Book review: The lives and work of Yup’ik Elders animate and inform ‘The Flying Parka’

“Tengautuli Atkuk - The Flying Parka: The Meaning and Making of Parkas in Southwest Alaska”

By Ann Fineup-Riordan, Alice Reardon and Marie Meade; University of Washington Press, 2023; 320 pages; $45.

Since time immemorial, the Yupiit people of Southwestern Alaska have thrived in one of the harshest environments on Earth, and learning to dress appropriately for the elements has been key to their success. Perhaps no article of clothing has proven more critical than parkas. The wind-, rain- and cold-proof outer jackets allow their wearers to move freely through their world, staying warm and dry while pursuing a subsistence lifestyle that still informs their lives today. Those parkas were and still serve not just as attire, but as living pieces of culture, representing who the Yupiit are as a people.

“Parkas were not only beautiful but warm,” Ann Fineup-Riordan writes in the introduction to “Tengautuli Atkuk - The Flying Parka,” noting as well that: “One’s parka not only identified one’s family but displayed their hunting and sewing skills for all to see.”

“The Flying Parka” is drawn from several meetings with Yup’ik Elders who discussed the history, creation and uses of parkas, and who provided personal memories and legends that enhance our understanding of their roles in an ancient culture. The book is a joint effort by Fineup-Riordan, an anthropologist who has worked in Southwest Alaska for over 35 years, along with Alice Reardon and Marie Meade, who provided transcriptions and translations. Fineup-Riordan carefully stresses, however, that the Elders who shared their traditions and techniques are the true authors of the book.

Over nearly 300 pages of text found here, readers gain tremendous knowledge. In addition to signifying which family a wearer hailed from, parkas, we learn from this richly detailed and lavishly illustrated examination of them, were tailored to the wearer’s broader community origins as well. They reflected the wearer’s people and place among the widely dispersed population that inhabited this part of the world long before Europeans ever knew it existed.

The book opens and closes with personal memories of the contributors, and with stories long passed down through oral telling among peoples of the region, including this the book’s namesake legend, “The Flying Parka.” In between lies an account encompassing the purposes of parkas, the making of them and the differing styles that arose locally depending on resources and group cultures.

“A woman’s ability to sew was critical to her husband’s success as well as her family’s survival,” Fineup-Riordan explains in a chapter showing how young girls developed the requisite skills for making a well-functioning parka. “Just as a man must master hunting skills before he married, a girl could not become a wife until she had learned to sew,” As a woman, that girl’s abilities would be a tandem accompaniment to her husband’s ability to provide for his family on the land.

“Those who try (sewing) from the beginning, from the time they’re small, are better at making things,” Elder Angela Hunt told Fineup-Riordan, adding that even in an age when parka making is less widespread as it was before imported clothing became available, her granddaughter sought to acquire knowledge of the art.

Upon reaching maturity and marriage, a young woman would learn to not simply sew parkas, but to infuse them and other items with meaning. Family designs can be found on parkas, boots, tools, dishware and more. Parkas can also, within the details of their outward appearances, have stories woven into their furs and fabric. Regarding modern parkas, however, Elder Elana Charles noted, “People in the old days didn’t make too many decorations. Today some people go over the limit.”

Fineup-Riordan guides us through the meetings she has held with the Elders who share their knowledge here, explaining the process for making a parka and the materials needed to do so. Ground squirrels are among the common sources for pelts that provide linings and fur. Caribou, wolves and seabirds also serve this purpose. Fish skins and intestines of sea mammals are used as well.

The process involves extensive treatment of the skins, something that is done differently depending on which animal they come from. Skins, and notably bird skins, were chewed to remove the fat and then soaked in aged urine to soften them and release their oils. “Urine was used by everyone here in Alaska,” Elder Neva Rivers explained. “They all used it to cure things, and it is also good on rancid (skins). They kept the bowl (of aged urine) all spring long.” Later we learn that Dawn dish soap is now the preferred degreaser.

In the chapter on seal gut parkas, we are told that the intestines of seals, walruses and beluga whales first were cleaned, and then inflated and left out to dry before the parka was assembled. As Rivers explained about the offal, which would be discarded by less adept and knowledgable harvesters, “now it has become a useful item after it was a useless intestine. How smart.”

Fish-skin parkas were often found in areas where seals were less common. The skin was usually removed after the fish had been smoked, soaked in urine, then left out to freeze dry over the winter. Soft and pliable, they, too, offered solid protection from the elements.

In 2012, several of the women whose stories contribute much of what is found in this book traveled to Washington, D.C., to examine objects held in the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of Natural History. None had ever previously left Alaska. They were given access to parkas dating back to the late 19th century. In what must have been a deeply emotional experience for them, they carefully examined various parkas and discussed them in detail. The section includes many photographs of the event, most taken by Fineup-Riordan.

The information provided by the Elders here is never anything less than fascinating. “Our lives are like the work we do,” Rivers told Fineup-Riordan. These lives and their work form the backbone of “The Flying Parka,” a gift to Alaska that offers us previously little-known cultural understanding of the place we live.