Museum Expedition 1904, Museum Collection Fund

Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund

Painted wood, hominoid, face mask with large nose. The brows are flat and painted with red extending from the forehead. Large, black eyebrows are underlined with red. The nose, eyesockets and outer cheeks are painted dark blue. The nostrils are red and the inner cheeks around the mouth are green. The mouth is parted and cut through to the back. Painted woven ties are attached to the sides of the mask.

This Kachina possibly represents Hetsululu. This Kachina was so poor he did not have any jewelry, clothes, or moccasins so Hemokatsiki-the grandmother of all Kachinas - rolled some clay into a nice shape and put it on top of his mask. He was then painted in stripes of all the colors used by the Kachinas so he would represent the world. Sometimes he appears barefooted but this doll has been dressed in an additional manner with the high boots. Hetsululu was sent to the village to play a game with the villagers with clay balls. He is considered friendly and now may appear with the mixed dances carrying a bucket of clay balls. Everyone believes that his clay increases rapidly so when he throws clay balls from his bucket they catch them and put them with their corn or bread so that they may also increase.

Bequest of W.S. Morton Mead

Bequest of W.S. Morton Mead

This is called a frame hand drum. There is a modern scarf tied around the hide struts in the back where a person would hold it.In very poor condition.

First number was X956.2. This feather box is made from one piece of wood. There is a rectangular hole in one end of the box bottom. The opposite end is broken. Inside in pencil there is what appears to be written name F.L...Something. The top has a nine point star engraved on it. It is tied when closed with leather thing tied around it. The bottom has remnants of blue paint which is an Osage practice according to Sean Standing Bear, 10/20/2000.

The slightly curved steel blade of the knife is bound to the well-round bone (?) handle by a worked sheet of brass. This brass is finished in a series of little points at the handle end and incised with series of simple lines, both parallel and diagonal, to form bands. The sheath for this knife is worked with porcupine quills in purplish brown, orange, yellow, and natural white in a motif of connecting diamonds. The body of the sheath has an orange triangle with "V" shaped outlines at the very bottom, below the pattern of connected diamonds. The panel or cuff is striped. Many metal cones are suspended from the bottom of the cuff and one single cone, or tinkler is suspended from the bottom tip of the sheath. These 'tin-tinklers' on the panel were once quill-wrapped.The leather is thread sewn so that beige ribbon adorns the panel or cuff.

Brooklyn Museum Collection