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These changes were gradual and occurred at different dates throughout Alaska, depending upon the isolation of the group. However, it is probably safe to say that most or all Alaska Native cultures, including the types of dolls they make, were affected by the end of World War II. We will use 1950 as a reliable starting date of the modern period of Native Alaska doll making. During the modern period the main producers of souvenir dolls were the Inupiaq, Central Yup’ik, and St. Lawrence Island Yupik Eskimos.

The British Navy captain Rochfort Maguire, who spent two years at Barrow from 1852–54, also observed that the local Eskimos wore “large pieces of crystal on their breast” as amulets (Bockstoce 1988:210). Puppets are also reported for the Yup’ik region, although less is known about them (Fienup-Riordan 1996:130). One example, deposited at the Alaska State Museum (catalog number II-A-3070), is illustrated in Ray 1981:188. According to Lowenstein, puguqs depicted stories told in more recent generations whereas quluguluguqs illustrated stories taking place in long-ago mythological times (Lowenstein 1993:117).

According to Plato: What, then, is the right way of living? Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his enemies, and win in the contest (quoted in Huizinga 1950:17–19). Playing for Real Structurally, play and ritual share many features. Both create a reality outside of the ordinary time and space. They are parallel states of existence, different only by the age of the participants.