FROM CARD: "CURVED. USED IN HOLLOWING OUT BOATS. ILLUS. IN USNM REPT, 1897; FIG. 9; P. 737."In American Anthropologist, Vol. 11, No. 6 (Jun., 1898), p. 190 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/658453?seq=4), D. W. Prentiss, Jr. appears to describe a knife like this in use to hollow boats and dishes during his visit to Yakutat Bay, Alaska in 1895. Prentiss had served as an assistant to Dr. Frederick William True, travelling to the Pribilof Islands for research on the summer 1895 voyage of the U.S.S. Albatross, whose return voyage stopped at Yakutat Bay.

“4 pr. salad spoons and forks carved in wood by Koloshian Indians.” per White's original catalog in the NAA.

The objects in this accession were collected primarily for use on museum exhibit mannequins representing a Chilkat Tlingit family group. It may be speculated that this hair was to be used as part of the exhibit.

Carved decoration. Jackson is an alternate name for Howkan, Alaska, which is a Haida town.

From card: "The exterior is painted to represent totemic animals."

Per Anthropology catalogue ledger book and Dall's field catalogue, filed under Accession No. 3258, entry under # 603, collector is [Captain] A. [Amos] T. Whitford and object is from Sitka Tlingit.

FROM CARD: "PLAIN, UNDECORATED."

FROM CARD: "TRANSFERRED IN 1870. ILLUS. IN BAE AR #3, PL. 21, FIG. 48, P. 187."

Ruth Demmert, Alan Zuboff, and Linda Wynne made the following comments during the Tlingit Recovering Voices Community Research Visit, March 13-March 24. The design on this drum is not Tlingit and the elders commented they had not seen anything like it before. The handle and design of this object is unusual in comparison to similar Tlingit made objects.

Provenience note: collection apparently purchased or collected by McLean in Sitka and vicinity circa 1884.In 2023, Paz Nunez-Regueiro, Head of the Americas collection at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac indicated that an object with this number is in their collections, now as catalog number 71.1885.78.258. Anthropology does not have a record of when/how this artifact left the collections. The Branly identifies it as part of an 1885 accession presumably to the Trocadero Museum.