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This is a duck mask. The lower half of the body is painted white and the upper half black with white spots. This may reflect the markings of a particular bird or, like the masks representing the "spirit of the driftwood," an upper skyworld and lower human world between which the bird moved. The bird's mouth, eyes, and backside of the eyeholes are red.
The Yup'ik term for April is tengmiirvik, which literally means "bird place." Millions of birds annually make the long journey north to nest and breed in the wetlands of western Alaska.
The Yup'iks created duck masks to bring the ducks and other birds back to the coast in the spring to give nourishment to the people. They used the eggs and young birds as food.
Mallard ducks live primarily on fresh water, where they eat plants and small aquatic animals from the surface or from the shallow bottoms that they can reach without diving.
Ducks keep their feathers water-resistant by frequent preening with oil from a gland at the base of the tail feathers. This means the ducks stroke their feathers with their bills after they have rubbed their bill on the oil gland. Duck legs are placed far apart and toward the rear, making them awkward walkers but efficient swimmers.
Ducks pair off in the winter. Male ducks have their brightest colors in the winter. In the spring ducks build their nests on the ground. They lay between 4 to 12 eggs, surrounded by down feathers plucked from the female's breast and belly. Ducklings are able to swim and feed themselves soon after they hatch.
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