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This information was automatically generated from data provided by MOA: University of British Columbia. It has been standardized to aid in finding and grouping information within the RRN. Accuracy and meaning should be verified from the Data Source tab.

Description

Raven rattle with red and black painted designs and cord lashings around handle. Raven has wings in a gliding position. On its back is a frog is connected by a tongue to a reclining human (shaman or healer?). The frog is held in the long beak of a bird (kingfisher?) that forms the raven’s tail. The stylized face carved in shallow relief on the belly of the raven. (Interior thought to hold beads?)

History Of Use

Oral histories place the origin of raven rattles among the Nisga’a on the Nass River, from whom their use and manufacture expanded south as far as the Kwakwaka’wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth, and north to the Tlingit. Today such rattles remain widely used in ceremony as well as being made as art objects, and are considered by artists to be a kind of “ultimate test” of the carver’s knowledge of hardwood and skill with a knife. Details like the fine, hollowed planes of the raven’s head, and the human figure only minimally touching the rattle at elbows and feet, show the carver’s effort to thin the wood wherever possible in order to achieve the best sound. Filled with a handful of pebbles, beads, or lead shot, the rattle’s two halves are joined under the wings and along the handle, then secured with a wrapped cord.

Cultural Context

ceremonial

Item History

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