Wooden Soapberry Spoon, Flat Carved

Item number E60147-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

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Notes

FROM CARD: "60145-48. 60147: LOAN: CROSSROADS SEP 22 1988. 60147 ILLUS.: CROSSROADS OF CONTINENTS CATALOGUE; FIG. 267, P. 206. LOAN RETURNED: JAN 21 1993." Identified in Crossroads as a soapberry spoon. "The soapberry, native to the dryer parts of the coast and interior plateau, can be whipped in water to a stiff pink froth, considered a delicacy and prized for feasts. The carved design on this paddle like spoon for eating the froth represents a fish, probably a salmon. A tiny human face on the back of the head may be Salmon Boy, who was taken away by the salmon and who returned to teach humans how to properly treat the fish so that they would return each year to benefit mankind."This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=590 , retrieved 1-5-2012: Soapberry spoon Soapberries are a prized feast food, traditionally acquired from Athabascan trading partners. Dried berries are whipped with water to make red foam and eaten with carved hardwood spoons. This spoon has a spine-like design along the handle, along with a bird's head pointing toward the end, and a spirit face on the back of the bowl.