Seal Mask

This pair of masks embodies the pan-Arctic belief in the duality of physical being and spirit in which all beings, including animals, possess a soul, or yua. It has been recorded that the upper, box-like form of masks of this type represents the spirit of the seal depicted below. However, it is also known that a mask was not identified with the soul of a single animal but with the vital force representing the immortality and continuum of all the individual spirits of that genus which has lived, was living, or was to live. Yup'ik masks were sometimes created in sets of two or three and were used by shamans to facilitate communication and movement between the domains of human and animal, living and dead.