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Naam/Gen Eehu

Naam/Gen Eehu was an interesting costume challenge since unlike previous Tuma productions it was not based on Eskimo legends, but on the real memories of two Athabaskan Indian Elders from Minto, Evelyn Alexander and Ruth Grant. In the two weeks between the finalization of the script and first dress, we had to make realistic Athabaskan clothes from the period 1900-1940, including the ubiquitous Athabaskan trimming: beadwork. What you see here is our artificial beadwork, done with dimensional fabric paints, using thousands of tiny dots laid out in traditional patterns from the first half of this century.

Angela Brownfield shows the baby strap she painted.

Detail of the Above Strap.

Jeannine Patane as little Evelyn, playing with a doll and her mother's babystrap, the one shown above.

Research Photo from the 1920's showing an Athabaskan mother and baby using this kind of strap.

Milla Kalen shows a baby strap she painted.

Detail of the above strap.

Stephanie Stowman wearing the strap with her costume for the first sighting of an airplane scene.

Angela Brownfield with the "beaded" epaulettes that went on an old chief's jacket for the Airplane scene.

Milla Kalen with the c.1900 man's cap worn by Evelyn's Father. These funky little beaded caps with tassels were worn for a short time by Athabaskan men from about 1890-1910.

Design for one of the Elder's costumes (based on a dress in the UAF Museum).

Detail of the completed dress.

Design for one of the Elder/Storytellers costumes, based on the dress of the wife of Chief Thomas, c.1910, in the UAF Museum.

Detail of the "beaded" belt on the above costume.

Ruth Grant And Evelyn Alexander as the Storytellers in the costumes rendered above.

Evelyn Alexander

Design for a white tourist c.1920. This costume is pure fantasy, much more like what one might have worn to a garden party in Vermont at the time than real tourist clothing. However, here we were trying to show how the first tourists in Minto must have seemed like creatures from another planet to the Alaskans, so our tourists came rushing in with cameras, and candy for the tots, and jazz music blaring, like a kind of human whirlwind of alien behavior.

-----Text and photos by Tara Maginnis

• MORE PHOTOS OF NAAM!!! Click here for production stills by Kade Mendelowitz

• Kade Mendelowitz Design Portfolio: Naam

• See Reinventing Traditional Alaska Native Performance by the former stage Director of Tuma

• Tuma: "Naam / Gen eehu" Theatre UAF Page