NOTES CONCERNING NEW COLLECTIONS. LOWIE, ROBERT H. (ED) ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS, 4, 1910

The Elizabeth Cole Butler Collection.

Woven belt with bone attachments. Wide belt is made in a tight basket weave from thin strips of light and dark brown leather. Buckle is made of two pieces of bone, smoothly carved into rectangles, with a prong nailed to one that fits into a tube joint in the other. Several figures are etched into the bone, including a hunter and a woman in lightweight clothing, and tools such as an oil lamp, ulu, and chopper, among others. Back of belt has similar pieces attached, with images including a walrus and person paddling a boat. Two small undecorated buttons and a long undecorated loop are also attached to the back. Many of the images are accompanied by small Inuktitut syllabics.

Sealskin pouch. Small bag is rounded on bottom with a flap covering the opening at top. No handles are present. Bag is made from light brown leather with dark brown piping at the edges, and circular and square patches of the same set at regular intervals on front and edge for decoration. A curved piece of bone, flattened on front surface, serves as a handle for the flap and is etched and painted with the silhouette of a seal. A tie is attached to two of the decorative circles on the front, which loops over the bone to hold the pouch closed.

Small container carved from tusk. Container is an elongated hexagon, tall, with a crenellated rim. Interior narrows toward bottom, following the line of the tusk’s pulp cavity. On front is engraved an igloo below Inuktitut syllabics, while on the back is etched a stone lamp(?), also with syllabics. Both etchings are emphasized with black, while syllabics are in-painted with red. A channel is carved around the exterior at the bottom, to create the illusion of a base.

Walrus-shaped, almost flat but slightly concave piece of hollowed tusk. Overall the piece takes the outline of a walrus head with wide open mouth and protruding tusk, narrowing toward the rounded opposite end. Interior is concave and undecorated. Exterior is etched with a scene in which a sled pulled by 5 trotting dogs carries two people along with their packages. An igloo stands in the background to the right. The walrus’s whisker follicles and eye are also etched in. The etchings are filled with a dark paint or ink substance to make them more visible.

Carving of a man and dog, on a stand (part a). Male figure (part b) is carved of tusk and stands with arms stretched in front of him. He wears a parka and leggings decorated with black paint around hem, hood, and wrists. Boots and mittens are also black. Facing him is a large dog (part c), white but for its black nose, eyes, mouth and claws. Dog has a thick tail that curves to rest on his back. Both figures have two wooden pegs in their feet that connect them to holes in the stand, which is a long rectangle of smoothed brown stone.

Wooden toy-vendor tree. Tree is made of an upright central bar, in three connected pieces, with two widely spaced bars tied horizontally above midpoint on front. String connects the bars to each other in order to enhance balance. 102 toys are tied or connected by thin dowels to the horizontal bars: 12 standing birds, 14 birds on perches, 3 fish, 12 snakes, 5 crocodiles , 5 dancing couples on elastic string, 7 house boats, 10 canoes, 2 houses, 7 open boxes with either a small snake or turtle inside. Also included in this count are several mechanical toys: 10 armadillos with moveable tails and heads, 5 pairs of woodpeckers pecking a dowel, 5 pairs of people using a pounder, 5 pairs of birds pecking a box. The toys are painted in tempura, with the standing and perched birds realistically coloured, and the rest of the toys painted simply and brightly. Most of the toys have signatures or inscriptions of Spanish names, written in black paint.

Moon mother mask. A large face protrudes from the centre of a convex oval of wood, with a smaller face both above the forehead and below the chin. Central face has prominent black brows and round, black, staring pupils to either side of a carved vertical ridge. Nose has flared red nostrils, above a wide red mouth with a circular labret in an extended lower lip. The smaller faces are nearly identical but with less carved detail and no labret. The bottom face is upside down. Each has several plugs of long brown hair at top of head. The surrounding oval is painted along its edge with black, red and blue-green stripes, with evenly place inset squares of abalone shell. The back of the mask is concave with chamois ties.

Carved figure of a kingfisher. Bird sits with legs and feet at front of body, wings held close to sides. Bill is long and somewhat rounded, with a tall crest sweeping back from the forehead, painted red and black. Black eyes are small and round, while face has designs in green and beak is light grey and red. Head, back, and feathers across torso and wings are outlined in black, with legs painted black and grey. Wings have green and red decoration.