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Description

Carved cedar rattle in the shape of a raven. The body is painted black with incised ovoid designs highlighed by the natural colour of the wood. Long horse(?) hair tail attached to a cylindrical piece of wood. The tail is decorated with 4 wooden paddle-shaped attachments (plain, white, red, black) representing the 4 directions and a piece of abalone shell representing the ocean. The artist's mark is incised underneath the chin. Condition: excellent.

Context

This rattle was purchased directly from the artist William (Bill) Billis during a short fieldtrip to Haida Gwaii by the collector (Anita Herle) in June 2001. Bill was one of the carvers working on a large totem pole project in conjunction with the proposed expansion and redevelopment of the Haida Gwaii Museum near Skidegate. Several totem poles were being carved, each representing one of the historic Haida villiages. Bill had carved the raven rattle as a unique example for sale - either within the community or to outsiders.
Bill's family originates from Tanu, the same village as the nineteenth century totem pole in the main anthropology gallery at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. According to his artists biography, William F. Bellis was born into the Raven, Wolf, Killer Whale, Clan of the Haida Village of Tanu on April 3, 1963. Mr Bellis has been a full time self employed haida carver, sculptor, artists and jeweller for the last 23 years and is equally at ease working on wood totem ppoles, masks, rattles, ect. (sic) as well as gold silever inlaid jewellery, argillite carvings limited edition silf screen printmaking. Although he prefers to work on wood sculpture gold jewellery mainly. He has apprenticed under the last Haida artist Bill Reid on the 50 foot Haida var canoe Loo Taas as well as at his Granville island art sutdio in Vancouver in 1987-88. mr. Bellis works are in many collections around the world and he is presently working mainly in large wooden carved painted haida totem poles and other large wood projects as well as gold jewelery.