Headdress Item Number: A3685 from the MOA: University of British Columbia
Description
Headdress representing a wolf's head with a long snout, pronounced nostrils, a movable lower jaw, protruding rounded ears, and a bent branch frame at the back. Painted black with red nostrils and lips, black rectangles on the top lip, green around the eyes, white lines delineating the eyebrows and edges of the eye sockets, white designs on the ears, and a white strip down the top of the snout to the back of the head. The underside of the lower jaw is painted with a design in black. There are rectangular recesses in the eyebrows, presumably for shell inserts. Small holes in the sides of the snout.
History Of Use
Used in Walasaxa, also called "receiving a treasure", dLugwala. Harness is unusual in that it extends so far back; may have been used in a crouching/crawling wolf dance.
Iconographic Meaning
Represents wolf: atlha'nam.
Item History
- Made in British Columbia, Canada
- Collected in Kingcome Inlet, British Columbia, Canada and Ukwanalis, British Columbia, Canada
- Owned by Tom Patch Wamiss before January 1951
- Received from H. R. MacMillan (Funding source) and Tom Patch Wamiss (Seller) during January 1951
What
Who
- Culture
- Kwakwaka'wakw
- Previous Owner
- Tom Patch Wamiss
- Received from
- H. R. MacMillan (Funding source) and Tom Patch Wamiss (Seller)
Where
- Holding Institution
- MOA: University of British Columbia
- Made in
- British Columbia, Canada
- Collected in
- Kingcome Inlet, British Columbia, Canada and Ukwanalis, British Columbia, Canada
When
- Ownership Date
- before January 1951
- Acquisition Date
- during January 1951
Other
- Condition
- fair
- Current Location
- Case 27
- Accession Number
- 1902/0005