Mask

Item number 1924.758 from the MAA: University of Cambridge.

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Description

The catalogue card contains information presumably acquired by McIlwraith at the time of collection in Bella Coola. Painted wooden mask with dyed bark hair (red) representing a combination of eagle, the hooked beak and ravens. The mask has two raven heads on the temples and their beaks stretch across the forehead to a bundle of cedar bark. The eyebrows are thin and taper almost to the jawline. The eyes are pierced and the nose very prominently hooked, painted blue and has flared red nostrils. The mouth is closed and painted red, but is accentuated by a white border. The chin is large and painted, together with the cheeks, with green, red and white U-forms.; Good

Context

The similarity of this mask to one illustrated in The Box of Daylight (Bill Holm, University of Washington Press: Seattle, 1983) page 40, further reinforces a Bella Coola or Nuxalk provenance (G.Crowther). The original European tribal names and,where possible, current tribal names have both been given in separate GLT fields.; The catalogue card notes the sisaok is one of the divisions of the winter ceremonials, c.f. Boas. I have not been able to identify this in Boas' s The Social Organisation and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians ( Smithsonian Institution: Washington, D.C. 1897) (G.Crowther).; Exhibited: Old anthropological displays at CUMAA, cabinet 21-22, object no.18, dismantled 081986. New anthropological displays at CUMAA, wall case, 1990-.; Collected by: McIlwraith.T.F in ?1923