Art at Gala-Rie
Title: "Reindeer
Roundup"
Product Number:
0709
Image Size: 30-1/4" X
21-1/2"
Edition Size: 450
Issue Price: $425.00 shpkgd
Plate No: N/A
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"Reindeer
Roundup"
This piece was inspired by my stay on Nunivak Island back in
1962. I was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to sketch the
reindeer Roundup. My son Juan, age 7, and I eagerly went up and
stayed a month on this remote island . While I sketched the
various harvesting scenes, Juan helped the men by wrestling
reindeer to the ground so they could cut off the antlers.
What's the difference between a reindeer and a caribou?
they are the same beast but a reindeer is a caribou that has
been domesticated. Sixteen reindeer were first brought to
Alaska from Siberia in 1891 to provide meat for Native villages.
The herd now is about 24,000 with another 950,000 caribou
roaming free in Alaska. In 1962 the Koreans started
showing up during the roundup to harvest the antlers. The
antlers of the caribou are in velvet during late summer and are
used as aphrodisiacs.
Nunivak had around 10,000 reindeer on the 40 square
mile island. When it was time to roundup, 6 runners and a
dog would go by foot to beak off 1000-2000 reindeer and herd
them back to the village. the villagers would meet the
herders and reindeer at the opening of a large coral, making a
human extension of the entrance which Fanned out quite a
distance. The thousands of reindeer would stampede in to
the coral. This scene picture here. Rie Munoz