A special gift : the Kutchin beadwork tradition
Title:
A special gift : the Kutchin beadwork tradition
JLCTITLE245:
Kate C. Duncan with Eunice Carney.
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
Fairbanks, Alaska : University of Alaska Press, ©1997.
Physical Description:
xix, 104 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 21 cm
ISBN:
9780912006888
General Note:
Originally published: Seattle : University of Washington Press, ©1988.
Abstract:
Today as in the past Kutchin women use beads in evocative and beautiful patterns to ornament clothing for family and friends, and items to be sold. Beadwork is the form a woman will often choose when a most special gift is called for; the beaded object is love made visible. Among these subarctic Athapaskan people, beadwork today continues a tradition that has been important for well over a century. Both changes and continuities were evident in that tradition when, in 1982, Kate Duncan, an art historian, and Eunice Carney, a Kutchin elder and beadworker, visited Kutchin communities in Alaska and the Yukon Territory, carrying photographs of older beadwork now in museum collections and talking with people about the art. This new edition, with an expanded section of color plates and an updated introduction, brings back into print the product of their effort. The narrative traverses the history of Kutchin beadwork, beginning with early regional differences and work that exists now only in memory, extending to the last decades of the twentieth century.
Bibliography Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Added Author:
Personal Name:
Jean Blodgett Donor
Contents:
List of plates -- List of figures -- Publisher's note -- Foreword to the 1997 edition -- Introduction to the 1997 edition -- Preface and acknowledgments (1988) -- Plates -- Introduction (1988).
I. The Kutchin people -- Literature -- II. Beads and the Kutchin -- Old style Kutchin garments -- European influence and garments -- III. Seed beads and floral bead embroidery -- Floral beadwork and the Loucheux -- Floral embroidery among the western Kutchin -- Kutchin beadwork style at the turn of the century -- IV. Loucheux (eastern Kutchin) designs -- Western Kutchin design -- Motifs and motif names -- V. Beadworking in the past and today -- Teaching and learning -- Materials -- Drawing designs and sewing beads -- Sewing -- Lining and finishing -- Old crow knitting -- Individual preferences and style -- Sale of beadwork -- VI. Traditions old and new -- The English style hunting shirt -- Jackets -- The "tin" hat -- Tobacco pouches -- The toboggan bag -- Shot pouches -- Babiche bags -- Dog blankets -- A special woman's dress -- Baby belts -- Footwear -- Mittens and gloves -- Special gifts for the church -- Fashion and fancy -- One beadworker's experience: Eunice Carney-reminiscences -- My background -- My mother and old ways of sewing -- Tanning hides -- Beadwork -- Our trip -- Afterword: Eunice Carney, a memorial.
Appendices -- I. Beadwork designs from Eunice Carney's design tablet -- II. To make a pair of moccassins -- III. Kutchin people interviewed -- References -- Index.