FROM CARD: "ILLUS. IN USNM AR, 1888; PL. 30, FIG. 141, P. 286." FROM 19TH OR EARLY 20TH CENTURY EXHIBIT LABEL WITH CARD: "TRAWL-LINE.-FOR OCEAN FISHING. THE GROUND LINE IS MADE OF CEDAR ROOTS, THE SNOODS OR GANGINGS OF WHALEBONE AND CEDAR, AND THE HOOKS OF STEAMED AND BENT CEDAR WOOD,WITH BARBS OF IRON. KWAKIUTL INDIANS (WAKASHAN STOCK), VANCOUVER ISLAND, B. C. COLLECTED BY DR. T. T. MINOR."Note: E6560 and E306355 were mixed together in NHB storage. It is unclear if all parts have been sorted out and given their correct numbers. Note also that E6560 is supposed to be a trawl line with small bentwood hooks, but there is also a large halibut hook with that number, which may be incorrect?

HAS CATALOG CARD.Per Aaron Glass, this neck ring may be one shown in SI photo Negative #77-10036, Photo Lot 24 SPC Nwc Kwakiutl NM No.# Boas 09070500, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, which shows a museum exhibit of a figure group (mannequin life group) of Kwakiutl Hamatsa initiates emerging from a room behind a painted scene. This neck ring may be the one on the figure second from left in the photo. The exhibit was created for the museum by Franz Boas in 1895, using items from the collection. This photo, and a description of how Boas researched and created the exhibit, are in Jonaitis, Aldona. 1988. "From the Land of the Totem Poles: the Northwest Coast Indian Art Collection at the American Museum of Natural History", p. 150. The photo can also be seen online by going to collections.si.edu/search and searching on "NAA INV 09070500".

FROM CARD: "3RD HEAD-RING OF LAXXALIALAYU. ILLUS. IN USNM REPT, 1895; FIG. 94; P. 458."

FROM CARD: "OF HALF HAMADGA & HALF HAYALIKALAT. ILLUS. IN USNM REPT, 1895; FIG. 134; P. 488."

FROM CARD: "TO PUT ON HEAD OF A BAGAS TO MAKE HIM DISAPPEAR. ILLUS. IN USNM REPT, 1895; FIG. 186; P. 527."

FROM CARD: "OF DANCE OF GHOST. ILLUS. IN USNM REPT, 1895; FIG. 146; P. 497."Listed on page 41 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".Per Dr. Aaron Glass, 2020: The ghosts were/are one of the spirit beings that initiate Kwakwaka'wakw T'seka (Winter Ceremonial or Red Cedar Bark Ceremonies) dancers. The Ghost Dance is not so much a dance enacting ghosts, but by people enacting ancestral encounters with ghosts that bestowed hereditary rights to the dances/songs. Some Ghost Dance rings have carved skulls, indicating the encounter with ghosts (dead humans), and in this sense can be hard to distinguish from Hamat'sa (Cannibal Dance) regalia that also sometimes feature carved skulls. Ghost dancers often cover their faces with shrouds of some kind (the Berlin head ring has a curtain of shredded cedar bark that covers the face), and they also cover their face with their hands as the characteristic choreographic gesture. Though the dancers wear rings and not masks, I have seen contemporary Ghost Dance masks that appear like skulls and have hair covering the faces. The dance is still passed down to some families, though it is not terribly common. Some information on the Ghost Dance can be found in Boas's 1897 "Social Organization and Secret Societies" book (pg. 408: an origin story; pg. 482: description of the dance itself and its regalia and song; pg. 497: figures of the 2 rings in question; pg. 499 has a list of Ft. Rupert dances in ranking order, and it is #44 of 53). There is no specific cultural sensitivity around the dance or regalia due to the association with ghosts, at least that I have ever heard of.

FROM CARD: "OF THE SPEAKER OF NENALAADGIYAS. ILLUS. IN USNM REPT, 1895; FIG. 132; P. 486."

FROM CARD: "ILLUS. IN USNM REPT, 1895; FIG. 90; P. 455."

HAS CATALOG CARD.Per Aaron Glass, this neck ring appears to be one shown in SI photo Negative #77-10036, Photo Lot 24 SPC Nwc Kwakiutl NM No.# Boas 09070500, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, which shows a museum exhibit of a figure group (mannequin life group) of Kwakiutl Hamatsa initiates emerging from a room behind a painted scene. This neck ring seems to be the one on the kneeling figure third from right in the photo. The exhibit was created for the museum by Franz Boas in 1895, using items from the collection. This photo, and a description of how Boas researched and created the exhibit, are in Jonaitis, Aldona. 1988. "From the Land of the Totem Poles: the Northwest Coast Indian Art Collection at the American Museum of Natural History", p. 150. The photo can also be seen online by going to collections.si.edu/search and searching on "NAA INV 09070500". He suspects that the original number for this object this may be E129514, a conspicuously absent Hamat'sa neck ring from Boas's 1886 exchange with the Berlin museum (Acc 19597). "Perhaps its use on the mannequin resulted in its being separated from its [catalog] number".

FROM CARD: "OF BEAR DANCE OF THE GUSGEMOX. ILLUS. IN USNM REPT, 1895; FIG. 112-B; P. 474."