This Kwa' Laba Kuth, or Wildman, mask represents one of the ghost-like forest spirits that appear during the Makah Klookwalli ceremonial. Similar ghost-like spirits are represented in mask form among neighboring tribes: Pukmis and Ahlmako of the Nuu-chah-nulth, the Bukwus of the Kwakiutl. Their ghostly qualities are sometimes represented by skull-like heads with hooked noses and bared teeth in grimacing mouths.

The raffia is purple and red. The thread is white.

The raffia is natural, red, and purple.

George Emmons collected this headdress from a chief of the Koskedi Raven clan at Sitka, Alaska. Although Tlingit headdresses are often attributed to the Tsimshian, many frontlets, including this one, are clearly Tlingit in style. The frontlet's height, the form and arrangement of figures, the blue-painted rim with its widely separated abalone plaques, the red trade flannel, and the mallard-skin border, all point to Tlingit origin. The figures carved on the frontlet are a raven and a large head that resembles a bear. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)

During the course of the great Nootka ceremonial, Klookwana (which roughly corresponds to the Kwakwaka'wakw Tseyka) masks of certain birds and animals are worn. One of these is the raven mask, and it is likely that this one was so used. The mask is very simple in form, with an articualted jaw and a crest of bald eagle feathers attached to the top of the head. The mask sits on the head, leaving the dancer's face exposed, but in the shadows of the firelit dance house, the strong silhouette of the raven's beak is remarkably realistic. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)