TOTEMS TO TURQUOISE (AMNH, NEW YORK, NY, USA, 2004)

A dentalium necklace. On the catalogue card a note from the donor is the only description, The beads are of the type used by the Hudson Bay Company in their trading days on the coast. I had to string them with thread, not having any old sinew ornettle-fibre but the other material was collected by my father from the Indians. My father and I have had at various times similar necklaces both from the Northern Kwakiutl and the Haida. The shell is quite common on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The necklace consists of twenty dentalium shells, two blue trade beads and eighteen small red glass beads.; Good

Necklace of copper and shell beads strung on twined wool. The copper beads are long cylinder beads and are spaced by groups of short cylinder - disc beads of white dentalium shell. The necklace has been mounted on perspex due to its fragile nature.; Good.

Eleven dentalium shells of standard length and colour that have been strung together, probably by Ridgeway or the museum.; Good

Three-tiered dangling earrings with alternating white and coloured (blue and red) beads with hide dividers. There are bone hooks with a yellow and blue beaded fringe at the bottom.

Necklace made from dentalium shell interspersed with blue and pink trade beads. Rectangular piece of abalone strung as pendant, placed at the end of a string of alternating red beads and dentalium dangling form the main necklace..