You have some lovely stuff on offer! How did you come into contact with the artists? Are you from Greenland yourself?
I know some of the artists personally, which is a given considering there are only 57 000 people on the entire island though it's 3x bigger than Texas or France.
I'm in the United States, and collect art. I might be interested in both small/inexpensive pieces of work that I can give as gifts for birthdays and Christmas
That would be a good idea. You'll get nailed on the shipping, but I can bundle a bunch in the same package for about the same shipping price. I'll take a photograph of some samples in the small/inexpensive range.
I'd prefer to avoid items made from material from polar bears or other endangered species; it's one thing for the Inuit to hunt them or defend themselves from attack, and a completely different matter for somebody to buy items made of that stuff and thereby bump up collector demand for it.
Mentioning polar bear was a marketing stunt. It's available but few can afford it. We try to scare the bears away from town, not kill them. I prefer to think the Greenlanders would not be tempted to poach bears for any price.
Note that seal are not endangered, but I believe the US has an import ban on all sea mammalian products. I'll double check.
I'd also prefer to avoid items intended to curse enemies, just so that I can honestly tell recipients what their gift is for and not freak them out. (Some relatives are prone to be superstitious or might have religious objections.) But charms and other items whose original intent was not to hurt people would be fine.
The tradition is to curse. In fact... this gets complicated... people only die because they've disrespected life, whether animals or fellow man. If someone dies, it's assumed he was cursed. Maybe he deserved it. For example, when a seal is hunted it is thanked, the seal is respected, the spirit is fed water and offered gifts. If the seal is honored he may help the hunter in the future otherwise he may harm the hunter. A great hunter respects his prey. If he dies, it was probably because someone was jealous.
Anyway, in the past tupilak were pretty rare. Today with some tourist opportunity tupilak are more common and no curse is attached to them. To activate them you'd take some hair from the victim, perhaps some blood, and drown it with the tupilak. Or something like that. I'll go search for a more authoritative
exploitation explanation.
Its all intent, but the tradition is for magic not beauty. Other fine bone sculptures and figures are also common today such as polar bears and whale (made from reindeer bone/antler). These can be necklaces too. In fact, seal claws are pretty wild looking, though I don't think I can export them to the States.
I'll take a 3 BTC one, made out of the most endangered animal you're allowed to ship to the US
What are endangered and what are illegal to import have little to do with each other. Some seal and whale which are not endangered are still illegal to be imported into the United States. I won't trade in endangered species anyway. How about the most 'exotic' from an American perspective, like muskox, sledge dog, arctic hare?
malevolent purpose within that price range. That is, I'd prefer one that's supposed to kill over one to curse, and one that's designed to kill your enemy, his children, and his children's children over one that's just supposed to kill your enemy.
Interesting. Well part of that is upon you, like digging up their ancestors or extracting their blood, semen, spit, etc. I'll see what I can dig up.
Shoot me a pm with the shipping costs before you buy anything though.
If you get some friends together, I can send a combined package. Otherwise I think the shipping cost might be on par with the piece. Though, Kgo, as we've done business together in the past, I might use you as the guinea pig sale. I'll accept the risks.
