Wednesday, August 17, 2011

"Sky People"
"Helmeted Walrus Ivory Mask"  "Ipiutak horizon, discovered in the village of Point Hope, Alaska and is very similar to the mask discovered in the village of Deering further south, posted earlier in this blog.  The sizes of these masks are large enough to fit onto a human face, as was the case in it's burial.  Mortuary masks, constructed in multiple sections of ivory, engraved in animistic motif and fashioned after a god, an extraterrestrial contact with a helmet of a 'space suit', influencing this tradition until this culture disappeared or had been absorbed by an alternated tribe or tribes of Inuit. The study of the Ipiutak culture resulted in findings of unusual traditions, in some relative similarity to the mystic mysterious people of the Okvik, Old Bering Sea cultures of St. Lawrence Island that sculpted  ivory, 'space ships' or shuttles referred to as 'Winged Objects,' Human Forms with elliptical heads and engraved motif highly technological for a simple hunter / gatherer group in a very remote island on the Bering Sea."

Sunday, August 14, 2011

"Okvik horizon, 3000 years BP, walrus ivory, expressing an over all human posture, yet a very atypical (compared to actual Inuit head forms) elongated 'narrow' nose ending in a very atypical (compared to other Inuit sculpted human forms), almost a non-significant mouth with a 'weak' chin.  The actual model of Inuit Human is not a elongated nose, and with a robust mouth with chin that would typify their standard profiles." "These motif with an atypical Human form is standard for the forms used, and yet does not conform to a Human configuration to any resident in prehistory or modern Yupik images. To suggest, then, that the models used, so typically in Okvik and Old Bering Sea art, were not of the local format of patterns attributing to the normal local Human populations but designs introduced and carried over in traditions by the obvious impact of their introduction.  Elliptical heads, as described during these periods, maintain their motif for two thousand years without much deviation.  It ensures these impressions were not only important but essential in their cultural identity with these patterns as they have served traditions in thousands of recreated forms standard to these profiled patterns."
"Later motif patterns are a more expected labeling for late prehistoric Inuit.  The heads of the Human Forms are circular and virtually void of expressions (Typical of Okvik or Old Bering Sea types) not an elaborate attempt and lacking in traditions similar.  Either the traditions did not persist throughout the region or the remoteness of each group did not share legends and traditions from group to group even by trade patterns.  The patterned traditions on St. Lawrence did in fact evolve dramatically but never the less stressed the need to proliferate a fundamental elaborate distinction specific to Yupik traditions. The main impact of certain Old Bering Sea and Okvik prototypes were elliptical head profiles, weak chins, elongated noses ending in a overly small mouth opening." (And for those whom study the Grays, it is very similar to these species, as even most Okvik, Old Bering Sea period human forms are not at all of a typical Human representation)."