From card: "Cut from wood; plain. Northern type."

FROM CARD: "LOAN: CROSSROADS SEP 22 1988. ILLUS.: CROSSROADS OF CONTINENTS CATALOGUE; FIG. 311, P.232. LOAN RETURNED: JAN 21 1993." The Crossroads photo caption notes "The double-bladed ... dagger could be thrust both up and down without regripping, making it especially deadly in close combat." FROM 19TH OR EARLY 20TH CENTURY EXHIBIT LABEL WITH CARD: "DOUBLE-BLADED DAGGER AND SHEATHS.--BLADES MADE OF STEEL. THE HANDLE, WHICH IS MOUNTED WITH COPPER AND WRAPPED IN LEATHER, IS SET BETWEEN THE TWO BLADES. THE BLADE ABOVE THE HANDLE IS MUCH SHORTER THAN THE ONE BELOW. ATTACHED TO THE HANDLE IS A LEATHER STRIP WITH A HOLE CUT NEAR THE END TO LET IN THE MIDDLE FINGER. THE STRIP IS THEN TWISTED ABOUT THE WRIST TO SECURE THE WEAPON FIRMLY IN THE HAND SO THAT THE WARRIOR NEVER PARTS WITH HIS WEAPON UNTIL DEATH. SHEATHS FOR BOTH BLADES MADE OF LEATHER. LENGTH OF UPPER BLADE, 4 3/4 INCHES; LENGTH OF LOWER BLADE, 12 3/4 INCHES. INDIANS OF ALASKA. 9,288. COLLECTED BY DR. A. H. HOFF, U. S. A." From 19th or early 20th century exhibit label with card; label is for daggers Catalogue Nos. 9288, 9936, 10314, 20768, 45993, 67839, 67979, and 67980: "Two-Bladed Daggers. Made of iron, one blade long and tapering, the other short. The upper or outer side of each blade is divided into three flat surfaces, and in highly finished examples the middle surface is raised slightly. Grip between the blades narrowed and wrapped with cloth or leather. In number 9288 the grip and a short space beyond are overlaid with sheet copper. ..."Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on dagger and sheath http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=506 , retrieved 1-5-2012: Dagger, Tlingit Tlingit warriors possessed iron-bladed knives long before Western contact, crafted from metal found on Asian ships that drifted across the Pacific. Sophisticated indigenous iron-working techniques produced honed and tempered blades, often with ground-on flutes. The double-ended war dagger was worn around the neck in a leather sheath and used in hand-to-hand combat. George Ramos said that a warrior tied his knife to his wrist before going into battle so that it would not be lost.This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027. War knife and sheath (2 parts) both on loan. See E9288-0 for sheath.

Provenience note: many objects in the Chirouse collection were catalogued as Duwamish, however that really only seems to definitively apply to Catalogue No. 130965. Accession record indicates that the collection is the "handiwork of the Snohomish, Swinomish, Lummi, Muckleshoot and Etakmur Indians on the Tulalip Reservation in Washington Territory".

FROM CARD: "STICK PREPARED FOR STEAMING & BENDING OUT A HALIBUT HOOK."

From card: "Made of spruce and carved with totemic devices. The plaster cast by the side of each stick shows the figure carved thereon. [Plaster casts are # E73552-1].This game is played by any number of persons. A 'dealer' sits on the ground with a pile of shredded cedar-bark in front of him, and with much ceremony draws out the sticks one by one without looking at them, and passes them to the players in turn who sit in front of him. Each device counts a certain number, and the winning is by high or low or definite or specific amount"8 of the gambling sticks are illus. Pl. V, after p. 260, in the B.A.E. 24th Annual Report - Stewart Culin, "Games of the North American Indians" - (under incorrect catalogue # of 73522). The game is also described/discussed on pp. 260-263 of that publication and identified as stick game.This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027. E073552-0 whole set on loan. 18 gambling sticks and bag on display and 14 gambling sticks for storage in exhibition's Community Consultation Room. E073552-1 (cast) is not on loan.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=607 , retrieved 8-12-2011: Gambling sticks Stick gambling, often for very high stakes, was a fast-paced contest between two men or as many as a dozen players on each side. Each man owned several sets of thirty to seventy polished sticks and switched them during play to better his luck. Most pieces had carved or painted designs, but several called jil (bait) were plain. The rules varied, but in basic play the dealer shuffled two or three handfuls of the sticks, including one jil, beneath a mound of shredded bark; his opponent then guessed which pile held the bait.Illus. Fig. 9.6, right, p. 151 in Yanicki, Gabriel & Ives, John. "Mobility, Exchange, and the Fluency of Games: Promontory in a Broader Sociodemographic Setting. " In Prehistoric games of North American Indians: Subarctic to Mesoamerica, ed. Barbara Voorhies. University of Utah Press, 2017, 139 - 162.

Anthropology's catalogue card and ledger book list the locality for E16253 - 6 as Nunivak Island, however this appears to be a cataloguing error. These artifacts are Dall original #s 1145 - 1148, and Dall's field catalogue, filed under accession no. 3258, identifies them this way: "Wooden utensils used like chopsticks, Chimsyan [sic] Indians, Main Land S. E. of Sitka."

From card: "Bent sides, carved, similar in shape to no. 206540."