Yup’ik Alaskan Bear Halo Mask measures 18 x 18 x 4, priced at $795. Beautifully carved and adorned with faint and precise ink lines, bent wood pieces, small feathers, and small antler pieces.

Nothing is known about this unsigned piece, or who the fine artist is that created it. Our research has shown us that it is an outstanding example of a southeastern Alaskan Yup’ik Halo Mask. If you love Alaskan native art, don’t miss this amazing piece.

Please zoom in to all the photos and see the remarkable craftsmanship.

A Yup’ik halo mask, also known as a ring mask or spirit wheel mask, is a type of mask used in Yup’ik dance ceremonies. They are typically made of wood, and painted with few colors. The Yup’ik masks were carved by men or women, but mainly were carved by the men.

These masks represent the artist’s vision of the universe, combining elements of the Arctic realms like earth, sky, and water. They are often worn by shamans during ceremonies to connect with spirits and are believed to symbolize the bond between humans, animals, nature, and spirits.

Social aspects of Yup’ik masks
Making masks and participating in performances was also important for forging social bonds. It bought together distant communities helping solidify relationships. Reciprocal dances left different villages indebted to repay the favor. The performances were also a time of transmitting knowledge of the spirit world to the younger generation. Spirit beings were not only people, but also animals, and elements of the environment, and sometimes combinations of both. It was an opportunity for Sharman and village chiefs to exchange knowledge During ceremonies, masks transformed the individual wearing it into that spirit. Masks were not worn to pretend to be a spirit but so the dancer could become that spirit. That spirit would then ensure plentiful game in spring. This element of transformation is often reflected in the appearance of the masks themselves. Many masks combine animal and spirit and human elements.
Thank you new-guinea-tribal-arts.com/yupik-masks

For the Yupik people of southwestern Alaska, masked dancing has long been a focal point of ceremonial activity. Performed traditionally inside the communal men’s house during festivals, the dances made visible the world of the spirits and extraordinary beings and were specially made to tell particular stories.

Each mask was unique, created as a tangible manifestation of a shaman’s vision to bring the unseen or unknowable into a solid form. Yupik cosmology revolves around the close relationship between human society and the spirit world. The souls of animal spirits were thanked for willingly offering their bodies to hunters.

Yupik masks were used by shamans to facilitate communication and movement between worlds (human and animal, the living and the dead). Specimens first found their way into museum collections via nineteenth-century traders and collectors working along the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, and soon were displayed internationally. Hanging on museum walls or sold by art dealers, the masks were admired for their brilliant sense of design and became a major source of inspiration for Surrealist artists such as André Breton, Roberto Matta, Yves Tanguy, Robert Lebel and Max Ernst.

Yupik carvers strove to represent the helping spirits they encountered in vision, dream, or experience – the central locus where the surrealists found their inspiration. Although some Yupik, such as shamans, were recognized as having more direct contact with the spirit world than others, through masks and masked dances everyone could vividly experience it.

Through the masks, sprits revealed themselves as simultaneously dangerous and potentially beneficial. Masks, in essence, were stage props, special but not sacred, and most were discarded after use.

Feathers and white downy plumes are found in many Yupik masks and are said to represent stars in the night sky.
Thank you duendeartprojects.com