From card: "Bear, man, and raven motifs."

This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on artfact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=625 , retrieved 6-24-2012: Mask The exact meaning of this mask - depicting a man's face with painted facial designs - has not been determined. Some Haida masks represent supernatural beings that were believed to possess chiefs and noble dancers during winter secret society performances. One of these was Walala, the Cannibal Spirit. Walala dancers bit onlookers and pretended to eat human flesh; those possessed by Bear, Wild Man, Beggar, and other spirits enacted the behaviors of those beings.

Swan's list in the accession record indicates that this object, number 45 1/2 on the list, was collected at Masset, B.C. in July 1883 but he identifies this as "made at Chilkat Alaska."

Original label attached to artifact says "Agnes Dan [presumably the maker or original owner?], Jackson, Alaska." Jackson is an alternate name for Howkan, Alaska, which is a Haida town.

From card: "See U.S.N.M. [Annual] Report 1888, pl. LIV, fig. 288 [after p.324] .... Niblack. See pl. LIII, [after] p. 324 [for a similar rattle]. Representing the raven. [The card information that follows is from the second/copy of the Anthropology catalogue ledger book entry on this artifact, where it has been added in a different hand from the main ledger page entries:] The lower part of the bird represents the thunder bird. The tail is turned up and carried so as to represent a [blank]. The bird carries on his back a reclining figure which holds its knees. It represents the land otter."This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=632 , retrieved 6-24-2012: Rattle This rattle shows Raven carrying the sun in his beak. On Raven's back, a human-Ulala (Cannibal) figure extends its tongue into the beak of a crested bird, symbolizing the exchange of spiritual power between the two beings. A sparrow hawk design covers Raven's belly. Shamans, who used these rattles in healing ceremonies, believed that healing and clairvoyant powers came from birds and animals. Chiefs carried raven rattles during ceremonies of the Haida secret societies. "The humanoid is being transformed when its tongue goes into the frog or bird; the rattle is showing a transformation that is used for healing. This type of rattle was not used for evil; it was used for good. I think we have to really emphasize that this is a healing rattle." - Delores Churchill (Haida), 2005Listed on page 42 in "The Exhibits of the Smithsonian Institution at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, California, 1915", in section "Arts of the Northwest Coast Tribes".

From card for E23523-46: "Dec 20, 1972, Bill Holm says that these are definitely Haida."Cultural ID for paddles E23523 - 23546 is somewhat in question. They were catalogued as Clallam, Bill Holm has identified them as Haida, but James Swan in correspondence in the accession file references 24 Bella Bella paddles.

FROM CARD: "EX. LEIDEN MUS. MAY, '99 (1899)."Group of small ornaments in the form of copper "shields".

Plate has been broken and repaired. Incised and carved relief decoration, front and back, including floral and leaf motifs, compass-drawn motifs, cross-hatching. Has original Peale # label.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. This object has been attributed as possibly Haida, based on its being made of argillite.