The Living Tradition of Yup’ik Masks: Agayuliyararput, Our Way of Making Prayer, by Ann Fienup-Riordan

Abstract

[Ann Fienup-Riordan] says: "many have commented on the surreal character of Yup'ik masks.... One might better speak of the Yup'ik character of the creations of the Surrealists, who carefully studied the Yup'ik masters and put what they learned to good use" (p. 273). This misses the point. Cubism didn't come out of Africa, and Surrealism never came out of Alaska. The Cubists simply recognized in African art underlying patterns they already favored. "These are my witnesses," Picasso allegedly said, pointing to African carvings in his studio. Surrealism existed before any Surrealist ever saw a Yup'ik mask. No Surrealist "borrowed freely from them" (p. 262). What Yup'ik and Surrealist art shared (loosely) wasn't a single origin, but underlying patterns independently conceived. One of those patterns reflected the brain's basic mode of operation. Other parallels rested on roughly analogous sensory profiles. Why revive an abandoned art? "Primitivism," that fashionable alternative to civilization and progress, seeks a return to nature and to origins regarded by some as more basic, more honest. To this end, we ask Natives to dance for us at lunch and carve souvenirs to decorate our homes. Fienup-Riordan has more in mind. She and her Yup'ik collaborators hope to breathe back into this art the spirit that gave it birth and thereby reawaken traditional Yup'ik identity.