Rib Bone Handled Knife
I discovered this knife in an old mud house we are digging up.
In Yup’ik culture we are to leave someone else’s belongings alone, especially at an old site, otherwise we may get haunted by whoever the belongings belonged to. However, our anthropology class is digging out a sod house in an old uninhabited small village that was abandoned in the late 1950’s after the Bureau of Indian Affairs shut the local school down. The Cup’ig people of Ellikarmiut moved northeast to the village of Mikuyarmiut (Mekoryuk). What got left behind were structures such as sod houses; they are not standing anymore. We are digging to see what people used back in the nineteenth century and earlier; we also want to see how they survived. Over the years grass has grown into the squarish structures, and it is difficult digging past the roots and the grass. After several days of digging, we may have dug down to where the flooring is.
What got left behind in the sod house that we are digging in is a combination of modern and non-modern day artifacts: small beads, knives, ivory from walrus, a lantern, rubber boots, check-stamp pottery, bottles, several drums, burnt bones from ,seal, birds, and reindeer or caribou, also cans and stones, mussels, a whale bone scapula, nylon, electrical wiring, batteries, Tupperware, silverware, broken glass, a jar of seal oil, etc…
What amused me is on the first day of digging I discovered an artifact that is about 90-100 years old. This artifact is a hand made, the handle is made out of bone and a blade made of metal. The handle of the knife has carved grooves where the handle and blade were lashed together. It is not in great shape because the metal is rusted, but it still identifiable.
This knife could have been used for numerous minor errands, like a pocket knife that comes in handy today. A similar blade to this is now in the Berlin Museum.
What we can learn from this artifact about the Cup’ig people is that they still had their traditional ways of tool use and subsistence.
Florence Nukusuk
