This put me in mind of some beautiful engraved Alaskan Native pieces in the Brooklyn Museum that I had photographed a couple of years ago. Both are late-nineteenth century, both are anonymous – one is a walrus tusk (view here catalogue number: 20.894), the other is a sperm whale tooth (view here, catalogue number 20.895). They depict scenes from Inuit life – hunting, village scenes, dog-sledding, dancing, but also include some larger-scale animals, such a walrus and a sea-bird. Each scene seems to be unrelated, and is set in its own, blank space, and it has been said that they depict scenes of “every-day life,” for the Inuit people, but they could perhaps represent a bigger story, as yet uninterpreted. The technique used involves engraving or incising a design on the ivory or tooth, which is then filled in with black pigment made from ash or graphite and oil.

Sometimes this technique is called scrimshaw, but this is a Western word for the technique which is often considered to be an American (as in white people from the United States) art form, made by whalers to occupy themselves on their long expeditions, which sometimes lasted years. However, we have to be careful of over-simplifying the direction, progression and attribution of cultural influence. The word “scrimshaw,” as almost every website on the subject will tell you, is of unknown origin, while some point to an English surname or a word for French fencing masters. Knowing the involvement of the Scots in the whaling trade, however, I decided to look to see what it would mean in the Scots language. “To scrim” is a Scots word meaning to fill a crack (with a piece of cheese-cloth called a scrim), or it can also mean to rub vigorously. “Shaw” is a Scots word meaning “to show.” Considering the technique of scrimshaw – which involves covering an engraving in black pigment to fill in the scratched lines, and then rubbing off the excess to reveal or show the design – a Scots language meaning “fill/rub to show” seems likely to me. [At the time of writing this, I am not sure whether or not anyone else has come up with this Scots language interpretation – if so please let me know in comments and I will adjust the post to credit them – if not – then please credit me!]. Scotland certainly had a large contingent of “Arctic cowboys,” whalers out of places like Aberdeen and Dundee, and they were also, along with Irish men, regularly crewmen on American whalers, out of places like New Bedford, “the city that lit the world,” and which was, in its time, the wealthiest city in North America per capita because of the whale oil trade.

So scrimshaw as a word, possibly as a technique, may have passed from Scots to American usage, and the technique was also adopted by Inuit artists. One such, was Angokwazhuk 1870-1918 (also known as Happy Jack), a Iñupiaq artist who grew up on the Seward peninsula in Alaska, and lived in Nome. He is pictured above in a studio portrait with his wife, taken by Otto Daniel Goetze, who established a studio in Nome. In 1892, when Angokwazhuk was just 19 years-old, his carving was admired by a visiting whale-boat captain out of Martha’s Vineyard, called Captain Hartson Bodfish. Bodfish was one of the first American whalers to overwinter in the Artic, and he left a family behind in Nome. The story goes that Bodfish, recognizing Angokwazhzuk’ s talent invited him aboard his ship to show him scrimshaw. Angokwazhuk then excelled in this art form and his works now sell for thousands of dollars at auction. He is credited with not only adopting the scrimshaw technique but also with adapting and improving it by using a very fine needle for the engraving, with which he was able to imitate the newspaper half-tones of the day and create images of almost photographic accuracy. Unlike the Alaskan pieces in the Brooklyn museum, where each scene is in its own space, Angokwazhuk adopted what has been called a more “Western pictorial” style. Clearly, he was a man with a savvy sense of what his audience and customers wanted.

