Yupik Eskimo Arts and Craft

05/23/2026

My sister preparing for her grandson’s high school graduation:

When my grandson Odyessus graduated from high school I made sure we dressed up like Eskimo Christmas new clothing lotsa cultural traditionally Regalias. And we could see him in a long distance because of his headdress made with super white polar bear fur. That was a fun day.

05/14/2026

When my grandmother was born in 1914, the midwife took her to the garbage and waste dump site and rolled and covered her tiny infant body in the waste. The midwife named her Cikiitalleq meaning ‘discarded waste’. My grandma’s parents had already lost 9 infants. The midwife covered her in waste to keep the death squad from taking my grandma from her parents.
Excerpt from my mother’s personal journal, Rose Anna Dan Waghiyi

05/08/2026

Blue baby

Recently my sister asked me why our other sisters called me a ‘blue baby’. I just celebrated my 70 years on this world. We started 11 strong and down to 3 of us. The first time I heard being called a ‘blue baby’ was in my mind I thought it was because my favorite color was blue. I didn’t understand back in those days a ‘blue baby’ was a dead baby, born without oxygen. My understanding from stories of my entrance into the world was my dad wasn’t going to accept my fate. He took me and brought me outside to the heavy strong winds and forced my dead body into the winds to force air into my lungs. It worked, I was revived into the world of the living. How much of that is true, I’ll never know as everyone that knew about my birth are long gone. In those days , midwives told birthing mothers not to love a ‘blue baby’ as they were going to die anyway. While my mother was carrying me, my uncle Iingaq, contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Washington state. He died there and my dad flew into a violent rage. He attacked my mother’s stomach to kill me. My mother went into early labor and delivered a ‘dead baby’. Out of guilt, my dad revived my dead body by the heavy winds from the Norton Sound ocean. He bonded with me and was overly protective of my infancy. My mother avoided any motherly attachments as I was already given a death sentence. In the 50s, many indigenous women were taught to avoid loving a surviving ‘blue baby’ to protect them from hurting of a loss.
If my readers don’t mind learning of days gone by, share and teach our young ones of how we have survived of days long gone.

05/03/2026

05/03/2026

05/02/2026

June 1942. Japan invaded U.S. soil for the first time since 1812, seizing Alaskan islands. The military had 6,600 miles of frozen coastline and no way to defend it. What happened next became one of the war's most forgotten stories.The attack shocked the nation. Foreign troops were occupying American territory, and the U.S. military was utterly unprepared for Alaska's brutal conditions. Temperatures plunged below zero. Roads didn't exist. Reinforcements would take months to arrive and even longer to learn how to survive.
So commanders did something unusual. They asked for help from the people already there. Volunteers came forward from Yup'ik, Inupiaq, Tlingit, Aleut, Haida, Athabascan, and Tsimshian communities. Elders and young adults alike. They received minimal training, a rifle, an armband, and were told to watch the coast. What they brought was irreplaceable. Generations of knowledge about weather, navigation, and survival in conditions that killed outsiders.
They traveled routes no vehicle could follow. They reported enemy movements, maintained radio contact, and served as the only functioning surveillance network across thousands of miles. In some of the harshest conditions on Earth, they became America's northern shield. No further Japanese landings occurred in the region. Their presence worked.
After the war, most received nothing. No pay. No benefits. No recognition. It took decades before Congress finally acknowledged their service. By then, many had passed away. But their role was undeniable. When Alaska needed defending, it wasn't technology or firepower that held the line. It was people who knew the land and chose to stand watch when no one else could.