Agayuliyararput/Our Way of Making Prayer : Kegginaqut, Kangiit-llu/Yup'ik Masks and the Stories They Tell

Drawing on the remembrances of elders who were born in the early 1900s and saw the last masked Yup'ik dances before missionary efforts forced their decline, Agayuliyararput is a collection of first-person accounts of the rich culture surrounding Yup'ik masks. Stories by thirty-three elders from all over southwestern Alaska, presented in parallel Yup'ik and English texts, include a wealth of information about the creation and function of masks and the environment in which they flourished. The full-length, unannotated stories are complete with features of oral storytelling such as repetition and digression; the language of the English translation follows the Yup'ik idiom as closely as possible. Reminiscences about the cultural setting of masked dancing are grouped into chapters on the traditional Yup'ik ceremonial cycle, the use of masks, life in the qasgiq (communal men's house), the suppression and revival of masked dancing, maskmaking, and dance and song. Stories are grouped geographically, representing the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and coastal areas. The subjects of the stories and the masks made to accompany them are the Arctic animals, beings, and natural forces on which humans depended. This book will be treasured by the Yup'ik residents of southwestern Alaska and an international audience of linguists, folklorists, anthropologists, and art historians. Booknews A non-technical biography of Banach (1892-1945), the Polish mathematician whose name looms so large in the field today but whose life is little known. Based on interviews with people who knew him both privately and professionally and on archival sources. One chapter contains assessments of his work by other mathematicians, and another focuses on The Scottish Cafe in Lvov where his circle of mathematicians hung out. Translated and enlarged in both text and photographs from the 1980 Polish edition. No subject index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) "In fall 2014, Calista Education and Culture, Inc. (CEC, formerly Calista Elders Council) began a four-year study funded by the Office of Subsistence Management of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The study focused on whitefish and other non-salmon freshwater fish harvested by residents of the Akulmiut villages of Kasigluk, Nunapitchuk, and Atmautluak, as well as those living along the Kuskokwim River just below Bethel in the villages of Napaskiak, Napakiak, and Oscarville. Harvest studies have been carried out in some of these communities (Ikuta, Brown, and Koester, ed. 2014) as well as two major ethnographic studies--one in Napaskiak (Oswalt 1963) and one in Nunapitchuk (Andrews 1989). Our intended focus was not on harvest amounts but rather traditional knowledge surrounding the harvest and use of the six species of whitefish, as well as pike, burbot, and blackfish, on which people from this area relied so heavily in the past and continue to harvest to this day. In fact, all three contemporary Akulmiut villages, as well as settlements in the past, were established at sites where fish fences were built across the river each fall to intercept whitefish as they migrated out of the lakes and sloughs toward the mainstem of the Kuskokwim River. If there is one food that defines people from this area, it is whitefish."--Provided by publisher For centuries, the Akulmiut people—a Yup'ik group—have been sustained by the annual movements of whitefish. It is a food that sustains and defines them. To this day, many Akulmiut view not only their actions in the world, but their interactions with each other, as having a direct and profound effect on these fish. Not only are fish viewed as responding to human action and intention in many contexts, but the lakes and rivers fish inhabit are likewise viewed as sentient beings, with the ability to respond both positively and negatively to those who travel there. This bilingual book details the lives of the Akulmiut living in the lake country west of Bethel, Alaska, in the villages of Kasigluk, Nunapitchuk, and Atmautluak. Akulmiut Neqait is based in conversations recorded with the people of these villages as they talk about their uniquely Yup'ik view of the world and how it has weathered periods of immense change in southwest Alaska. While many predicted that globalization would sound the death knoll for many distinctive traditions, these conversations show that Indigenous people all over the planet have sought to appropriate the world in their own terms. For all their new connectedness, the continued relevance of traditional admonitions cannot be denied.