Exhibit Label

This pipe, apparently from the 1830s, is unfinished. The six figures represented are very difficult to identify, partly because during the period when the piece was carved Haida artists frequently used creatures that combined attributes of different animls as subjects for their work. Also of interest is the fact that some details, particulalry in the whale-like figure protruding from the bowl end of the pipe, are executed in a much later style. Perhaps the very early, unfinished piece came into the hands of an artist of the 1890 period who decided to continue the carving. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)