From card: "Carved wood. Design: The raven with the prostrate figure of Ka-ka-hete, (The whistling demon) on its back and the king fisher plucking out his tongue. The upper half of the head is missing."From card: [taken from p. 192 of exhibit catalogue: Smithsonian Institution. 1982. Celebration, a world of art and ritual. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.] "Raven Rattle, ca. 1850-83; Haida Indians; Masset, Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Canada; wood, red, black, and blue paint; 6 1/4 x 13 1/3 x 4 3/8 (15.9 x 33.8 x 11.1). Chiefs and high-ranking members of the community used raven rattles like this to punctuate their speech and gestures in formal contexts. Most dancers of northern groups (Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian) held their rattles upside down, with the raven's breast up, lest they come to life and fly away, as a legendary raven rattle once did. The rattle itself is a powerful icon of spiritual transformation. Raven carries on his back a dead man toward the afterlife. The man's vital force, seen as a red bridge similar to a tongue, has been captured by Frog, a symbol of life, which is itself being captured by Kingfisher, a symbol of death. In Raven's beak is a small red object representing both the sun, which was Raven's gift to mankind, and the man's soul, which is man's reciprocal gift to the spirits. On the belly of Raven is the face of the shared soul of Raven and mankind, its beak recurved into its own mouth as symbol of the cycle of reincarnation. In its ritual use, the raven rattle reaffirmed mankind's covenant with Raven and, through its intertwined images of life, death, and rebirth, it channeled these powerful forces in a specific cycle of spiritual transformations."James G. Swan list in accession file of collections from Masset, under # 75, identifies the carving on this rattle as representing raven, kingfisher, and wood demon."Ka-ka-hete" is Olala/Oolala/Ulala per Albert P. Niblack; see p. 324 in Niblack, Albert. 1890. The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern British Columbia. Based on the Collections in the U.S. National Museum, and on the Personal Observation of the Writer in Connection with the Survey of Alaska in the Seasons of 1885, 1886 and 1887 (pp. 225-386 in U.S. National Museum Annual Report for the year 1888).

CATALOG CARD SAYS SENT TO MRS. J.C. BROWN, NEW YORK. 1902.

From card: ""specimen of fungus used for painting the face. This fungus grows on hemlock trees and in [is] prepared by roasting it in hot ashes. presented by Ellswash [Ellswarsh], a Skidegate chief." Swan"A tag in James Swan's hand is with the artifact: "Indian Red Paint. Queen Charlotte Islands BC. Sept 1883. No 156 Haida Indians Queen Charlotte Islands BC. Paint, made by roasting the fungus of the Hemlock and ground with water on a stone when used. Koona village BC Sep 1883 J.G. Swan."Per the entry on E89186 in the website http://alaska.si.edu/, Ellswash/Ellswarsh may refer to Daniel Eldjiwus [a.k.a. Daniel Elljuuwas], a chief and builder of the House of Contentment at Skidegate.There is conflicting provenance information for this artifact. The list in the accession file appears to identify it as from Skidegate, October 1883. However, the Swan original tag identifies it as from Koona (Skedans), September 1883.

Original cataloguing identifies as a killer whale form dish or bowl, but this has alternately been identified as a seal lion form dish or bowl.

FROM CARD: "TOTEMS." FROM 19TH OR EARLY 20TH CENTURY EXHIBIT LABEL WITH CARD: "MODEL OF TOTEM POST.--A SLATE COLUMN, ORNAMENTED WITH CARVED TOTEMIC DESIGNS. HEIGHT, 16 INCHES; DIAMETER, 2 3/4 INCHES. HAIDA INDIANS (SKITTAGETAN STOCK), PRINCE OF WALES ISLAND, ALASKA. 23,341. COLLECTED BY JAMES G. SWAN."

Has original Peale # label. 7-21-2005 Jay Stewart and Peter Macnair note about this panel pipe or ship pipe that "This is the most significant panel pipe of its type; there are about three dozen wooden panel pipes in public collections worldwide. This example shows gear relating to the rendering of whale oil, indicating that the Haida maker was aboard a whaling ship."Provenience note, in 1841 Oregon Territory encompassed the land from Russian Alaska to Spanish California and from the Pacific to the Continental Divide. The U.S. Exploring Expedition did not go to Canada, but did reach Oregon Territory in 1841, and carried out a hydrographic survey of the Columbia River from its mouth to the Cascades, as well as doing some surveying inland.They had dealings with Hudson's Bay Company staff during that time, and it is probable that the HBC is the source of a number of the Northwest Coast artifacts collected by the expedition.Object on display in National Museum of Natural History exhibit "Objects of Wonder", 2018.Dr. Mary Malloy doubts the identification of this ship pipe as related to whaling, because no American whaleships were along the coast of British Columbia until after all the Wilkes/Exploring Expedition pipes were in D.C.