Carved Food-Dish Or Bowl, Beaver

Item number E88834-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

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Notes

This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.From card: "Wood. Carved in relief. From: page 44, Boxes and Bowls catalog; Renwick Gallery; Smithsonian Press; 1974. Object illus. same page. Animal-form bowl; Wood; carved in relief; Length: 7 [in.]. [Haida], Massett, British Columbia ... Collected by James G. Swan, July 1883."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=620 , retrieved 6-24-2012: Bowl Beaver is an important Haida crest, claimed by almost all clans of the Eagle moiety (or clan group). The animal is often shown with a stick in its mouth, as on this feast bowl. In an incident from oral tradition, Raven steals the salmon-rich lake owned by a Beaver chief, rolls it up, puts it in his beak, and flies up into a tree. Beavers, bears, and wolves come to the Beaver chief's aid, toppling the trees where Raven is perched in an effort to catch him. Raven flies away, spitting out water that becomes the Skeena, Stikine, and other rivers.