FROM CARD: "60167-71. #60167 (TLINGIT FEAST DISH) - ILLUS. IN USNM AR 1888; PL. 38, FIG. 192, P. 316. LOANED RENWICK GAL. 11/7/70. LOAN RETURNED 8-24-76. FROM: PAGE 52, BOXES AND BOWLS CATALOG; RENWICK GALLERY; SMITHSONIAN PRESS; 1974. OBJECT ILLUS. ON SAME PAGE. 30. TRAY WOOD; CARVED IN RELIEF LENGTH: 45 1/2 TLINGIT, HUTSNUWU, ALASKA. COLLECTED BY J. J. MCLEAN CATALOGED AUGUST 23, 1882. 60,167."

OCTOPUS BAG; FLORAL BEADWORK. FROM JAMES G. SWAN ORIGINAL TAG WITH ARTIFACT: "NO. 201 HAIDA INDIANS HUNTING POUCH. KULTL GEAR. SITKA INDIAN MANUFACTURE. SKIDEGATE, B.C. AUG. 30, 1883, JAMES G. SWAN, $1."Linda Wynne, Florence Sheakley, Alan Zuboff, Virginia Oliver, and Ruth Demmert made the following comments during the Tlingit Recovering Voices Community Research Visit, March 13-March 24, 2017. This is an octopus bag, specifically used for hunting because of the strap. Florence noted that she made a bag similar to this one that took her over a month to complete, and wasn't as busy as this one with regards to the beadwork design. The bag has some large, size 10 beads, which were produced later on, and don't have the same good detail as smaller beads. Virginia commented that someone may have added beads to this bag after it was created in order to sell it. The button on this object could be a brass button taken from a military coat. This bag has double toes and was made with two needles, whereas beaders today usually use only one needle.

From card: "Represents the totem of the bear. Illus. in USNM AR 1888, Pl. XXI, p. 274." From late 19th or early 20th century exhibit label filed with catalogue card: "Buckskin Armor - Made of two thicknesses of buckskin, sewed up on the left side and open on the right. There is a slit to admit the head. The figure of the bear is painted on the front in black and red colors." Formerly on exhibit in NHB Hall 9, case 27 where exhibit label identified it as: "Moose-hide body armor."The accession card for E130587 - 130590 states: "One trunk of Indian clothing." The items were accessioned as a loan. The loan accession file contains correspondence and memoranda pertaining to the loan. In a letter dated Oswego, New York, September 24, 1888, Max B. Richardson, writes: "A few years ago, while on the Pacific Coast in Oregon, I obtained, among other things, from a fur trader, some curious articles of clothing, made apparently from the skins of the Sea Lion or Walrus. These garments are cut from the same pattern. they have an opening at the top for the head, and an arm-hole for the left arm, and are open at the right side. One of them is padded in front and is more than one inch in thickness, was apparently used as armor. One of them is decorated with Totemistic designs and another one was trimmed with the toes of the Mountain Sheep, with rows of Bear's teeth across the breast, and rows of copper bell-shaped ornaments across the bottom. I have never seen anything like these garments in any collection. I think they were procured by an Agent of the Southwest Trading Company from some Indian belonging to the Aleutian Islands." In a letter dated December 10, 1888, Max B. Richardson furnishes descriptions of the items sent and writes: "The article marked No. 2 was a coat of a chief who doubtless lived in Alaska or upon one of the Aleutian Islands adjacent thereto...The coat No. 1 was a very striking garment when I first saw it...The party of whom I purchased these goods would not sell No. 1 unless I allowed him to remove all the bear's teeth as he wished to use them, and appeared to value them very highly. I had to allow him to cut them off in order to get the garment at all. I am ashamed to say I removed the rest of the ornaments which I have preserved. One of the bear's teeth was carved to represent an eagle. I saved this piece of carving."

CHILKAT, TLINGIT?, NW COAST- BLANKET OR MAN'S TUNIC; TIED FRINGE AT BOTTOM. MISNUMBERED 229789. This object was incorrectly listed as 89193 in Hall 9 exhibit book, and also listed incorrectly as 229789 on the back of old photo prints neg. #s 14081 and 14083. However, object itself has no visible numbers written on it and there already are different objects numbered 89193 and 229789 in the collections which seem to be correct. Back of this artifact is illus. Fig. 428, p. 195 in The Chilkat Dancing Blanket by Cheryl Samuel, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1982. Samuel identifies it as a potlatch tunic. This piece appears to be made from a Chilkat dancing blanket?: the central panel of the blanket may be the front of the tunic?, and Samuel notes that the two side panels of a dancing blanket are seamed together to form decorative panel on the back of this tunic. This piece may be the one referred to in the accession papers for a different tunic, Cat. #229789. In a report on 229789, O.T. Mason writes, as partial justification for acquiring the new piece: "We have a beauty, but the Emmons specimen is made up differently." It is possible that the "beauty" they had already might refer to ET16569, which would imply it was in the collections prior to 1904, when 229789 was accessioned. - F. Pickering 2-24-2005Tunic made from two different Chilkat blankets. The back of the tunic is two sections of the same(?) blanket hand sewn together in the horizontal middle. The shoulders are made of black felt wool with appliqued red wool. They are lined with a thinner woven wool cloth. The front tunic is edged with dark green cotton cloth. The back is edged with a polychrome (red, yellow, blue, black) cloth. Side panels between the front and back are red checked cotton gingham. Tassels on the front tunic are 4 cm long and wrapped with green and orange or green and yellow wool thread around round lengths of wood. The front tunic panel is woven in black, yellow, white, and green. The back is in yellow, black, white and brown. All of the tunic is hand sewn together with cotton thread. No Catalog number was found on the piece.

FROM CARD: "INDIAN TRADITION SAYS THIS BIRD BROUGHT THEIR ANCESTORS OVER FROM ASIA. REDUCED COPY OF COLOSSAL CARVING. COLLECTOR'S DESCRIPTION ON REVERSE. COLLECTOR'S DESCRIPTION AND LEGEND: "HAIDA INDIANS, FORT SIMPSON B. C. AND TONGASS, ALAS. REDUCED COPY OF COLOSSAL CARVING ON POLE AT FT. SIMPSON, B. C. THE INDIAN TRADITION IS THAT THIS WAS THE SACRED BIRD WHICH BROUGHT OVER THEIR ANCESTORS FROM ASIA. IMAGES OF WHICH ARE SEEN UNDER EACH WING. COPIES OF THIS SACRED BIRD ARE FOUND IN VARIOUS FORM ALL THROUGH ALASKA. V. COLYER."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=510, retrieved 4-24-2012: Crest pole figure (model) This carving of a thunderbird carrying human beings beneath its wings was copied from a totem pole that stood in front of a Tsimshian or Haida clan house at Port Simpson, British Columbia during the mid-19th century. Vincent Colyer, an artist and Board of Indian commissioner who purchased this model of the pole, wrote on a paper tag still affixed to the back that, "Indian tradition is that this was the sacred bird which brought over their ancestors from Asia." This interpretation has not been verified and the story of the image in clan history has yet to be recorded.

BARBED (7 BARBS ON ONE SIDE, 5 ON OTHER) WITH GROOVE IN BACK. INCISED CROSS-HATCHING WITH TRACES OF RED PAINT ON FRONT.