Notes

From card: "Blue blanket trimmed along edges with red flannel? and decorated with red, green, gold, and blue beads in motifs resembling raven and sea mammals. Jane Walsh thinks this might be Cat. 23342?" E23342 is catalogued as Haida, Alaska.This blanket is seen 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 blanket is on the mannequin third from the left. 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".Aaron Glass (during visit in March, 2017) agrees that this MIGHT be E23342: "Given that we know Boas dressed his Hamat'sa life group in some earlier collections, including at least one other Swan item, it is possible that this is the same piece. Perhaps its use on the mannequin resulted in its being separated from its [catalog] number (see ET668, as well)."