walrus tusk depicting a dog team and sled, Howard Weyahok

Exhibition Label:
"Climate Change at the Poles," Jan-2009, Kate Meyer, Jennifer Talbott, and Angela Watts
The Inuit have a long tradition of incorporating art into their everyday lives through sculpture, drawing, textile arts, and other forms of art, like music and dance. This ivory story knife is carved from a walrus tusk and would likely have been used by an Inuit girl who would draw pictures in the snow or mud, illustrating the stories and songs that she would share with her friends.

Pictorial engraving, also called scrimshaw, was commonly used by Inuit men in Alaska to decorate ivory tools like bow drills, illustrating stories from their lives. As trading posts were established in the late-nineteenth century, the same kind of scrimshaw work, as well as low-relief carving, was applied to walrus tusks, pipes, and cribbage boards. These types of items became popular tourist items sold to sailors. Pictorial engraving was, therefore, one of the earliest commercial art forms in which Inuit artists, by signing their work, became wellknown artists.