Packing Box Item Number: E7833-0 from the National Museum of Natural History

Notes

Rectangular box; no top/lid present. Card indicates this is Inuit made.Source of the information below: Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History, The MacFarlane Collection website, by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC), Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (website credits here http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/posts/12 ), entry on this artifact http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/items/222 , retrieved 2-11-2020: Box made from wood. The sides and bottom are joined to the end pieces by small wooden pegs inserted through drilled holes. The two longer sides have been decorated in an identical manner with incised lines highlighted with red ochre. A vertical line at the mid-point is intersected by five inverted 'V's, and on either side of that line are X-shaped incisions. There is no top with this box.This item is identified in the Smithsonian Institution's catalogue as a packing box. More information available here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/12: The MacFarlane collection contains a variety of wooden boxes. Boxes carved from single pieces of wood, and boxes with sides made from bent pieces of wood with bottoms pegged to them, are traditional Inuvialuit forms that were used for storing tools and other objects. Boxes with separate pieces for each side, bottom and top identified in the Smithsonian Institution's artifact catalogue as 'Packing Box Made by Esquimaux' may have been commissioned by MacFarlane for packing artifacts that were sent to the Smithsonian.