Earrings (1 Pair)

Item number E168373-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

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Notes

FROM CARD: "CARVED BONES."List in accession file (this object is # 37 on list) identifies this object as "Pair of bone earrings carved as eagles." As of 1970's inventory, only one object with this number has been located. The heading above the listing for #33 (E168369) in the accession file says: "These three pieces [which is presumed to apply to #33, 34, and 35] were brought by the Chilkaht Indian traders + packers from the Gunannao? [word hard to read] people who live about the headwaters of the Yukon River." The museum cataloguer has interpreted Gunannao to be Gonaho, i.e. Gunahoo/Gunaaxoo or the Dry Bay Tlingit, and has listed that designation for E168369 - E168373. It may be instead that this is a version of the word Gunana, i.e. Athabaskan (including Tutchone, Tagish ...), as the Chilkat traded with them. The Yukon River location seems to support this, as that would apply to the Athabaskans, not the Gunaaxoo Tlingit. (See p. 57 in Emmons, George Thornton, and Frederica De Laguna. 1991. The Tlingit Indians. Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History, v. 70. Seattle: University of Washington Press.) Though the museum cataloguer presumed that E168373 had the same provenance as E168369 - E168371, examination of the original list in the accession file calls that into question.Listed on page 47 in "The Exhibits of the Smithsonian Institution at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, California, 1915", in section "Arts of the Northwest Coast Tribes (Tools)".