By exchange

Tapered, imbricated basket with two rawhide handles. Has zigzag geometric design in light, natural colored fiber and various shades of brown.

Fully dressed doll with a coconut husk base, beaded necklace and earrings.This type of doll was created extensively for the burgeoning tourist market during the ealry 1900s.

Gift of Dr. Clark Burnham

Bequest of W.S. Morton Mead

Mrs. Ann Barber, the Maidu owner sold this belt to the Museum curator Stewart Culin. According to another Maidu informant, Mrs. Azbil, when she came into the country everyone of any wealth and importance had a belt. People could marry with them. The man gave it away. They also wore it in the War dance and this was the only way a man used it because it actually was a women's belt. This particular belt had been given to Mrs. Barber by her first husband, Pomaho, who married her with it. When he died it became hers and she was criticized for not burning it. The belt would be wrapped around the waist of the dancer twice for the Hesi, Toto of Kenu dances. The patterns on the belt mirror those used on baskets. The red triangles are composed of the scalps of twenty-five woodpeckers and are called grapevine leaves. The two narrow strips, composed of duck feathers, were named after the tongs used to lift the boiling stones out of the baskets when boiling mush. The knot of the belt where the threads come together is called the navel. Feather belts were the supreme Maidu representations of wealth and as such were prime candidates for destruction at death of the owner. Thus they are rare.

Woven basketry hat that women would wear.

The Hupa basketry hat (05.588.7464) is on the left in photograph and the Yurok basketry hat (05.588.7515) is on the right. When these hats were collected in 1905 they were treasured items of Hupa women and they remain so today. This basketry hat was collected by Stewart Culin directly from the weaver, Mary, when he saw it in her home.

The object,known as a "copper," was cut into the shape of a shield from a flat sheet of copper alloy and hammered out to produce the animal face on the upper section and the ridge on the lower section. The upper section of this copper contains either the head of a bear or a beaver and has exposed metal as well as black and white painted areas. The delineation of the animal head on the upper area was achieved by scratching through painted and exposed metal areas. The lower section of the copper has two black painted panels with a vertical ridge. On the back of the object, there is some corrosion that is stable. The object is in good condition with minor surface scratches overall. Coppers were used as status symbols and were important economical commodities for their owners. The owner could break off part of one during a potlatch ceremony to demonstrate his or her largesse although this one shows no signs of having been used this way.

Brooklyn Museum Collection