CUP'IK FOOD BOWL, SOUTHERN ALASKA |

Edmund Carpenter, New York
Jeffrey R. Myers, New York, acquired from the above
Private American collection, acquired from the above

This deep bentwood bowl still bears traces of animal fat, remnants of its important ritual use. The interior is decorated with a surreal and exceptionally fine image of palraiyuk, a mythical man-eating creature with wolf-like jaws and attenuated body (see Nelson, The Eskimo About Bering Strait, Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, D.C., 1899, pp. 444-445, et. seq.). Nelson identifies this type of image with the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, the probable origin of this bowl.