A. Augustus Healy Fund

This Kachina has not been fully identified. He wears a helmet-style mask painted with zigzag designs and topped with feathers. He wears the cotton dance skirt, yarn ties on top of painted booties and yarn wrappings around his wrists. His snout protrudes, has painted teeth along the sides and a woven ring of plant material dangling from the end.

Basket woven in coil method by Jemez weaver Filipe Yepa. Although often attributed in style to Navajo or Apache Yepa was one of five or six men making baskets in this style. The red dye was obtained from the Armenian trader in the town. In some houses baskets not in use were suspended from the rafters, bottom side up, in neat rows. Today men in the Jemez Gachupin family still make coiled baskets, Alcario Gachupin purportedly learning from Yepa. Women used such baskets in a ceremonial dance where they held the basket, "life basket", holding all they will consume. The design is the steps of the cycle of life representing both worlds, black and red,-the here on earth and the spirit world.

Brooklyn Museum Collection

Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund

Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund

Great Horned Owl (Mongwu) Kachina Doll with removable mask. Artist probably Henry Shelton based on stylistic characteristics. The unusual, removable owl mask has real feathers and fur on a carved helmet style mask. Yellow circular eyes and yellow beak. The entire Kachina figure without the mask has been carved from one piece of cottonwood root and appears fairly static with PR hand raised and other arm straight down and both legs on the ground. Each hand carries some plants of green stalks with white tips. He wears a carved kilt and has a real hide cape that crosses with a strap in the front and is decorated with shells. The boots are painted on and he wears yarn and hide ties at their tops. The face of the Kachina is painted white with strong features. He has short black hair. He wears a beaded blue and white necklace. Dynamism is achieved when the mask is put over the head. Mongwu appears singly during mixed Kachina night dances (Angka'wa) usually in March. The fur and feathered mask of Mongwu, the Great Horned Owl, is removable on this kachina. Underneath is revealed the intense face of the dancer as seen in the photo. Mongwu performs the role of a sergeant. He carries a whip to indicate he is a discipliner, protector and overseer of the other kachinas. He closely watches the Mudhead kachinas and if they become too rowdy he disciplines them. He appears singly in March night dances where the purpose is to create a pleasant atmosphere for life, encourage growth and bring rains so it is important to maintain a harmony.

This is a cylinder shaped piece of ivory incised with abstract cirles, loops and lines that might represent faces.This is definately walrus ivory, not bone.

(center in photograph)This ash wood pipe has the length carved in a spiral. Decorations along this are made with lead inlays; a fish appears inside one of the spiral curves, and the flat section on the end has four thunderbirds inlaid on one side and two buffalo heads and two animals (bears?) on the other side. The spiral section is further decorated with burn marks from a searing tool.

These leggings very early pre-1830s Blackfoot. Bits of ermine weasel remain attached to the fringe. Beads are all larger pony sizes.