These arrows were made by non-Native anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing and are part of his personal Zuni outfit.

Museum Expedition 1908, Museum Collection Fund

This is a hand adze composed of a carved wood handle, bear shin bone blade and commercial twine wrapped around both to bind together. The wood handle iconography has the top of a wolf's head with the upper torsos of a pair of dancers wearing wolf masks. These masks usually come in pairs (See 08.491.8905a,b). According to Culin collecting records the bone blade replaced an iron blade (2908:84). According to Bill Holm, Northwest Coast specialist, the twine is commercial and unabraded which indicates the adze has never been used in this form. The handle shows a wear pattern of the hand that used it and is softly worn.

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.

This is a painted elk hide. The narrative includes a camp scene with tipis, a "sun" dance, modified to show an eagle rising above the pole structure, which has an unraised buffalo head. Warriors dressed in finery are entering the village. On the fringe a group of women sit near a fire. The perimeter depicts a buffalo hunt with the hunters on horseback using rifles. Vignettes of skinning the buffaloes are also depicted with heaps of the heads, hides and hooves separated and piled. The colors used are brown, black, red, pink, purple, blue, maroons, and green. See supplementary files in Arts of Americas office for a study of paints.

Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund

By exchange

Written on object: "from Beasley Collection, H.M.S. Grewler, 1864."

Model house with front section having a totem pole in the center and a house post at either end. The house model was made for visitors to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 as a traditional example of Haida architecture. There is a split in the wood of the angled beam below the house post on the proper left side of the front due to a nail which attaches the corner post. Some surface wear but condition generally good. Description from Dean's notes: George Dickson (his grandmother was a daughter of Clads an Coon, her mother was a daughter of the Massett Chief Edenshaw), also mentioned in an account of old houses. Name of house was Seen-ah-Cootkie, House of Contentment. Figure on pole: wasgo, whale, female shaman, three watchmen on top, one on each corner post: adopted through connections with Skidegate family.

Around 1700 the distinctive estípite column with its angular profile - widest in the middle of the shaft, narrower at the base and capital - became popular in Spain, particularly in Andalusia. Its transmission to the New World occurred when Spanish artist Jerónimo Balbás traveled to Mexico to design an altar screen for the cathedral. His Altar of the Kings (1718-37) included numerous polychrome and gilded estípite columns, which were rapidly copied and, unlike in Spain, also applied to some stone facades. The first known use of estípite columns on the northern frontier of New Spain is on the carved and painted stone altar of the castrense chapel (1761) in the style of Spanish-born artist Captain Bernardo Miera y Pacheao (1714-1785). The columns from the Lady of Guadalupe at Zuni Pueblo represent the second known example of this style in New Mexico and are exceptionally well-executed, provincial examples of the form. These were apparently gessoed and polychromed, not layered with gold leaf like estípite in central Mexico. The carving includes standard elements of the late Baroque or Estípite Baroque style characterized by Rococo decorative details such as geometric compartments in the shape of squares, circles, and rectangles as well as opposing S- and C-scroll motifs, seen on the upper shaft. The lower shaft displays chevrons, winged cherubs, vegetal filler overlapping the shaft's frame, and suspended bunches of Eucharistic grapes. Photographs and illustrations from the mid-to-late nineteenth century depict the altar screen with four large estípite columns (this one and three counterparts). The altar screen originally included a large oil painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, images of Saint Dominic, Francis, Michael, and Gabriel, and a relief of God the Father at the top.