Dzunuk'wa Mask

Item number A4034 from the MOA: University of British Columbia.

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Description

Chief's mask. Black Dzunuk’wa mask with recessed eye sockets, small eyes, a hooked nose and protruding lips. Deeply carved. Long tufts of human hair around the crown. Eye sockets are painted green; facial features are painted red. Reverse is painted red. Cording and leather straps attached to the back.

History Of Use

Used when giving gifts or cutting a copper (J. Dick, 1966). The most important right of the Dzunuk'wa, is when Kwakwaka’wakw Chiefs wear a special form of the creature - the Gi’kamł or Chief’s Mask. At the end of required potlatch obligations, to complete a hereditary Chief’s role, the Chief will put on the family’s crest representing a male Dzunuk'wa mask called Gi’kamł. It is with this mask that hereditary Chiefs don the Gi’kamł and carry out the intense ceremony of “Copper-Breaking”.

Narrative

Part of ceremonial regalia of Chief Harry Mountain.

Iconographic Meaning

The Chief's Mask is characterized not by the female Dzunuk'wa figure's foolish face with half closed eyes, but a strong and noble face with eyes partially opened. A Chief's mask usually includes a mustache, eyebrows and locks of human hair, and it is very carefully carved, representing family title and hereditary nobility.