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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Beading Project

In honor of reading Julie of the Wolves, I brought in some traditional Siberian Yup'ik beading that I was given when I lived in Alaska. Miyax from the story, is Yup'ik, not Siberian Yup'ik, but the cultures are very similar, along with the language. In Alaska, they have Eskimo dancing, where the men drum and sing and everyone else dances traditional dances. Well, the girls put these beads in their hair.
And the Eskimo people who live in Russia who are of the same ancestry as the Siberian Yup'iks of St. Lawrence Island, wear these in their hair when they dance. One of my friends gave me this, which had been given to her by a Russian dancer during a cultural visit.
So, we tried our hand at beading. I have a ridiculous amount of beads, needles, threads, clasps...I'm a regular beading supply store, so there was plenty to go around.
They all chose three colors that they liked...yellow, metallic grey, blue and red were pretty big hits.
Well, the older kids felt very left out and they guilted me into letting them bead for reading class, too, even though they weren't reading the book. Guilt trips rarely work with me, but ask me for something when there are only three days left of school and let's just say I'm a little more...malleable.

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