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 The Alsdorf Hall of Northwest Coast and Arctic Peoples
As you exit The Ancient Americas exhibit, you'll enter The Alsdorf Hall of Northwest Coast and Arctic Peoples. Other-worldly spiritual masks, totem poles towering twenty feet high, and a cut-away reconstruction of an underground Arctic house are just a few of the many artifacts and interactives that will let you explore the lives of peoples living in the frigid Arctic or along the more temperate northern Pacific Coast.
Assembled largely in the 19th century, these collections of Eskimo and Northwest Coast cultures compare each group's responses to their environment and their various styles of creative expression. Various sections of the exhibit hall also explore the following themes:
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Environment
Lifelike dioramas and mounted specimens introduce the indigenous plants and animals essential to the survival of Arctic and Northwest Coast cultures while illustrating how climate influenced and inspired their creativity. Presentations also explore the peoples that first occupied this land and examine their initial contact with Europeans.
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 Fishing, Hunting, Gathering
Highly developed hunting and fishing technologies enabled maritime cultures to harvest critical food resources from their environment. Beautifully crafted harpoons, hooks, dip nets, sleds, kayaks, and complicated fish traps demonstrate the technical skill and ingenuity these peoples applied in the pursuit of staple foods.
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Village and Society
Amazing historic photographs supplement life-sized cross-sections of houses and displays of tools, cooking gear, clothing, and luxury goods that portray the daily life and complex social organization of these maritime cultures. Village settlement patterns, the practice of warfare, and traditional ceremonies such as the potlatch illustrate the workings of traditional Eskimo and Northwest Coast societies.
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Spiritual World
Reverence for the ancestors, the power of totem animals, and the presence of potent spirits all combined to create a richly textured spiritual world for maritime peoples. During highly theatrical rituals, Northwest Coast dancers donned the transformation masks on display in the gallery to achieve the merger of earthly life and the spirit world. Spiritual leaders of Arctic peoples danced to the beat of sealskin drums while mystically traveling between two worlds to connect the natural world with the supernatural.
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Art
Artists of both the Eskimo and Northwest Coast cultures possessed an extremely refined sense of line, form, and color. The sophisticated abstractions embodied in such artworks as totem poles, engraved ivory, sinuous woven baskets, and spoons, ladles, and rattles carved in cedar capture the essence of the mammals, birds, fish, and plants that populated the artists' worlds.
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Continue to Native North Americans. >>
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