Photo Gallery

2. Help with family chores and needs

3. Early to bed, early to rise

4. Provide time to see how your life is going

5. There's always time to play AFTER all your work is done.

6. Pingnatugyaraq: learn to do things yourself.

7. Respect and honor your elders

8. Always show good behavior

9. Listen to all advice given to you

10. Remember what you are taught and told

11. Respect other people's belongings

12. Respect the animals you catch for food

13. Gather as much knowledge and wisdom from the elders.

14. Never give up in trying to do what you set your mind on.

Fry bread recipe

My father (Bill McDiarmid) cutting the fish that was just caught with nets at John Pingayaq's fish camp on the Qissunaq River.

My dad cutting fish, usually in Cup'ik culture the women are the ones that cut the fish, but in my family it's my dad's job like it is on parts of the Yukon.

Item 3 Description

Chevak

Fish hung to dry by the smoke house (where the fish is smoked)

Fish guts and fish ready to be filleted and cut for drying.

Inside of the cook tent at John Pingayaq's fish camp. The cook tent is the main social gathering place at fish camps. The men's house or qaygiq used to be the main house for social gatherings, ceremonies and dances, it was also where the men and boys slept, worked and took fire baths.

The maqee at fish camp; for steam baths (or fire baths). Off in the distance (near the river) is the privy.

Grass baskets (with butterflies) made by Mrs. Paniyak of Chevak in the early 1980s.

Seal mask and fish mask made out of driftwood, the color comes from a special clay from Nelson island. The feathers on the seal are snowy owl and caribou fur adorn the bentwood around on the salmon. The faces on the fish mask represent male and female. Both are contemporary art pieces by John Pingayaq of Chevak. The ivory work in the middle is by Robert Smith of Meykoruk on Nunivak Isalnd, carved in 1981. (from the McDiarmid's collection)

'Spirit of the Crane' by John Pingayaq, Chevak. Made with driftwood, snowy owl feathers and colored with clay. The crane is important in Cup'ik culture, for it represents the wisdom of the tundra. (contemporary art from the McDiarmid collection)

'Dream catcher' by John Pingayaq, Chevak, driftwood, caribou fur, snowy owl feathers, colored with clay. (contemporary art from the McDiarmid collection) 

Doll by Earl Atchak carved from driftwood, and dressed by Lisa Unin, both from Chevak. (from the McDiarmid collection)

Doll by Rosalie Paniyak, Chevak (from the McDiarmid collection)

A traditional mask by Earl Atchak, Chevak,, driftwood, ivory (fish in mouth), caribou. (from the McDiarmid collection)

Mask by Ben Nayamin of Chevak, the faces represent male (smiling) and female (frowning).  The body is that of a seal with a fish in its mouth.  (from the McDiarmid collection)

Traditional drum made of walrus belly, nowadays drums are made with nylon  Made by Earl Atchak of Chevak, Alaska.  (from the McDiarmid collection)