Raven Rattle

Item number 951 from the The Burke: University of Washington.

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Exhibit Label

The raven rattle is a traditional part of the paraphernalia of a dancing chief, which also includes an elaborate headdress, a robe, an apron fringed with rattling pendants, and leggings. In use, the rattle was often held belly up in the dancer's extended hand and shaken rapidly and continuously throughout the dance. Occasionally rattles were used in pairs. Many of them were made, and there are a great number in museum and private collections. Most of these rattles depict ravens, but there are a few that represent other birds--hawks or thunderbirds, puffins or petrels among them. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)