"Growing Goodness": An Alaska Native Collection at Oberlin College

Wood

Wood is a natural material and is subject to a number of variables that modify its qualities. The Yup'ik know the specific qualities in wood to look for and manipulate into useful objects. Factors such as environment, grain, species, and disease (among others) affect how the wood will act materially. A freshly cut limb acts entirely differently to a trunk that has been floating in the ocean for a month.

"Bows were carved from tegg'erat (hardwood), especially larch." -Ann Fienup-Riordan

Objects such as bows are well suited to a hardwood. The dense grain of a most hardwoods can take repetitive tension. The woodworkers who created the wooden objects in Oberlin's collection likely had a deep knowledge of the properties of different woods and how to manufacture goods that harness those properties.

Wood found as driftwood tends to be without the flexibility of fresh wood. As such it is more suited for carving rather than bending. Bent wood pieces, such as the bent wood container in our collection, would have had to come from fresh wood, likely exposed to steam in order to allow for bending. 

Wood is a living material; it is almost infinitely variable based upon its environment while it is alive and its treatment after it is dead. Landscapes of the past are echoed in the wooden objects in Oberlin's collection. 

(Fienup-Riordan, 2007)
 

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