Wooden Dish

an oval wooden bowl collected by Edward W. Nelson from the Yup'ik people of Nulukhtulogumut in the Yukon and Kuskokwim Delta of Alaska. The sides and rim are painted red, and the inside of the bowl is painted in black with a caribou figure and its inua, or spirit, connected via a symbolic lifeline joining the throats of the two animals. The spiritual caribou is shown with spiked appendages instead of hind limbs. Carved and painted lifelines and encircling grooves gave spiritual life even to objects made by humans. Photographed prior to display in "Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely," a temporary exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. in 2006.