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This information was automatically generated from data provided by MOA: University of British Columbia. It has been standardized to aid in finding and grouping information within the RRN. Accuracy and meaning should be verified from the Data Source tab.

Description

Tightly woven button with a grey circle at the centre with a brown border (one row). This is contained within a red circle. Eagles perched on a bent harpoon. Four alternating yellow and orange triangles are across the wingspan. Alternating yellow and purple triangles are on the outer border with a brown circle before two green rows at the edge. On the reverse, there is one row of brown.

Specific Techniques

Originally grass for basketry was collected in the summer, gathered, prepared, split, dyed, dried and stored for winter use.

Iconographic Meaning

Thunderbird is an important mythical being associated with whaling.

Narrative

Part of a set of eight woven buttons, made of wrapped-twine basketry over cardboard discs; created by Ahousaht weaver Nellie Jacobson. Eagerly sought by collectors, such pieces were nevertheless considered (and priced) as trinkets and souvenirs. In a letter to the collector in the 1940s, Jacobson writes, “If anybody admires the buttons, tell them they are worth $1.00, the kind I am sending you. Others 75¢, little coarser.” She also made an array of baskets for sale, from lidded pika-uu (trinket baskets) to larger containers and zippered purses, each decorated with her characteristic interpretations of thunderbirds as well as canoes, whales, and geometric patterns. As a young girl, she began learning from her grandmother how to make floor mats, ropes, hats, and shawls of cedar bark, all used by her family. In collections of Nuu-chah-nulth basketry, often the name of the weaver was not recorded; this set of documented buttons can help to attach a name, and a history, to the work.

Item History

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