Dance Fish Staff

Item number E221185-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

Public

Item Records

This page shows all the information we have about this item. Both the institution that physically holds this item, and RRN members have contributed the knowledge on this page. You’re looking at the item record provided by the holding institution. If you scroll further down the page, you’ll see the information from RRN members, and can share your own knowledge too.

The RRN processes the information it receives from each institution to make it more readable and easier to search. If you’re doing in-depth research on this item, be sure to take a look at the Data Source tab to see the information exactly as it was provided by the institution.

These records are easy to share because each has a unique web address. You can copy and paste the location from your browser’s address bar into an email, word document, or chat message to share this item with others.

Data
Data Source

This information was automatically generated from data provided by National Museum of Natural History. It has been standardized to aid in finding and grouping information within the RRN. Accuracy and meaning should be verified from the Data Source tab.

Notes

From card: "A staff of wood with brass cap, carved to represent [starting at brass cap] bear, raven, frog, scaled serpent."Emmons in the accession file identifies this as a fish dance staff. Though this was catalogued as from Killisnoo, Alaska, in a letter dated August 20, 1903 in the accession file Emmons notes among objects shipped from Juneau this object and identifies it further as "Dance wand or chiefs beating stick used to keep time to the dance song[;] is from the Stickheen [Stikine] qwan[;] on it is represented the bear, the raven, the frog and an eel like salt water fish."