Unangan hunting headgear

Lydia T. Black states that Unanagan wooden headgear trace their origins to the Kodiak Island region.[7] The headgear of this area, belonging to the Kodiak Alutiiq, developed through a combination of influences and adaptations from neighbouring Indigenous peoples including the Yup’ik (in the north-west of Alaska), the Tlingit and the Haida (in the north-west coast of Alaska and British Columbia).[8][9]

The Kodiak Islanders adopted a similar hat shape to the Yup’ik, whose headgear were characterized by the closed crown hats. The style of peaked tops found in closed crown hats were influenced by the Tlingit, whose grass woven hats with split cylindrical tops indicated high-rank and privilege, and were reserved for chiefs. Stylized zoomorphic features on Kodiak hats were influenced by Haida headmasks, which featured carved animal heads.[10]

By the mid 18th century when explorers had arrived in the Kodiak region, they remarked on seeing wooden headgear worn by the Indigenous peoples.[11] They noted their use during festivals, times at sea, and also during trade with other peoples.[11]

With close regional proximity to Kodiak Island, the spread of headgear made its way its way into the eastern and central Aleutian Islands. This introduction was a slow movement; while visors were reported by explorers in the Shumagin Islands in 1741, the closed crown hats in the Aluetians were rare. The price of one chief's hat was the equivalent to 1 to 3 slaves, which was more than a baidarka (kayak).[12][13]

Further spread into the Aleutian region is likely due to the whaling hunt, which was a widespread practice among the Kodiak Alutiiq and Sugpiat. For the Kodiak Alutiiq and Sugpiat, whaling was a highly spiritual and ritualistic practice; whalers were both avoided and revered for going on such dangerous missions. From the time prior to the hunt to the time after the hunt and cleansing, whalers were eschewed; however outside of the hunt they were respected within the community for their ability to capture such a large sea mammal that contributed to survival of the community.[12]

Lydia T. Black notes that whaling was introduced to two islands, Four Mountain Island and Unalaska Island (via Krenitzen Island).[14] On Unalaska Island, the first record of a closed crown hat was noted by Carl Heinrich Merck in 1778 when Unangans were seen capturing a whale.[14] Black notes that a few years later headgear were seen at Atka Island, where some Kodiak Alutiiq had settled.[15] Similar to the Kodiak Alutiiq, whaling for the Unangan people was highly valued within the community, as the kill was shared amongst members.[16] Unangan hunters and whalers who participated in the practice were highly regarded; they often answered to the chiefs, as chiefs decided when whalers would go out on the waters.[15]

By the 19th century, further recordings of the headgear were noted by other explorers. During his voyage to Unalaska Island in 1805, German naturalist, explorer, and Russian diplomat, Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff described a qayaatX̂uX̂ chief's hat saying that "the most elegant and expensive headdress is a pointed wooden hat with an umbrella-like projection over the eyes and is rounded cap-like in the back”.[17]

Dating prior to contact, and with a long evolution that led to the development of stylized elements, Russian scholar S. A. Ivanov argues that Unangan headgear reached a pinnacle of design sophistication due to the relative isolation of the Aleutian Islands.[18]

Unangan hat makers painted the headgear with an undercoat base of white paint, and then added to it with a second coat of colour; the inside was painted in red.[23] Paints were mostly made with mineral pigments and on rare occasions with plant-based pigments; they were mixed and with bodily fluids such as blood plasma or nasal mucus as a binding agent. In his journal recordings from a Russian scientific expedition, German naturalist Carl Heinrich Merck stated that colours such as black were obtained from mainland Alaska; while white was found near volcanic vents or through trade; green, red, and yellow were produced with the ochre clay found in pond water. Blue was created by mixing together green and black.[24][25]

Painted designs included horizontal bands of colour, dots, closed and open curves, spirals, and on occasion representational drawings.[26]

For more elaborate designs on conical hats, Unangan headgear makers would add carved bone plates, also called volutes, to the backs and sides. These plates covered the back seam where the wooden piece was bound, adding sturdiness to the hat. It was also the location where sea lion whiskers or beads would be inserted.[26] On the sides, makers would add a carved plate near the wearer's temple; it had a long trianglual shape with a rounded circle at the end. S. V. Ivanov hypothesizes that this shape is a stylized bird head.[27] Whiskers were also inserted on the side to the bone plates.

Unangan headgear makers also added small bone carved figurines to the tops of hats; these could be in the shape of birds or of other sea mammals like otters.[19] The figurines could also resemble human beings.[25] Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff's recorded observations note these figurines as being made of walrus tusk.[28]

To indicate the abilities of a hunter, Unangan hat makers added sea lion whiskers to hats and visors; the more decorated a hat, the more skilled the hunter. The location of whiskers was placed on the opposite side as the hunter's throwing arm, as to not get in the way of any hunting tools, such as a harpoon, when throwing.[22] A right-handed whaler would have the whiskers placed on the left side; a left-handed hunter would have the whiskers attached on the right side.[29]

• Black, Lydia T. (1991). Glory Remembered: Wooden Headgear of Alaska Sea Hunters. Juneau, AK: Friends of the Alaska State Museums. ISBN 978-0295971513.
• Fair, Susan W. Alaska Native Art: Tradition, Innovation, Continuity. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press, 2006.
• Ivanov, S. V. (1930). Aleut Hunting Headgear and Its Ornamentation. (Facsimile of the first edition, with an introduction by Lydia T. Black ed.). Juneau, AK: Friends of the Alaska State Museums. ISBN 978-0295971513.
• Lantis, Margaret. “Alaskan Eskimo Ceremonialism: Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, Volume 11” Seattle, WA. University of Washington, 1966.
• Laughlin, William S. “Aleuts: Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge:  Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology”. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980
• Liapunova, Rosa Gavrilovna (1996). Workman, William B; Black, Lydia T. (eds.). Essays on the Ethnography of the Aleuts: at the End of the Eighteenth and the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Translated by Shelest, Jerry. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press. ISBN 0912006854.
• Merck, Carl Heinrich. “Siberia and Northwestern America 1788-1792; The Journal of Carl Heinrich Merck, Naturalist with the Russian Scientific Expedition led by Captains Joseph Billings and Gavril Sarychev”. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. Translated by Fritz Jaensch. Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1980.
• Turner, Lucian M. “An Aleutian Ethnography”. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press, 2008. Ed. Ray Hudson.
• Veniaminov, Ivan. "Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District". Kingston, Ontario: The Limestone Press, 1984.
• von Langsdorff, Georg Heinrich. “Remarks and Observations on a Voyage Around the World 1803-1807”. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. Translated and Annotated by Victoria Joan Moessner. Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1993.
• Wallen, Lynn Ager. “Bending Tradition”. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Museum and Institute of Alaska Native Arts, 1990.