get some complementary passes so we get in relatively cheaply – but even if we had to pay the full price it was well worth the expense. There is an indoor exhibit area, theatre and cinema but we decided to join a quick stop tour of the outdoor exhibits – which celebrates the native Alaskan cultures; the Athabascan of interior and southcentral Alaska, the Yup'ik and Cup'ik Eskimo of southwest Alaska, the Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yupik of northwest to northern Alaska, the Aleut and Alutiiq from Prince William Sound to the end of the Aleutian Island chain, and the Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian of southeast Alaska. For each culture there is reproduction of a typical dwelling house and inside a guide to tell stories of the particular native people and introduce their way of living using everyday objects.
The first house we visit is that of the Eyak who live in the southeast area of Alaska which has a milder and wetter climate – these people lived in large building constructed from the cedar tree. Another distinctive feature of these people was their large totem poles (similar to those we had seen in the museum in Ottawa, Canada manufactured by the native people on the West Coast of Canada). As we moved to the other areas the house designs were radically different. The other native Alaskans built their houses to survive the cold winter months of Alaska. The houses were generally subterranean with small entrances to protect the inhabitants from the cold and snow, but also unwanted visitors such as raiding tribes and polar bears in the far north. The tour was really good but a little to much of the whistle stop variety – we planned to go back around at our own speed later to talk to the interpretive guides in each dwelling (for one reason or another we never got around to this).
After the tour we headed back inside (to warm up as much as anything else). On the stage in the Visitor Centre were a group of teenage Native Alaskans demonstrating some of the typical games played by the Native people. The derivation of these games had originally been to hone the skills and strengths of the people throughout the long dark winters, but had nowadays turned into competitive sports. There is even an world championship in these Alaskan sports. To you and I these sports are quite unusual – the ones demonstrated involved hitting a suspended ball with various parts of the anatomy (mainly the feet and hands) by balance and leaping. Other sports included carrying weights by your ears or carrying four men hanging from your neck as far as possible. Most strange – but when you understand the explanation of each you can see where they come from in terms of testing the skills and refining the strength of the native folk.
Following the sports activities a native dance group made up of family from the Yu’pik region. The dances are somewhat reminiscent of the Hula we saw in Hawaii in as much that is primarily done by standing in one position – no leaping around the stage – but has none of the allure or sexuality of the Hula. In fact the movements are quite stilted. The accompaniment is provided by simple hand held drums and voice, which somewhat limits the tonal qualities of the music. Like Hula and many oriental dances the movements are used to depict stories of bravery, love and other great deeds. The dancers looked like they were having a fabulous time, especially the oldest lady of the group who was really into her music. After the main show there was a chance to get up and dance, Emily was up for this so while she volunteered Mark and Jack went into watch a film on life in the wilderness (which involved lots of killing and slaughtering of animals and fish). When Mark and Jack returned the audience participation had moved onto playing of the drums and Jack was much keener on joining this than the dancing.By the time we had finished all of this we were tired and decided to return to the B&B for a bit of an afternoon siesta. On the way back we got to see our first moose in Alaska which was happily feeding close to the edge of the highway.
No comments:
Post a Comment