Uksuum Cauyai: The Drums of Winter1989

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Dance was at the heart of Yup'ik Eskimo spiritual and social life. It was the bridge between a person's own power and the greater powers of the unseen world. At the heart of dance was the drum in which could be heard the cadence of the universe.

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Emmonak, Alaska is a Yup'ik Eskimo community of 500 on the Bering Sea coast at the mouth of the Yukon River. Despite decades of Western pressure, dance in Emmonak has survived. In many Alaska villages it has been lost.

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Here in the village dance house people are gathering as they have on winter nights for centuries to practice dances for the coming potlatch ceremonies.