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Description

Soul catcher made of a hollow tubular piece of bone with inlaid abalone. Each end of the tube flares slightly and is carved out in silhouette to represent the open mouth of a creature resembling a bear, wolf, or whale. Abalone shell is inlaid on one side of the faces at teeth, eyes, cheeks, ears and nostrils.

History Of Use

Halaayt-dim-swannasxw were men and women with powerful relationships with the spirit world. The term describes the healing practice of the halaayt, who drew the illness or injury out of their patients and blew it from the house [Muldon, Shirley]. As material expressions of this power, soul catchers carved of bone were historically worn on a hide thong around the halaayt’s neck. Cedar bark plugs would have been placed in the opening at either end of this specialized tool in order, it is said, to capture and return souls that had left the body, or to contain a malevolent spirit. Oral traditions among the Tsimshian and Gitxsan indicate that soul catchers of the kind shown here were conventionally made from the femur, or shin bone, of a grizzly bear. Each end of the hollow tube flares slightly and is carved out in silhouette to represent the open mouth of a creature resembling a bear, wolf, or whale. The Gitxsan soul catcher is engraved this way on both sides and is further embellished with abalone inlay on the front. The Tsimshian soul catcher features more complex imagery, including the face and torso of a small human figure, with hands raised, engraved at the centre; the beings depicted on either end appear to have fin-like extensions above their snouts, and two clawed feet are represented on the back.