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Description

Model wooden stick, used for beating time, carved and painted with a face and headdress on one end. [CAK 06/05/2009]

Longer Description

Model wooden stick, used for beating time, carved and painted with a face and headdress on one end. The drum stick is carved from a single piece of wood. It is rounded and has a curvature to it that may reflect a natural curvature in the wood. It tapers toward the handle end and is mostly unpainted. One end is carved with a face and the terminus is carved as a headpiece. The facial features are shallowly carved and include an open mouth, a faint bridge of a nose, two eyes and cheeks. The mouth and one cheek are painted black. The other cheek is painted brick bed. There is a line incised around the forehead also painted black. There is an unpainted area and then what appears to be a headdress: a line is incised around the stick from which perpendicular lines have been incised to the end of the stick. The terminus is slightly rounded. The headdress is painted black, except for the 'top' of the headdress. The other end is round and unpainted and would have been used as the striking end. The drum stick has been bundled with five other similarly carved sticks. [CAK 06/05/2009]

Primary Documentation

Accession book entry: 'From Rev. Ch. Harrison, 80 Halton Rd, Canonbury Sq. N. Collection of Haida objects collected by him.... - [1 of] 11 [model] Drum sticks. £45. [Purchase price includes 1891.49.1-110]

Card Catalogue Entry - CANADA, QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS, HAIDA INDIANS Model drum stick. Coll. by Rev. Ch. Harrison: purch. from him March 1891.

Old Pitt Rivers Museum label - Haida. B. I. 14 6 of 11 drum-sticks? Bought from C. Harrison, 1891. [NM 15 1 1997]

Written on object in pencil - C.Harrison Coll [KJ 01/04/2009]

Related Documents File - Email correspondence from Kwiaahwah Jones describing the sticks in relation to supernatural beings and shamanic practices in the Haida Project Related Documents File. The Haida Project Related Documents File contains video of research sessions and interviews with Haida delegates from September 2009 as part of the project ‘Haida Material Culture in British Museums: Generating New Forms of Knowledge'. It also includes post-visit communications that discuss object provenance. For extensive photographic, video, and textual records documenting the Haida research visit as a whole, including but not limited to preparations of objects for handling, travel logistics, British Museum participation, transcribed notes from research sessions and associated public events held at PRM, see the Haida Project Digital Archive, stored with the Accessions Registers. Original hand-written notes taken during research sessions have been accessioned into the Manuscripts collection, in addition to select other materials. [CAK 02/06/2010]

Research Notes

The following information comes from Haida delegates who worked with the museum's collection in September 2009 as part of the project “Haida Material Culture in British Museums: Generating New Forms of Knowledge”:
This striker was viewed alongside other musical instruments on Thursday, Sept 10, 2009. Delegates were very interested in this set of sticks [1891.49.21 - .26] as they had not seen anything like them before. They had various ideas about their use and design. People were uncertain if these were drum sticks, per se. A number of delegates suspected they were used to beat time, though as Christian White pointed out, on a board rather than a drum. It was thought that these could have been used by shamans (or sgaaga) who would beat time on a board when going into a trance. Many delegates thought it would be the plain end of the stick that would make contact with the board or some other kind of drum, possibly a log drum or large skin drum. One delegate did consider whether the point at the top of the striker would produce a certain shamanic beat, however. It was noted that today, box drums are used, as are skin drums and half-log drums. In the past, shamans were said to use boards and skin drums.
Darlene Squires drew comparisons between the markings on the face and clan markings. It was also noted that argillite carvings depict shaman wearing caps over their hair that resemble the designs on the sticks. Natalie Fournier observed that when selecting for wood drum sticks, people would often look for a natural curve in the wood so that they would not have to move their hand as much. She noted that these sticks are lighter wood than the wooden dowels used for drumsticks today. Some delegates thought the wood used to make these strikers was crab apple. Jaalen Edenshaw and Kwiaahwah Jones thought the wood was alder.
Darlene Squires wondered if these strikers could also have functioned as gambling sticks. Vince Collison added that gambling sticks are thrown on the ground during play. One delegate wondered if they would have been used in battle. [CAK 07/04/2010]
The object is one of eleven model sticks collected by Harrison. It bears a resemblance in carving, though not in painting, to 1891.49.27. [CAK 19/05/2009]

Item History

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