Authors

Discussion

The presentation is devoted to various practices of interaction and forms of relations of Asiatic Yupik with pagitak' (Yupik) - objects inherited by families from their ancestors and used in various rituals. There is a great variety of these objects - they can be man-made amulets, randomly found objects of natural origin (stones, sticks, animal bones), old documents, photographs, and clothes of deceased ancestors. Pagitak' belonged to different worlds and had all sorts of functions, but their old age, ancestral belonging and sometimes their specific features became the criteria for ritualizing the objects. I am interested in how these objects are preserved and destroyed, attributed, passed on or on the contrary disappeared from family life, hidden and displayed. I would like to look at pagitak' through a heritage lens - what significance the practices of interacting with these objects play in preserving and transmitting family history, constructing local, familial and ritual identities, and how they shape personal and familial cultural baggage. These objects are not simply tools of ritual, they have an agency, a biography, self-sufficient in their own right. It seems important to me to trace the paths of individual objects from their use in everyday life to their subsequent memorialization and either conservation or ritual destruction. The focus of the presentation is the material fluidity of objects, their ambivalence and multilayered biographies.