Pouch

Museum number:
2-5805
Permalink:
ark:/21549/hm21020005805
Alternate number:
X 895 (original number)
Accession number:
Acc.167
Object count:
1
Description:
Scraped stomach or intestines, tanned white. Made in 7 horizontal panels, largest one folded over for a seamless bottom. No decoration in side seams. Main decoration is horizontal fringing of seal hair, red yarn, white reindeer hair embroidery and red-painted depilated hide or gut, about 5 cm from bottom. Next, a wide black graphite-painted horizontal panel with white reindeer hair embroidery and loop-fringing, red and gray yarns and threads, and red-painted gut strips. White windpipe skin inset with black & red dyed gutskin and seal fur; trimmed with white quill and red wool yarn. Bag string: braided white cotton yarn into which pink, black tufts of cotton have been mixed, at end a white glass bead.
Donor:
Alaska Commercial Company, Benjamin Bristol, and Older University Collections
Collection place:
Alaska
Verbatim coll. place:
Alaska
Culture or time period:
Aleut, Alutiiq, and Kodiak Eskimo
Collector:
unknown
Collection date:
unknown
Materials:
Cotton (textile), Fur (hair material), Glass (material), Graphite (mineral), and Skin (collagenous material)
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Pouches
Function:
2.2 Personal Adornments and Accoutrements
Accession date:
1904
Context of use:
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Eungie Joo, Curator of Contemporary Art. Exhibition: Soft Power: A Conversation with the Future Objects: 5 Alutiiq sewing bags. https://www.sfmoma.org/event/tanya-lukin-linklateropen-rehearsals/ Exhibition: art installation "SOFT POWER by Tanya Lukin Linklater", October 23, 2019 to February 17, 2020. Also see "an amplification through many minds" https://www.tanyalukinlinklater.com/images/an-amplification-through-many-minds-2019-7 Tanya Lukin Linklater's descriptions: Flat vessels made by the hands of our grandmothers that we discern and decipher as potential messages of repair (2019) Five sewing bags attributed to Kodiak Alutiit with unknown makers and no record of when they were acquired live in mustard yellow cabinets, heavy drawers painted grey, the Alaska Commercial Collection, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology’s storage. I wonder if these objects are instructions left to us by our ancestors. Is it our responsibility to undertake a process of deciphering their meaning? They are speaking to us but in different ways. How do we sound them? How do we listen? How do we move them? How are we moved? To decipher or discern a stitch. Repair for a garment. Repair of a mind. A commission for SFMOMA in cooperation with the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, 2019. An amplification through many minds (2019) A work in three parts: visiting Alutiiq/Sugpiaq and Unangan belongings at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology’s on-site and off-site collections storage and the artist’s oration of these objects; open rehearsals for camera with three dancers at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s White Box in a choreographic process that investigates the museum as a structure that interrupts the life of ancestral belongings; and a return to the collections storage through dance to enliven the space. With Ivanie Aubin-Malo, Ceinwen Gobert, Eungie Joo, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Danah Rosales, and Jovanna Venegas. Camera and edit: Neven Lochhead. A commission for SFMOMA in cooperation with the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. With support from White Water Gallery and Queen's University. Curated by Eungie Joo and Jovanna Venegas. Video, 36 minutes, 32 seconds. For projection or monitor.
Department:
Native US and Canada (except California)
Dimensions:
width 15.5 centimeters and length 18.5 centimeters
Comment:
These 2 panels are related by a series of red or black painted gut Xs sewn between them. The top horizontal panel is a seal fur fringe with strand of red and brown yarn circling the mouth of the pouch. There is a braided textile hanging strap decorated with purple and black tufts of yarn with a large white glass bead at the end. Sewn with textile thread, using running stitch. Specular haematite-rubbed gut. Cf. 2-4527.
