Ruth Demmert and Alan Zuboff, elders, made the following comments during the Tlingit Recovering Voices Community Research Visit, March 13-March 24. This is a working hat, either Tlingit or Haida made, and the painted design suggests a wealthy woman owned this hat. This object would be personal property, not clan property. The design might be a raven crest, due to the tufts design older ravens have. Alan comments that, for Angoon, the presence of potlatch rings designate clan property, but he can't say for this hat not knowing where it came from.Hat was purchased by Victor Evans from dealer Grace Nicholson in 1919; Nicholson # 6780, identified as Chilkat (Evans noted that hat was damaged in shipping - crown was broken). See copy of Evans correspondence with Nicholson, dated June 19, 1919, filed in the Anthropology Collections Lab accession file; original of correspondence is part of the Grace Nicholson Papers and Addenda, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California; see online finding aid https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf787005cq/ .

FROM CARD: "SHAPE OF A FROG."Provenience note: List in accession file (this object is # 2 on list) appears to attribute this to the Chilkat Tlingit of Klukwan.Listed on page 46 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 (Tools)".

FROM CARD: "PUTNAM 5/88." This seems to refer to a partial transfer. This information is also written in the second ledger book in red ink.The first Anthropology catalogue ledger book lists this object as "native cord from spruce roots, 1 bundle or coil." The second ledger book has this description, but the words "packing box" have been added as an addition in red ink to the description. In 1888, a bent wood box with this number was transferred to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard. As of 2010, one coiled length of fiber cord with this number is still in the Anthropology collections.

From card: "Old twined basket stretched around a hoop of wood; oval in shape."In letter dated April 17, 1901 in accession file, Emmons identifies this object as from Killisnoo. However, he also identifies Killisnoo as on Admiralty Island, but Killisnoo is on Killisnoo Island; it is Angoon which is on Admiralty Island. Because of this confusion, and because of the fact that Killisnoo and Angoon are only 2 miles apart, it is unclear whether this object was collected at Killisnoo or Angoon.

FROM CARD: " 'WOMAN'S AWL'."List in accession file (this object is # 30 on list) identifies as "Woman's awl ... used in sewing skins, a sea lions penis bone. List in accession file does not attribute this object to the Chilkat, though the old tag with the artifact does.

Bone carved to represent a whale and decorated with abalone inlay and incised formline designs.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, listed as number E9813B, http://www.alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=508, retrieved 4-24-2012: Amulet, Tsimshian. A shaman's amulets represented the guardian spirits that aided his work. Like his wooden rattles, crown of bear claws, dance apron, and red ocher face paint, bone and stone amulets were essential to his practice. This beautifully carved example represents a killer whale; its tail is a long-beaked bird.

FROM CARD: "6/71."SI ARCHIVE DISTRIBUTION DOCUMENTS SAY 1/4 SENT TO AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, 1885.