Alaskan Native dolls, "Eskimo Dolls" made by Inupiat, Yup'ik, Cup'ik, and St. Lawrence Island  Yup'ik have been collected over the years in an effort to showcase and support Native artists "who with knowledge and skill of their art and with respect for the traditions of their own ancient cultures, create Eskimo dolls".  (Suzi Jones ~ Eskimo Dolls)

Over the years there have been many types of Eskimo figurines which are referred to as dolls. Some of these were made for ceremonial, magic, or shamanistic purposes, while others were simply toys.  The great majority of contemporary Eskimo dolls are made for sale to the collector or for the tourist trade.  Dolls made for sale are essentially craft or fine art objects, and they fall into several distinctive regional types, as do the toy dolls.  Some of  the basic regional doll types include the following:  Reindeer horn dolls with removable parkas from the Shishmaref area; ivory faced dolls; ivory -headed dolls with heads carved in full round, often with detailed features and with carved ivory hands from Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island; leather or skin faced dolls are found everywhere.  Within this category of leather-faced dolls fall the idiosyncratic dolls with expressive, often funny, and even ugly, features, which seem to comprise a tradition local to Chevak.  Rosalie Paniyak was one of the most well know doll makers of this type and area.  Her dolls were often depicted performing traditional everyday activities such as trapping, gathering eggs or berries, or fishing.

for Alaskan and Canadian Native Dolls

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