This pipe, apparently from the 1830s, is unfinished. The six figures represented are very difficult to identify, partly because during the period when the piece was carved Haida artists frequently used creatures that combined attributes of different animls as subjects for their work. Also of interest is the fact that some details, particulalry in the whale-like figure protruding from the bowl end of the pipe, are executed in a much later style. Perhaps the very early, unfinished piece came into the hands of an artist of the 1890 period who decided to continue the carving. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

Pipes were made and used on the Northwest Coast from the period of White contact when the custom of smoking tobacco was introduced. They were made of many materials and in many forms. This small stone pipe utilizes the form of a frog, with the pipe bowl in his back and a hole for the stem under his chin. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

The spruce root is natural. The spruce root is red. The bear grass is natural. The bear grass is black.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, carvers began to produce compact sculptural groups of figures of animals and men. Some of them are very complex, with many figures crowded together in contorted positions. Incidents from myths were often depicted. This group has the bear as its main figure, holding a man in its jaws and a cub on its lap. The meaning of the various figures is not clear, but it is likely that the group illustrates incidents from the "Bear Mother" myth. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)