Drum, Drumstick, c. 1960

When I was teaching up in Atkasuq, we would put on a Christmas program. It’s the first year that I’d really seen my students get up there and do it. They had learned some dances and some drumming in Inupiaq class and then they were performing there for the Christmas show so the whole school gets involved and it’s a really big, fun thing for the community to all get together.

My name’s Christine Cassidy and I’m an educator here at the Anchorage Museum. Before that, I was a classroom teacher so my background definitely comes from education. I was working in rural Alaska and I also taught 6th grade science in South Carolina before moving up to Alaska.

This particular drum is a King Island Inupiaq drum and it was made by John Kokuluk Sr. in the 1960s. And it’s seal stomach drum and then the handle itself is made of antler and it would have wood for the frame of the drum.

The Inupiaq drumming is done from the bottom side of the drum, so it has a really distinct sound. You can always tell if there’s the Inupiaq style drumming going on because with that drumming from the bottom, you’re not only getting the vibrations of the membrane of the drumhead but you’re also getting a little bit of a clacking sound of that wooden drumstick against the wooden drum frame on the bottom--o it’s a pretty distinct style.

My husband is Inupiaq and when my father-in-law passed away a couple of years ago, we had drumming as part of kind of the funeral. We got everybody together at the house, the family house, we all gathered and we sang a bunch of hymns some of them in English, some of them in Inupiaq a nd then we also had drumming with that.

At my new hire in-service, when I was first moving up to Alaska and going to teach in Atkasuq, and that year, the North Slope Borough School District hosted it here in Anchorage. We had our big hoorah at the end of the week—was here at the Anchorage Museum in the old atrium before we renovated.

We had the Point Hope Dance Group, that was pretty amazing especially in the atrium the drumming echoed so much and it sounded so robust and full and they were just so happy to be there performing and sharing with all of these new teachers a part of their culture. That was kind of a moment that I was sitting there, and I was like wow, I’m really glad I decided to move up to Alaska and just the other day, on the front lawn, we had a dance group dancing. And so, it’s just really cool to see how it’s been a huge part since the moment I kind of arrived in Alaska. And I hope it always stays a big part of our lives.