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Dance object

ca. 1900
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 746
This object hung from the roof of a ceremonial house, and it honored the animals taken in the hunt. A male figure wears a traditional Yup‘ik bentwood hunting hat and pilots a magical kayak disguised as a walrus—the head, tail, and flippers of the creature are visible. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, featured this assemblage at the entrance to its famous 1941 exhibition, “Indian Art of the United States.”

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Dance object
  • Date: ca. 1900
  • Geography: Made in Alaska, United States
  • Culture: Yup'ik, Native American
  • Medium: Wood, pigment, vegetal fiber, and feathers
  • Dimensions: 17 3/4 × 24 3/4 × 36 in. (45.1 × 62.9 × 91.4 cm)
  • Credit Line: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection of Native American Art, Gift of Charles and Valerie Diker, 2019
  • Object Number: 2019.456.26a–c
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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Black-on-Black Jar, Maria Martínez Native American, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Clay and slip, San Ildefonso, Native American
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