Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund

Museum Expedition 1904, Museum Collection Fund

Brooklyn Museum Collection

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

The Dzunuk'wa, or Cannibal women is a figure important to those Kwakwaka'wakw people who have an ancestral relationship to the stories involving her. She is a large, cumbersome figure, looking very bear like with shaggy fur over her body. She is clumsy and lumbers through the Northwest Coast cedar forests crying "Hoo Hoo Hoo" through her pursed lips. She is thought to carry a large woven basket with her. Should she discover a child who has disobeyed their parents and entered the woods without an adult she scoops them upinto her basket and takes them to her den to eat them! Thus children are always warned against entering the forests without permission! Her mask is a large, and wooden, painted shiny black with spattered white pigment overall and accents of red pigment and fur. The mouth has a large round opening that is surrounded by prominent red lips. Pursed as if she is crying "hoo hoo." The interior of the eyes and nostrils that are large round holes painted red. Fur, possibly bear, attached with iron nails, surrounds the lips and forms the eyebrows. A previous application of fur on these areas is suggested by the appearance of corroded nails holding down remnants of fur plus extraneous nail holes. Used originally to secure the mask are leather thongs at the eyes, the back surface just below the eyes, and at the chin where they were attached to a leather strap. The ritual dance performed with this mask continues today by an individual who inherits the privilege. On the body of the dancer would be bear like regalia and the dancer mimics the clumsy gait of the real Dzunuk'wa. Some feast dishes have forms similar to those contained in these masks. The object is stable and in fair condition. Along the edges, especially on the lower, proper right side is old insect damage. Long vertical cracks are present in the wood, but appear stable.

Museum Expedition 1908, Museum Collection Fund

This is one of a pair of wolf (?) masks (see 08.491.8905b). Both are constructed of wood pieces nailed together to make flat sided, flat ended forms with painted faces. The two masks generally resemble each other; however, there are construction differences between them and the painted forms on each mask differ. Both have openwork frets along the top and cut out teeth. Remnants of cedar bark hair are inside the top frets on each mask. Both have ovoid eyes; however, one mask's eye area is infilled with black dots and the other's has solid red infill. A long, thick curved eyebrow arches over each eye on both masks; however, nostrils differ: one has nostrils with black over red painted geometric forms; the other has black painted swirled nostrils. There is uncertainty whether the pair represent wolves or serpents. They might be serpents for if the objects were wolves, they most likely would have no ears. The object (08.491.8905a) appears to be structurally stable except for the fabric attached at the front under the jaw. Also, the split cane bundles that represent fur (?) are dried and brittle. The proper left side of the mask appears to have been repainted. The mask is properly worn on the top of the head with the face forward.

Stewart Culin collected this side chair in Zuni Pueblo in 1904, calling it an “Ancient kneeling chair." The chair is pieced together from 11 planks and 4 square posts. Its ornamentation is limited to horizontal grooves and soft scalloping on the lower rails. The crest rail displays a series of peaks along its upper edge, apparently cut across previously inscribed horizontal lines. Below the lines is a series of irregularly, squarish gouge holes. The rear stiles' finials are stepped, and their top set-back shows a rough area where a segment may have broken off. The front stiles show grooving and exposed top ends that may have been covered by a forward seat plank. Nails secure the seat planks to the frame, but rails and stiles are joined with open mortise-and-tendon joints. Although Culin interpreted the stepped finials as Indian cloud forms In Spain, Islamic, North African stepped designs were also common forms. Other Hispanic traits include the mortis-and-joint construction and rectangular forming of its members and the use of staining. It has been suggested that it also demonstrates European proportions: about 2/3 vara by 1/2 vara (Spanish yard). If the finials had not broken off it would resemble the scrolled rear stiles of modest Spanish renaissance chairs. Scholar Ramon Gutierrez raises questions regarding its meaning to Pueblo culture. He argues that Franciscans studied and manipulated Pueblo society to establish Christian authority and values and therefore the chair may represent an effort to impose Catholic-Spanish culture on the part of an unwilling native maker. If "always offered" to a guest of Euro-culture the chair may have meant respect for or control of that visitor, depending on the social, political, and gender status of both host and guest within Pueblo culture in the 1800s.