Kuskokwim people enjoyed rich salmon runs and easy access to a variety of large land animals, including moose, bear, and caribou. Traders were active on the river from the early 1900s, and these men are responsible for major collections of Kuskokwim material.
Bethel trader A. H. Twitchell acquired an extraordinary group of 56 masks, many of them in pairs and threesomes, in the early 1900s. He visited villages to get the masks and their stories. The masks entered New York's Museum of the American Indian in 1919.
Besides pairing, the collection is remarkable for the Yup'ik names Twitchell recorded for each mask. Of all the thousands of masks in collections today, only a handful have names. Twitchell's years in Bethel and his Yup'ik wife likely gave him the necessary access and sensitivity to acquire this information.
The museum viewed the pairs as redundant, and in the 1940s sold many of the "extras" to collectors and expatriate artists. Now these masks, recognized as world-class art objects, are
housed in private collections and museums worldwide.
