Museum Expedtion 1931, Museum Collection Fund

Robert B. Woodward Memorial Fund

Robert B. Woodward Memorial Fund

Bequest of W.S. Morton Mead

Bequest of W.S. Morton Mead

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Blum

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.

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.

This garter is loom woven probably without the use of a heddle. The warps and wefts are thread and made with small seed beads. It has a repeated motif of eight-pointed yellow stars with white centers, outlined in blue, red, and clear beads on a blue and cloudy white background. See other garters 50.67.37 a,b,d.shown in additional potograph.