Sxwayxwey Mask

Item number 1768/80 from the MOA: University of British Columbia.

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Description

Sawbill-face mask painted dark red, black and white. Two bird heads protrude at top facing forward and another bird head forms the nose. The eyes are round and protrude outward and there are three holes around the top edge. The mouth area has two rectangular openings through it. (There are plastic and copper wires on the back, as well as green cord.)

History Of Use

Used in cleansing ceremonies, weddings, bestowing of names and ceremonies for the dead.

Iconographic Meaning

This mask has a sawbill face with bird horns. Suttles notes that: "the sawbill face seems best represented in museum collections. In most examples the eyes project out of two round eye sockets that are connected by a kind of nose socket so that three arches appear above the eyes and nose. The nose is the head of a merganser (also called "sawbill" or "fish-duck") facing downward. The shoulders of the bird appear beside the nose, below the eye sockets as black or blue surface forms defined by white incised wedges curving upward around the cheeks. The feet of the bird appear above the eye sockets and the tail in the centre of the brow. The horns of most of these masks are bird heads, possibly also mergansers, varying somewhat in the forms of their eyes and the tops of their heads (Suttles 1982:60)."

Narrative

Richardson acquired this mask from a friend named Bill who was living in Parksville, but had once lived near the Nanaimo reserve and made friends with some community members. The man who originally owned this mask often stopped by Bill’s house for a cup of tea. One day his granddaughter arrived “with the mask wrapped in an old Indian sweater and [said that] her grandfather wanted him to have it. He was dying at the time, and died very shortly after.” Bill later moved to Parksville, where the mask was stored in a basement for 40 years. One of the beaks on this mask was broken and Bill had a member of the Nanaimo community come to repair it. The man who repaired it wanted to take it back to Nanaimo. It was eventually loaned to a private museum in Parksville, but Bill was concerned that it might end up in the USA, so he gave it to the donor (Tom Richardson) who said he would prevent that from happening.