Alaskans trade in ivory of the mammoths

Press, 7 December 1988, Page 23

Alaskans trade in ivory of the mammoths

Story:

GARRY ARTHUR

Walrus and mammoth tusks preserved for thousands of years in the frozen wastes of Alaska are the raw material of two ivory traders now touring New Zealand.

Peter Vallejo and Jean Britt spend the Alaskan summers visiting Eskimo villages on St Lawrence Island, 280 kilometres north-west of Nome (and only 56km from the Soviet Union) to buy or barter with the inhabitants for 1600-year-old walrus tusks they have dug out of prehistoric village sites. They also buy ancient whalebone, and sometimes the tusks of woolly mammoths that have been preserved in the frozen ground for more than 10,000 years.

A civil engineer by profession, Peter Vallejo first went to Alaska in 1969 to work on roading projects. He was sent out to small, remote villages over a period of five years and began to buy ivory artefacts to take back and sell in Anchorage.

Then he decided to concentrate on the raw material — walrus ivory which the villagers were excavating from prehistoric village sites. “They’re searching for artefacts to sell,” he says. “It’s their primary source of income, and yet it’s ruining their culture and history.” When the Eskimos excavate their ancient village sites they are looking mainly for highly valued artefacts, such as animal

carvings and rare intricately detailed ivory dolls in human form which fetch as much as $30,000 each on the international art market.

Trade in Alaskan ivory is strictly controlled. Buying and selling “white” walrus ivory — from present-day walruses — has been illegal since 1979. Only Alaskan natives are allowed to use it. The prehistoric ivory from old village sites can be recovered only on private Eskimo land.

St Lawrence Island, which has two Eskimo villages of about 400 people each, is a prime site because walrus migrate past the island twice a year and have been hunted there for at least 15,000 years. Ancient mounds cover prehistoric village sites with piles of walrus and whale bones. The island is in the vicinity of the ancient Bering Sea land bridge. “It’s a great hunting area,” says Mr Vallejo. “Piles of bones at the old village sites include walrus tusks up to 30 inches long and weighing about six pounds each.”

The ivory is of good carving quality, and comes in a range of colours from light cream through pumpkin and orange to blue-

black, depending on the minerals that have leached into the tusks from the surrounding soil. Since 1974 Mr Vallejo has made ivory trading his full-time job, “I purchase it from the natives, or trade it for clothing or hunting equipment, outboard motors, three-wheeled Hondas, carving tools — whatever they need. It’s extremely expensive to live there because literally every thing has to be flown in.” He also deals in ivory tusks of the prehistoric woolly mammoth which are between 10,000 and 50,000 years old. These are not fossilised but preserved, often imperfectly, in the ground. Most tusks are found in the Alaskan interior.

“When the riverbanks slough off, or an ocean cliff sloughs off in a storm, the Eskimos collect the tusks that are exposed. After a big storm there’s a race to find pieces. Usually they are broken sections of tusk,' or just the outside layer, and often the ivory is limited in thickness, whereas walrus tusks can be up to three inches in diameter.”

Huge piles of whalebone and baleen are also found in the area. Recently Mr Vallejo gathered a large quantity together at an island airstrip and flew it out to Anchorage.

He supplies his ivory and whalebone to a network of artists and sculptors throughout the United States. Some is used for

traditional scrimshaw work in which the ivory is engraved and inked, especially in the New England maritime states such as Massachusetts. The rest is used by sculptors and carvers. Mr Vallejo also has a licence to buy “white” ivory from the island Eskimos and sell it only to other Eskimos in Anchorage for carving.

He does some carving himself, and in response to the big tourism push in Alaska, he has opened a craft shop which he calls The Ivory Broker. Enticing advertising drew the Alaskan pair to New Zealand for their holiday during the northern winter. They have been visiting as many bone carvers and museums as they could find, and have noticed many parallels between Maori carving and tatooing patterns and those of the Eskimo and other north-west American Indians. “Even the Maori ball on a string (the poi) is used by the Eskimo in the same way,” says Jean Britt. “They call it the Eskimo’s yo-yo.”