FROM CARD: "DANCING ORNAMENT DYED RED. #20849 HEAD DRESS - ILLUS. IN USNM AR, 1888, PL. 18, FIG. 67, P. 270." FROM OLD 19TH OR EARLY 20TH CENTURY EXHIBIT LABEL WITH CARD: "HEADDRESSES.---MADE OF CEDAR BARK ROPE, STAINED RED WITH THE JUICE OF THE ALDER. WORN IN THE WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES OF THE KWAKIUTL AND OTHER SOUTHERN COAST INDIANS. HOODSINOO INDIANS (KOLUSCHAN FAMILY), ADMIRALTY ISLAND, ALASKA. 20,849, 20,910. COLLECTED BY JAMES G. SWAN. THIS STYLE IS BORROWED BY THE NORTHERN INDIANS AND WORN BY THEM IN THEIR CEREMONIALS, BUT NOT WITH THE SAME SIGNIFICANCE AS IN THE SOUTH."Anthropology catalogue ledger book identifies E20849, 20850 and 20910 as original number 70, and lists as Koutznow [i.e. Hutsnuwu Tlingit], Admiralty Island, Alaska. List in accession file identifies no people or locality for original # 70. The old exhibit labels for E20910 have conflicting locality information, with one saying Admiralty Island, and the other Fort Wrangell.

From card: "Re-entered - mistake."Note: This object most likely was accessioned under either Accession number 1310 or 1499, both of which consist of artifacts collected by Thomas T. Minor in 1868. Someone has pencilled Accession number 1310 on the catalogue card for this object, and object appears to match description of an object on one of Minor's lists filed in Accession 1310.Florence Sheakley, Ruth Demmert, and Virginia Oliver made the following comments during the Tlingit Recovering Voices Community Research Visit, March 13-March 24, 2017. This object is either a collar or headband and features a salmon design. It is possible that this object is primarily a collar that could also be used as a headband.

From 19th or early 20th century exhibit label with card: "Rain-Hat (Old Pattern). - Made of grass (iris tenax), closely braided and painted green; waterproof. Shape, truncated cone. Band inside to fit head; secured by broad woolen strap which passes under chin. Sitka-Kwan Indians. Diameter, 17 1/2 ins. Height, 9 ins. Alaska, 1882. Collected by John J. McLean."

FROM CARD: "BRACELET.--RED FLANNEL BAND, LINED WITH LINEN CLOTH AND ORNAMENTED WITH BEAD-WORK. TONGASS INDIANS, SOUTHERN ALASKA. CIRCUMFERENCE, 10 1/2 INS. WIDTH, 3 1/4 INS. ALASKA, 1872. 11,413. COLLECTED BY VINCENT COLYER."Provenience note, not every object in the collection is specifically listed and identified in the accession file list from Colyer in his letter dated August 29, 1872. The list mentions # "33, 34, 35 Indian beadwork from Wrangel Alaska, Stakeen [Stikine] Tribe." The Colyer collection does not contain a lot of Alaskan beadwork, so it is possible that some of the objects catalogued as E11411 - E11414, and identified as Tongass in the Anthropology catalogue ledger book, might be these objects?Florence Sheakley and Ruth Demmert, elders, made the following comments during the Tlingit Recovering Voices Community Research Visit, March 13-March 24, 2017. This object was mostly likely used on dance clothes, potentially around the neckline of a shirt or as a cuff. Beadwork was designed and constructed separately from the garment so it could be removed and reused as the garments were replaced.

From card: "Box, painted inside with totemic designs in which a "Doctor" [shaman] is lying in state. The figure wears only a breechclout of painted leather. Loaned to Renwick Celebrations 12/17/81, Returned 1982. Illus.: p. 34, pl. 190, Celebrations catalogue, Smithsonian Press, 1982. [Caption from Celebrations catalogue is taped to back of card:] Model of Grave, 1880-1912, Tlingit Indians; Alaska, wood, sinew, nails, paint. For most Tlingits a funeral consisted of cremating the corpse and placing its ashes in a box ina "grave house." It was thought that the soulds of the deceased would be more comfortable in the afterworld near a fire. From the position of the body and the type of box, this Tlingit model most likely represents the grave of a shaman. Funerary practices for shamans were much more involved than those for ordinary persons. The shaman himself usually selected his grave site. There were strictly prescribed ways for preparing the body and for leaving it inthe grave house. Once it was installed in the house, villagers feared and avoided the site. Anyone passing the grave made an offering of tobacco to the spirt of the shaman. Tlingits believed that the body of a shaman did not decay but rather dried up and that the fingernails continued to grow - even through the boards of the grave house."

FROM CARD: "FISH SPEAR.-SHAFT OF CEDAR, 1/2 INCH IN DIAMETER, PAINTED RED, AND END ENLARGED INTO A HEAD IN OUTER END OF WHICH IS INSERTED AND LASHED A FLAT BARBED PIECE OF BONE 1 FOOT IN LENGTH. IN A SLOT IN OUTER END OF LATTER IS LASHED A METAL SPEAR-HEAD. USED IN FISHING BY ALASKAN INDIANS, SITKA. LENGTH, 4 FT. 9 INS.; POINT, 3 INS. ALASKA, 1867. 5,775. COLLECTED BY CAPTAIN HOWARD, U.S. REVENUE MARINE SERVICE."On the shaft of the artifact itself, "Ounalaska" is written in old handwriting and Sitka has been crossed out. Per Aron Crowell, 2008, this object is an Aleut/Unangan whale dart, and therefore the Unalaska locality would be correct.Provenience note: collection locality of Sitka appears to have been erroneously attached to a number of the objects in the Howard collection. It appears the majority of the objects were probably instead collected in Unalaska/Aleutians (and some in St. Paul/Kodiak, Kodiak Island.)