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A Many-Layered Mask: A Native Alaskan Community's Russian Legacy |
| Section: CULTURE / PEOPLES |
| Author: Dan Marshall |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 1/1/1998 |
| Size: 2,472 Words, 15,197 Characters |
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As the beat of the bass guitar resurfaces, the masked villager tucks his leather-gloved hands in his armpits, raises a leg, and rapidly flaps his arms. Stepping toward a row of spectators sitting in bleachers, he jerks his head to one side, stares down at an 8-year-old, and then swoops toward the boy, as if he were a bird about to land.
The black-haired child pulls back in fear while the crowd erupts in laughter and applause. The unknown masker, masqalatag in the language of these Sugpiaq native Alaskans, "dances" around the hall, moving past a wood-fired, potbellied stove and the rows of spectators. Soon he exits the way he came. Masking--as this event is known--has begun.
"Masking brings the village together," 18-year-old Sarjus Moonin, an avid masker, tells me later. Most of the ...
. . .
... Visible through its traditions, Nanwalek is indeed a many-layered mask.
Additional Reading
Steve Langdon, The Native People of Alaska, Greatland Graphics, Anchorage, 1993.
Michael Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, N.Y., 1992.
Ludmila Perepiolkina, "Julian Calendar," in The Orthodox Church Calendar, Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, N.Y., 1996.
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