Bird Hunters

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Bird Hunters


Image by Travis S.
These guys are packing a lot of birds. Guns were used to hunt, but nets may have also been involved.

There are two interesting features seen in the clothing styles of the hunter on the left. First he has large labrets on the lower lip toward the corners of the mouth. These were generally made of white discs made from limestone, marble, or ivory. They were topped with a half Chinese blue bead. These were seen as the signs of a hunter of high status but were taken off in the blistering cold, as it probably wasn’t fun to have these frozen to your lips.

The second interesting thing is the parka he’s wearing with the walrus tusks coming down off the shoulder blades. This was a common parka around this time and I don’t know the meaning for it.

Both of these items, the labrets and the parkas I have seen in among the Inupiat, and possibly the Yup’ik from Herschel Island above the Mackenzie River over to Barrow, down to Point Hope, over to St. Lawrence Island, and among those on the Seward Peninsula. These cultural traits probably show a large trading network that spanned across the entire north slope down to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

The caption on these photos reads:
These men are returning from a bird hunting trip on St. Lawrence Island, ca. 1932. In addition to providing food, the feathered skins of several species were used for making parkas.

Tags:bird, Hunters