Chukchi Walrus-Ivory Carving
Carved objects of the Chukchi and Siberian Yupik of the Chukotka coast, worked from walrus tusks into harpoon heads, amulets, figurines and engraved scenes of sea-hunting and animal life. Walrus ivory carving is a hallmark of Chukchi art, celebrated by the Uelen bone-carving workshop and collected by the Russian Museum of Ethnography. The tusk is cut and sawn, then shaped with knives and polished with the hide of the walrus itself, and engravers trace outlines of hunters, walruses, whales and spirits in fine, firm lines. In the past ivory was also the material of daily life: harpoon points, to