Eskimo ball

The ball carrying and keeping an image of the Sun, is one of main and its most ancient symbols.

The ball was sewed from the seal leather painted in different colors. Its contrast of a dark background and a white ornament was connected with a picture of the black polar sky, the sprinkled loose of the bright stars. The circle was an obligatory element of an ornament because it symbolized the sun. The more skillfully the master was, the pattern, especially it is verified and harmonious.

The primary role of a ball is to be the main attribute on the holidays connected to annual updating of a nature. When after long polar night there is a sun, and every day it rises all above horizon to welcome it all inhabitants of a settlement leave. Much later the ball became simply entertaining attribute and a children's toy. But even in this quality it has not lost the symbolical value.

And today women sew balls for children, for friends. They decorate them with their marks of the sun, the moon, stars - eternal symbols of life. To receive such ball as a gift is big pleasure: you see to you give the Sun!