This figure group is a finial from the lid of an elaborately carved argillite chest, the other parts of which are in the United States National Museum. This is the work of Charles Edensaw, one of the great Haida artists. Here, a bear holds the twisted body of a man in its jaws. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

This pipe, apparently from the 1830s, is unfinished. The six figures represented are very difficult to identify, partly because during the period when the piece was carved Haida artists frequently used creatures that combined attributes of different animls as subjects for their work. Also of interest is the fact that some details, particulalry in the whale-like figure protruding from the bowl end of the pipe, are executed in a much later style. Perhaps the very early, unfinished piece came into the hands of an artist of the 1890 period who decided to continue the carving. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, carvers began to produce compact sculptural groups of figures of animals and men. Some of them are very complex, with many figures crowded together in contorted positions. Incidents from myths were often depicted. This group has the bear as its main figure, holding a man in its jaws and a cub on its lap. The meaning of the various figures is not clear, but it is likely that the group illustrates incidents from the "Bear Mother" myth. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

In the Spirit of the Ancestors-This model pole reproduces the figures from a late 19th century pole from the Haida village of Howkan in Southeast Alaska. The pole displays the wasgo, a supernatural sea wolf at the bottom, holding a killer whale; the bird-in-the-air who assisted the hero in capturing the wasgo; the young man who captured the wasgo and wore his skin; and the shaman mother-in-law of the young man who took credit for his work, holding her circular puffin-beak rattles.