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Jan. 27--Imagine yourself surrounded by ice-block walls, sheltered from bitter winter cold and warmed by the small flame of a stone lamp burning seal oil.
Inuit families lived this way for centuries in the Arctic areas of Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Siberia. The men hunted caribou and seals, while women skinned and cooked the animals for food, and children played with toys made of tusk and bone.
"You think about the living spaces -- you're living in an igloo," says Rebecca Akins, curator of an Inuit exhibit at Arizona Museum for Youth. "You're living very close together, and you're very interdependent."
Bright wool duffel wall hangings, carvings made of tusks and antlers, children's games and hunting masks will be on display in "The People of Ice and Snow: Inuit Art and Artifact," opening today at the museum. It is part of the 3,500-piece collection -- one of the largest in the U.S. -- of Daniel and Martha Albrecht of Paradise Valley.
The couple began acquiring Inuit art in 1997. After several decades of volunteering and serving on boards for the Heard Museum, they are donating their entire collection to the Phoenix-based museum.
ORIGINS OF INUITS
Sometimes called Eskimos but preferring the name "Inuit," this group is believed to have originated in northern China, crossing the Bering Strait to North America about 5,000 years ago.
The Inuits "came in boats, island-hopping across the Bering Strait . . . and there is a lot of art that has been left in those islands," Daniel Albrecht says.
Inuit art ranges from soap stone carvings depicting polar bears and caribou to bows and arrows made of bone and sinew and various masks that celebrate the sacred and crucial rite of hunting.
"These people are very, very creative," Martha Albrecht says. "They have not had steel and brass to make devices out of. They've used antler from caribou, tusks from walrus and animal bone to produce tools and objects."
ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN
The Mesa exhibit is divided into five sections: Daily Life, The Hunt, Myth and Legend, Song and Dance, and Family.
Akins says the goal was to introduce children to Inuit life, and to make sure that children understand "that today most Inuits live in houses, very much like (theirs), and that they may have traded in their dog sleds for motorized (snow) vehicles."
You'll see a stone "Innuksuk" statue, a marker used by the Inuit to point the way to good hunting and fishing spots. It points the way to different areas in the gallery.
A life-sized igloo model greets children with a small opening that is just their size. Inside, there are toy replicas of igloos, dogs and sleds, people and polar bears for them to play with.
The Myth and Legend area includes a puppet show, "The Old Woman Whose Son Was a Bear," about an Inuit woman who adopted a polar bear. Children can act out the play, or visit as part of a school tour and see the show by an 11-puppet cast.
Children also can make hunting masks to take home and play traditional Inuit games.
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