REINDEER ROUNDUP SILK SCREEN

Limited edition silkscreen print by Rie Munoz Edition size: 450 Image size: 30 1/4 x 22 142"  Artist's description: This piece was inspired by my stay on Nunivak Island back in 1962. I was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to sketch the reindeer roundup. My son Juan, age 7, and I eagerly went up and stayed a month on this remote island. While I sketched the various harvesting scenes, Juan helped the men by wrestling reindeer to the ground so they could cut off the antlers. What’s the difference between a reindeer and a caribou? They are the same beast but a reindeer is a caribou that has been domesticated. Sixteen reindeer were first brought to Alaska from Siberia in 1891 to provide meat for Native villages. The herd now is about 24,000 with another 950,000 caribou roaming free in Alaska. In 1962 the Koreans started showing up during the roundup to harvest the antlers. The antlers of the caribou, in velvet during late summer, are used as aphrodisiacs. Nunivak had around 10,000 rei