Locomotoring

The photos above are from Alaska State Museum in Juneau. One on the right shows Tlingit ceremonial rattles. The top row first two are Raven rattles, often intricately carved with a combination of human, frog, hawk and other creatures. On the left are a pair of Yupik ceremonial masks, likely from Qikirtaq island, near St. Michael, they resemble the masks from Unalakleet, Hooper Bay and Nelson Island.

I have been totally swept off my feet by the ceremonial raven rattles. What follows is a fictional story of a woman child, Héen (in Tlingit, Héen means river), in the form of an imagined conversation between the ceremonial mask on top left and the raven rattle on top left.

Mask: Are you still awake?

Rattle: Hmmm…. can’t really sleep.

This is a story of a mask and rattle and a woman child, Héen, who lived in a different time. Héen grew up the only daughter of a chief surrounded by several brothers. She really wanted to be a hunter like her father who was a legendary hunter in the village. But he wouldn’t allow his little girl to hunt. He had carved himself the rattle when she was born. It wasn’t a baby rattle, it was a rattle that he would use to lure the bears out of their dens, before killing them and bringing the kill back to his village. He would sometimes hold her tiny hand in his own and wrap her fingers around the rattle and play the tune he would play for the bears. By the time Héen was a little older, her father had made other rattles for his hunts and she held on this rattle. Her father had also received a set of masks as gifts from a visiting tribe, one for him and one for his wife, Héen’s mother, they were a pair of his- and hers- masks. The two would sometimes put on their masks and dance to exhaustion under the starry skies when the village was asleep. Héen would sometimes sneak into her mother’s hut, wear the mask and pretend to be a grownup like her mother. One day she left home to gather berries and never came back. Later, her mother found the her mask missing. No one noticed the missing rattle.

Mask: Care to share your thoughts?

Rattle: The little girl today, the one who came with her beautiful mother….she reminded me of Héen. You could see that she really wanted to hold me. And the mother, although distracted and texting on her phone, couldn’t stop staring at you.

Mask: Yeah, and I knew the little one was going to make you feel nostalgic again.

Rattle: Do you think if Héen had lived, we would have ended up together in this museum?

Mask: Unlikely. I would have been burned as firewood once I became less fashionable. Although, you might have kept rattling on, perhaps for Héen’s children. After all, raven rattles never go out of fashion.

Rattle: Hmmm….

Mask: It was Héen who took us with her to the den. The den kept us from rotting until the expedition found us there.

Rattle: When Héen was a child, her little fingers would tickle me. This child was behind the glass, but I could feel her tickling me.

Mask: Héen was really starting to look as beautiful as her mother, wasn’t she. She has the same long hair, and dreamy smile. But what a tomboy, she was! She had calloused knees, and hands of an older man.

Rattle: You remember why, right? The moment she knew no one was watching, she would pretend she was a bear and started walking on all fours…her rebellion against her father for not allowing her to hunt!

Mask: Try and get some sleep, tomorrow is another day.

Rattle: Hmmm…good night.

That day, while collecting berries, Héen had taken the she mask and the rattle with her. She liked putting on the mask and pretend to be her mother and she had been working on a tune on the rattle. That day, Héen came across a mother bear and Héen followed her all the way to her den. She never came back home that day.