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Sugpiaq Bentwood Hunting Visor (2000)

Measurements include whiskers.

For millennia Aleutian artists made these hats from steam-bent driftwood. The shape of the visor (called a Chagudax) echoes the form of Aleutian kayaks. The hats were seamed up the back with gut and adorned with carved ivory, sea lion whiskers, bird feathers, and Russian trade beads. Older hats from the 18th and 19th century are some of the rarest artifacts from the pre-contact period. While in their kayaks, Aleutian hunters would wear hats and visors to block bright reflections from the sun and funnel sound over the water into the hunters’ ears, enabling them to pinpoint an animal’s location.

Photo Credit: Unangan hunters in two-man kayak demonstrating hunting technique with spear and spear thrower; photo from History, Ethnology and Anthropology of the Aleut (fig. 17) by Waldemar Jochelson, 1933. Source: Smithsonian; National Museum of the American Indian