Two pieces of Angokwazhuk’s work, currently in New York City museums, demonstrate not only his skill, but also his ability to syncretize meaning and cultures. The first piece is in the National Museum of the American Indian, in their ongoing “Infinity of Nations” exhibit (view here: catalogue number 5/3086). Deanna Paniataaq Kingston (King Island Iñupiaq), Associate Professor of Anthropology, Oregon State University, writes about a walrus ivory tusk that is part of the exhibit, which was carved by Angokwazhuk, “I believe that the two hillside scenes on either side of the tusk depict the story of the Eagle-Wolf Dance.” The story recounts that a hunter had killed a giant eagle and is then taken to see the deceased eagle’s mother, and she teaches the hunter to sing, dance, and feast, so that when he goes home and does these things, then her son’s spirit will be able to return to her. The hunter also has a vision of a wolf that emerges from a cave dancing, which causes birds to fly away. As Kingston notes, on one side of the tusk Angokwazhuk has engraved an eagle and a wolf, and the eagle is far larger – it is a giant eagle. On the other side, a wolf emerges from a den and birds fly away. This is certainly a unique and exceptionally interesting piece as Angokwazhuk has broken from his usual repertoire of village and hunting scenes to record his version of this Iñupiaq legend, story, and dance using “Western pictorial” style.

The second piece of Angokwazhuk’s art in New York is about as different as possible from the first. It is another engraved walrus tusk, but that is about where the similarity stops. It is in the Jewish Museum and on this tusk Angokwazhuk has engraved a version of a Rosh Hashanah card (Jewish New Year) (view here, catalogue number 1984-71).

It was a Jewish custom at this time to send greeting cards to family and friends, but a carved walrus tusk from Nome, Alaska was certainly unique. Angokwazhuk has captured an almost photographic likeness (or at least newspaper half-tones likeness) of a religiously observant Jewish couple, in typical nineteenth century dress. He sports a large black hat and a resplendent beard, and she wears a dark dress and seems to wear a wig. There is an inscription between the couple in Hebrew that reads, “May you be inscribed for a good year, 5671 [1910].” I am sure the pun was intended! One can almost imagine Angokwazhuk carefully transcribing this unfamiliar Hebrew script. Below this there is a gold Star of David and then in English, Nome, Alaska. To either side of the couple there is foliage, which seems to be out of Angokwazhuk’s imagination. The couple are not named – they didn’t need to be, whoever received this Rosh Hashanah card would have recognized them instantly. When a Jewish owned firm, the Alaska Commercial Company, secured seal fishing rights in Alaska, this brought Jewish visitors and settlers to the area, and this couple it is believed set up a store in Nome. In the 1890s Nome grew exponentially due to a Gold Rush, becoming a city of more than 30,000 people. No doubt this couple were doing well, not only being able to commission this wonderful walrus tusk Rosh Hashanah card with their likenesses on it, but also inlaying that gold Star of David, perhaps made from Nome Gold Rush gold.

When we were trying to think of a name for our episode (episode 9) it did at first seem that we had chosen two pieces and two areas of the world that had nothing in common – ancient Petra in the Jordanian desert and the twentieth-century port of Nome, Alaska. But in writing this piece on the work of the Iñupiaq artist from Nome, Angokwazhuk, and the way his work, was based in indigenous techniques and styles, but then adopted, adapted, syncretized, developed, and made totally unique pieces, I realized that Petra and Nome were not that different after all. Both were vital stopping places in the trade of commodities that were currently highly valued (incense and whale-oil respectively), and both were places where people of various cultures visited and settled and interacted with indigenous population, and both were places where unique art was created as a result of these encounters.

Picture Credits:

Otto Daniel Goetze, Photograph of Angokwazhuk and his wife. From the special collections of the University of Washington Libraries accessed August 24, 2023 at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Happy_Jack_(artist)#/media/File:Studio_portrait_of_Eskimo_ivory_carver_known_as_Happy_Jack_(Angohwazhuk)and_his_wife,_wearing_traditional_fur_parkas,_Nome(AL+CA_617).jpg

Rosh Hashanah Card, Jewish Museum in New York, accessed https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Happy_Jack_(born_Angokwazhuk)-_New_Year_Greeting-_Google_Art_Project.jpg on August 8/24/2023.

Sources:

Jewish Museum, “New Year Greeting,” Accession number 1984-71 – accessed August 24, 2023 at https://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/1545-new-year-greeting

Deanna Paniataaq Kingston, “Angokwazhuk (Happy Jack; Iñupiaq, 1870-1918) carving,” accessed August 24, 2023 at https://americanindian.si.edu/exhibitions/infinityofnations/arctic-subarctic/053086.html