Museum Purchase: Indian Collection Subscription Fund, Rasmussen Collection of Northwest Coast Indian Art.

Museum Purchase: Indian Collection Subscription Fund, Rasmussen Collection of Northwest Coast Indian Art.

By exchange

Headdress frontlet with a wooden bear crest, set within a frame, and painted red, green, and black. The back is unpainted. The frame as well as the bear's eyes, teeth, and paws have inlaid sections of carved abalone shell. Long ermine trailers hang down the back and sea lion whiskers stick out from the top. The headdress would have been worn for a Welcome or Peace Dance. The face's thick, heavy, black eyebrows help to corroborate this attribution. A fistful of eagle down feathers would be placed inside the center of the frontlet. As the chief danced and bowed and greeted his audience, the feathers would float out of his headdress symbolizing peace and friendship. In Tshimshian this was known as Am-halait or "power from the Sky." CONDITION: The object is in fair and stable condition. Special care in handling the piece should be taken for it was treated with arsenic in the past.

The cotton cloth is white. The cloth is cream. The skin is rabbit.

The paint is black, red, and white.

Carved wooden, crooked beak headdress, or mask. The beak has a large red, ovoid shaped nostrils outlined with two elongated red split u-forms behind it. Running from the brow is a large central frill that protrudes outward and curves inward to the centre tip of the beak and back into itself; detailed with black u-forms. The mouth is red, flat and protruding; jaw nailed shut. The face is black with white detailing; one black u-form behind the eye. The eyes are black, outlined in white and red on a white ovoid shaped ground; brow is black. The underside of the beak is black. The inside of the mask is hollow. Attached to the top are many bundles of small stripes of cedar bark; a braided cedar rope lines the top edge. Hanging from the back are long strips of cedar that would cover the wearer; a piece of fibre twine groups the long stripes together. There are a few tufts of eagle down in the cedar. The mask is painted black, white and red with Northwest Coast stylized forms.

Ermine headdress attached to a wooden frontlet. Frontlet in painted in blue, red and black with a central figure of a humanoid face with protruding, hooked nose encircled by a red-lined ring of abalone. Two faces, one humanoid and mask-like, the other round and black with red lips, sit atop and below the main face. The eyes of all three faces are inlaid with abalone. The frontlet is attached to the front of a circular white fur cap, attached to a long train (90 cm) of white ermine pelts with brown tails sewn onto a length of white fabric backing. A vertical row of brown whiskers protrude from the cap directly behind the top of the frontlet.

Carved wooden, crooked beak mask. The beak has long, exaggerated, protruding red nostrils with two large circular openings in the front. Running from the brow is a large, protruding, central black, rectangular shaped frill that projects outwards then curves downwards to the top of the beak. On the top edge of the head is a smaller, rounded, black frill that tapers into the top of the head. The mouth is red, flat and protruding. The underside of the beak is black; beak is hinged with a thin piece of metal wire. The eyes are small and outlined in black and red, surrounded by a large white, sunken, ovoid-like shape; the brow is black with red vertical stripes. Back of mask is slightly cylindrical in shape; around the top, side and bottom edges are twisted pieces of cedar. The inside of the mask is hollow with the exception of pieces of fibre twine to articulate the beak; bundles of small branches with cedar strips and a piece of eagle down. The mask is painted black, white and red with Northwest Coast stylized forms.

Carved wooden, double headed Hamatsa mask consisting of crooked beak and raven mask joined at the back of each. Both have red, ovoid shaped cutout nostrils with red and white detailing around it. Both have a red mouth; one is long, narrow and protruding the other is flat, square shaped and protruding. On underside of crooked beak's lower jaw is a small carved thunderbird ? face with a beak that curves back into the open mouth; small bundles of cedar decorate the top edge of face. The eyes are black ovoids, outlined in white and red on a green ovoid shaped ground; the brow is black. The inside is hollow with the exception of twine which articulates the mask. Both masks have twisted cedar rope around the crown; crooked beak has cedar rope along the edge of the frill. Cedar bark and feathers decorate the top of both heads; tufts of eagle down intertwined. Attached to the top of the crooked beak are two black wooden horns that curl at the top; detailed with a red circle. The mask is painted black, red and white with Northwest Coast stylized forms.