Cedarbark Ceremonial Neck Ring

Item number ET668-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

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Notes

HAS CATALOG CARD.Per Aaron Glass, this neck ring appears to be one shown in SI photo Negative #77-10036, Photo Lot 24 SPC Nwc Kwakiutl NM No.# Boas 09070500, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, which shows a museum exhibit of a figure group (mannequin life group) of Kwakiutl Hamatsa initiates emerging from a room behind a painted scene. This neck ring seems to be the one on the kneeling figure third from right in the photo. The exhibit was created for the museum by Franz Boas in 1895, using items from the collection. This photo, and a description of how Boas researched and created the exhibit, are in Jonaitis, Aldona. 1988. "From the Land of the Totem Poles: the Northwest Coast Indian Art Collection at the American Museum of Natural History", p. 150. The photo can also be seen online by going to collections.si.edu/search and searching on "NAA INV 09070500". He suspects that the original number for this object this may be E129514, a conspicuously absent Hamat'sa neck ring from Boas's 1886 exchange with the Berlin museum (Acc 19597). "Perhaps its use on the mannequin resulted in its being separated from its [catalog] number".