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Description

Representation of a sun mask. Painted three-dimensional carved bird/human head in white with black eyebrows, circle around eye, red nostrils and scalloped row across cheeks. Mounted on a flat round backboard, also painted white, with four painted rays in black, two with oval shapes and two with U-shape elements in green, and oval in red. Four ray-like projections at each corner, with round red ends. Metal wire and eye hooks on back.

Narrative

Borrowed back for the Bill Cranmer potlatch in Nov. 2017, in Alert Bay.

Iconographic Meaning

Si’santła’yi, the sun, descended to the earth in the shape of a bird, then changed into a man and built a house at Yikaman. In the winter dance the Si’santła’yi [sun clans] use the mask Tłisalagamł, the sun mask. (Information from “Indian Legends of the North Pacific Coast of America,” by Franz Boas.)

Item History

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