Yupʼik dance
[3] The shaman (angalkuq sg angalkuk dual angalkut pl) played a functional role in dance.
The role of shaman as the primary leader, petitioner, and a trans-mediator between the human and non-human spiritual worlds in association with music, dance, and masks.
Shamans wearing masks of bearded seal, moose, wolf, eagle, beaver, fish, and the north wind were accompanied with drums and music.
Traditionally, the drumskin (eciq or cauyam ecia) was made out of fine mammal stomach lining.
The ceremonies are accompanied with music and must adhere to specific composition formalities as practiced by Yup’ik ancestors.
[3] The dance regalia (yurarcuun sg yurarcuutek dual yurarcuutet pl) includes qaliq (fancy fur parka), nasqurrun (wolf/wolverine/caribou beaded headdress), uyamik (beaded necklaces), tegumiak (finger mask or woven grass caribou dance fans), piluguuk (decorated boots), and ivory/beaded earrings.
Today, both female and male dancers wear designed qaspeq (hand-sewn calico pullover clothing).
[1] The reasons of the discrediting of traditional native dances are the effects of social changes that came about in the late 19th century as a result of fur trade, epidemics, and missionary activity.
[1] Along with the expansion of Europeans and Americans into Alaska were accompanying hardships for the indigenous people: epidemic diseases, strong Christian missionary activities, and western educational policies such as English language-only rules.
[9] Ancestral Eskimo dancing and non-Christian festivities, traditional ceremonies, and shamanistic rites were discouraged or even demonized and banned by Christian missionaries in the late 19th century as primitive idolatry.
[11] Yuraq dancing feasts between villages in the King Salmon and Naknek region were forbidden by Russian Orthodox priests as of 1933.
[12][13] Dancing as part of Yup'ik feasts no longer existed as Jesuit missionaries forbade it at the end of the 19th century.
Because of their highly spiritual content, dances were considered dangerous by missionaries who called them "heathen idol worship, devil's frolic and black art".
Today, a dance festival, both in preparation and the actual event, consumes an entire village with its significance, just as it did in pre-contact times.
"Yup'ik ways of dancing") started in 1982 at St. Mary's (Negeqliq), fostering a revival of the traditions of the Yup’ik people.
The success of that event stimulated the creation of dance festivals throughout the lower Yukon River region.
