Rosalie Paniyak was the matriarch of a family of dollmakers that now spans several generations in her home village of Chevak, Alaska. Beginning in 1953, Panyiak started making dolls out of sea mammal and fish skins, often in the form of qaspeq-clad “activity dolls,” who were shown dancing, gathering berries, or cleaning fish. [1] With her unique skin-sewing approach to making dolls, people either love or hate the sometimes-startling appearance of her doll’s faces. Working in skin with beads for eyes and teeth gives her dolls a somewhat similar appearance to dried apple head dolls of the American Northeast. Within her lifetime, Paniyak was regarded as a very important Alaska Native dollmaker and was featured prominently in several crucial doll exhibitions in Alaska, including Eskimo Dolls (1982) and Not Just a Pretty Face: Dolls and Human Figurines in Alaska Native Cultures (1999). One of Paniyak’s most well-known pieces is a Statue of Liberty doll on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York City.

This charming activity doll features a salmon skin face with black and white beads for eyes and teeth and fur for a tuft of hair. She is wearing a floral summer parka/qaspeq with a white fur trim and a floral bandana as a head wrap. Underneath the parka she is wearing a pair of snowflake printed thermal underwear and mukluks. The doll is holding what looks like an ulu and appears to be filleting a fish in her hands.

1. Molly Lee, Angela J. Linn, Chase Hensel, James H. Barker. 2006. Not just a Pretty Face: Dolls and Human Figurines in Alaska Native Cultures. 2nd ed. Fairbanks, Alaska: University of Alaska Press, p. 59.

Christopher W. Smith