The paint is green, blue, red, and black.

No documentation accompanies this striking piece, but it is probably a Nakhnokh mask--that is, a mask representing a hereditary spirit name. When the name is assumed by its owner, it is dramatized in a pantomimic dance using a mask illustrative of the name. Nakhnokh or spirit names refer to animals or to people, often foreigners or those with unusual physical or personality traits. Certain Nakhnokh are violent or antisocial. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)

The shell is abalone.

The yarn is wool and red.

The paint is red, black, blue, and white.

Tall, glossy black dorsal fin, hair streaming from the trailing edge, is the mark of the killer whale: the most imposing natural animal of the Tlingit world and a crest of the Wolf phratry. Here the orca is combined with the wolf itself in a powerful crest headdress, collected by George Emmons from the Stikine Tlingit. Emmons did not identify the clan that owned the headdress, but described it as of "totemic significance," worn by the chief--to whose care it was entrusted--only upon special occasions when the whole family was present. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)