The wood is cedar. The paint is red, black, and white.

The renowned Kwakwaka'wakw artist Mungo Martin identified this transformation mask as his own work. It was made for a chief named Lagius, probably around 1920. The style of carving and painting are recognizable as that of Mungo Martin or his stepfather and mentor Charley James. Although the mask is called Crane in the museum records, the gray color and the hunched attitude when folded are reminiscent of the great blue heron, a bird common to the Kwakwaka'wakw country and often miscalled crane in English. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)

The bead is glass, yellow, and orange.

The paint is white, red, and black.

This Sculpin mask epitomizes the flamboyance of Kwakwaka'wakw theatrical sculpture. Jagged contours, bold, intertwined forms, and snapping, fanning, and waving appendages--all covered with contrasting and complex patterns of strong color--create creatures of startling fantasy. The subdued, wavering light of the dance house softens those contrasts amd unifies the forms. The sculpin swims to the rise and fall of its song in a sea of firelight and swirling eagle down. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)

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

Whistle (mudzis): Whistles, such as this two-tone one, are secretly blown in the Tseyka to signal the first approach of a Hamatsa dancer who is possessed by the Cannibal Spirit. Horns were used in the Tlasula, after the disappearance of the initiate dancer, to announce his or her return in the guise of a supernatural being.

This horn is one of a pair in the Burke Museum collection. It represents a raven, shown with a broad humanoid face, the beak extending downward from the lower jaw. Horns of this type are sometimes designated as from the Dluwulakha ritual. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

The nail is metal. The string is cotton.

In this hamatsa whistle the three different voices are produced by three separate cylindrical whistles bound together so that their mouthpieces join and their barrels radiate out in a fan-like configuration. This is another example of the variety of whistles used in the Tseyka. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)