ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how heritage festivals encapsulate cultural politics affecting contemporary St. Lawrence Island Yupik and Iñupiat. Most Alaska Native heritage festivals were re-established in the 1980s, during the period of cultural revitalisation and ethnic nationalism in Alaska. Alaska Native leaders found the value of heritage festivals, which centre around indigenous dance performance, to be an effective means of such presentation and interpretation of indigenous heritage from a Native perspective. I aim to show how the discussion of contemporary heritage festivals, exemplified by Kivgiq or Messenger Feast in Utqiaġvik, sum up the discussions of the previous chapters, including cultural politics, religious beliefs, social relations and reciprocities among humans, between humans and animals and among humans, animals and God and well-being in indigenous dance.
