incised design; brown; note read, "Deer antler, used for digging roots"

cracked; brown/grey

Pack saddle made from elk horns fastened together with buffalo hide stretched over it.

Brooklyn Museum Collection

Designs made up of incised lines and pierced or "cut out' shapes elaborate the form of this flattened section of elk antler. The upper end of this hair ornament is a carved, elongated semi-circle, rounded at the top, but it is cut at the bottom to suggest the form of two figures which emerge at the shoulders, as if headless, with slightly flexed knees. The figures' torsos have cut triangular shapes pointing downwards. The elongated, lower section of the ornament is pierced with circles, a semicircle, narrow or linear crescents, and two pointed ovals. Each of the "cut-outs" is surrounded with an incised outline, most of them rubbed with red pigment, with the following exceptions: the inner legs of the two figures, on the shins from the knee to the ankle, are rubbed in black. A horn shaped outline is also rubbed in black. At the rounded end, beyond the bone tube is a cross, cut through the flat piece of antler. A faded ribbon, now off-white, is tied to the bone tube and a thin piece of thong is knotted underneath the tube, on the unornamented side of the antler plate. The spreader has lost any remnant of feathers or woodpecker beak that once may have adorned it coming out of the femural bone tube.

The Pomo bear-doctor and the dagger he carried have left a trail of confusion in scholarly literature. Dr. Hudson, informant to Stewart Culin, Museum’s curator, summarized as follows. Bear men belong to a secret organization with a representative from each tribe. He preyed on the community and if killed another would be elected in his place. The object of the society was to eliminate undesirable people in the tribe. Bear-doctors were said to have carried one or two daggers of this type with the tips sharpened and rubbed on grinding stones.The realistic style of incising, impeccably rendered does indicate artist provenance to William Benson and has been found on other items know to have been made by Benson. Since several of these have been found in Museum collections, all made by Benson, these are clearly "models" made for the non-Native market.