The Drums of Winter (Uksuum Cauyai) - PREVIEW

Purchase: http://www.der.org/films/drums-of-winter.html This feature-length documentary explores the traditional dance, music and spiritual world of the Yupik Eskimo people of Emmonak, a remote village at the mouth of the Yukon River on the Bering Sea coast.

The Drums of Winter gives an intimate look at a way of life of which most of us have seen only glimpses. Dance was once at the heart of Yupik Eskimo spiritual and social life. It was the bridge between the ancient and the new, the living and the dead and a person's own power and the greater powers of the unseen world.

Throughout the film, archival photographs and film footage accompany the words of early missionaries who brought Christianity to the area. These sequences provide a historical context for the film and give us a strong sense of the resilience of Yup'ik culture, having survived despite a century of missionary suppression.

a film by Sarah Elder and Leonard Kamerling
distributed by Documentary Educational Resources

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Eskimo
• yupik
• Yukon
• oral
• history
• anthropology
• education
• documentary
• film

[wobeck]

Tegganret cauyainanratni arnat yurartut. Uksurtuq.

[vespertinne]

Wow. Great vid. Thanks for posting. I like the pictures they've painted on the drums.