Loans:
S2019-2020 #2: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (October 13, 2019–February 27, 2020)
Images:
Hearst Museum object 1 of 2 titled Pouch, accession number 2-5805, described as Scraped stomach or intestines, tanned white. Made in 7 horizontal panels, largest one folded over for a seamless bottom. No decoration in side seams. Main decoration is horizontal fringing of seal hair, red yarn, white reindeer hair embroidery and red-painted depilated hide or gut, about 5 cm from bottom. Next, a wide black graphite-painted horizontal panel with white reindeer hair embroidery and loop-fringing, red and gray yarns and threads, and red-painted gut strips. White windpipe skin inset with black & red dyed gutskin and seal fur; trimmed with white quill and red wool yarn. Bag string: braided white cotton yarn into which pink, black tufts of cotton have been mixed, at end a white glass bead.Hearst Museum object 2 of 2 titled Pouch, accession number 2-5805, described as Scraped stomach or intestines, tanned white. Made in 7 horizontal panels, largest one folded over for a seamless bottom. No decoration in side seams. Main decoration is horizontal fringing of seal hair, red yarn, white reindeer hair embroidery and red-painted depilated hide or gut, about 5 cm from bottom. Next, a wide black graphite-painted horizontal panel with white reindeer hair embroidery and loop-fringing, red and gray yarns and threads, and red-painted gut strips. White windpipe skin inset with black & red dyed gutskin and seal fur; trimmed with white quill and red wool yarn. Bag string: braided white cotton yarn into which pink, black tufts of cotton have been mixed, at end a white glass bead.
Legacy documentation:
Documentation associated with Hearst Museum object titled Pouch, accession number 2-5805, described as Scraped stomach or intestines, tanned white. Made in 7 horizontal panels, largest one folded over for a seamless bottom. No decoration in side seams. Main decoration is horizontal fringing of seal hair, red yarn, white reindeer hair embroidery and red-painted depilated hide or gut, about 5 cm from bottom. Next, a wide black graphite-painted horizontal panel with white reindeer hair embroidery and loop-fringing, red and gray yarns and threads, and red-painted gut strips. White windpipe skin inset with black & red dyed gutskin and seal fur; trimmed with white quill and red wool yarn. Bag string: braided white cotton yarn into which pink, black tufts of cotton have been mixed, at end a white glass bead.Documentation associated with Hearst Museum object titled Pouch, accession number 2-5805, described as Scraped stomach or intestines, tanned white. Made in 7 horizontal panels, largest one folded over for a seamless bottom. No decoration in side seams. Main decoration is horizontal fringing of seal hair, red yarn, white reindeer hair embroidery and red-painted depilated hide or gut, about 5 cm from bottom. Next, a wide black graphite-painted horizontal panel with white reindeer hair embroidery and loop-fringing, red and gray yarns and threads, and red-painted gut strips. White windpipe skin inset with black & red dyed gutskin and seal fur; trimmed with white quill and red wool yarn. Bag string: braided white cotton yarn into which pink, black tufts of cotton have been mixed, at end a white glass bead.Documentation associated with Hearst Museum object titled Pouch, accession number 2-5805, described as Scraped stomach or intestines, tanned white. Made in 7 horizontal panels, largest one folded over for a seamless bottom. No decoration in side seams. Main decoration is horizontal fringing of seal hair, red yarn, white reindeer hair embroidery and red-painted depilated hide or gut, about 5 cm from bottom. Next, a wide black graphite-painted horizontal panel with white reindeer hair embroidery and loop-fringing, red and gray yarns and threads, and red-painted gut strips. White windpipe skin inset with black & red dyed gutskin and seal fur; trimmed with white quill and red wool yarn. Bag string: braided white cotton yarn into which pink, black tufts of cotton have been mixed, at end a white glass bead.Documentation associated with Hearst Museum object titled Pouch, accession number 2-5805, described as Scraped stomach or intestines, tanned white. Made in 7 horizontal panels, largest one folded over for a seamless bottom. No decoration in side seams. Main decoration is horizontal fringing of seal hair, red yarn, white reindeer hair embroidery and red-painted depilated hide or gut, about 5 cm from bottom. Next, a wide black graphite-painted horizontal panel with white reindeer hair embroidery and loop-fringing, red and gray yarns and threads, and red-painted gut strips. White windpipe skin inset with black & red dyed gutskin and seal fur; trimmed with white quill and red wool yarn. Bag string: braided white cotton yarn into which pink, black tufts of cotton have been mixed, at end a white glass bead.

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