Spirits into Seabirds: Arctic Masks See all the exhibitions.

This exhibition explores past and present creativity among the Eskimos of southwestern Alaska, focusing on the development of the unique Nunivak Island bird mask. In the 1920s, a newly adopted religion discouraged the carving of the human image. Peter Smith, the first Nunivak Islander trained as a Covenant minister, developed a new mask type based on bird imagery. Soon other carvers followed suit. "Spirits into Seabirds" explains how and why these bird masks developed.