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This piece represents Amikuk, and is a mask used to warn people about a dangerous spirit that lived under ground and could possess people.

 

Inspired by Damaged Masks

"Poisoned" was inspired by pre-contact Yup'ik masks I handled at the Smithsonian which were seriously damaged and defaced when collected.

Early curators and collectors of Yup'ik masks soaked a number of masks in arsenic to kill off and prevent infestation by parasites. When this was done, the word poisoned was stamped on the mask to warn and protect the handlers.

Early collectors also did poor repair work, which is expressed by a dark epoxy scar running down the face of this mask. Blood smears running across the poor repairs represent stitches of blood. I painted these stitches with white dots to represent our ancestors, and then painted them over again to make the spirits appear as ghosts within the stitches.

 

Emphasizes the Defacing of Artifacts

Early curators of these masks also marked them (in graffiti fashion) with a serial number, with the location where the piece was collected at, and with the name of who collected the piece. I followed suit in this piece and wrote my own information with a large permanent marker to emphasize the defacing of our artifacts.

Poisoned is now in the permanent collection of the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

 

The Meaning of the Details

The meaning associated with the various media used and other details of the mask follows:

• Tear drops in blood show spiritually hurt Yua's (spirit of the thing) in the mask.
• The Raku faces on the forehead represent singing ancestors and are a modern interpretation of the white dots found on the same location in precontact masks.
• The bones of our ancestors hang off the labrets covered in our blood to show loss of many cultural and spiritual things. The bones are also noisemakers that keep bad spirits away.
• Double rings in this piece represent the interconnection between the physical and spirit worlds.
• The hands on this piece indicate spiritual doorways and remind us to be good stewards of our resources.
• The red in the eyes, nose, and mouth represent blood creating spiritual doorways if it were danced in ceremony.
• The red feathers are an outward signature style of the artist and symbolize doorways moving outward spreading prayers into the universe.
• The teeth in this mask indicate that it is a Tuunraq-style mask; Tuunraq's help shaman during ceremony but are very dangerous.
• The teeth also remind us that we need to be careful of gifts that we use. If we use our gifts in a bad way, later in life we will be consumed by the shadows of the bad things done that harmed others.
• The white spirits that surround the mask watch over our people and represent the return of our elders. It is said that when we look for the elders, we look into the eyes of our children giving them their old names back helping them to remember who they were.