Dzoonokwa, a Sasquatch-like creature, belongs to a family of humanoid giants who are both beneficial and menacing to humans. She is known to steal children, but can also bestow power and wealth. A chief who wears this mask when he speaks demonstrates that his ancestors gained this power. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)

The paint is black and red.

This well-finished hamatsa whistle depends for its decoration upon a single color change from the natural wood mouthpiece to dark brown or black painting over the remaining surface, and sensitive shifts from sharp to rounded corners of its square cross section. The three pieces of hardwood, perhaps yew, are fastened together with four tight bindings of commercial seine twine (one of which is missing), which themselves become a part of the decoration. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

The paint is red, blue, gray, and black.

The paint is blue, black, and red.

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)

Whistles, such as this two-toned one, are secretly blown during 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 dish is carved in the form of a reclining human figure, knees drawn close to the body, head extending outward at the opposite end, and hands grasping the edge of the bowl, which encompasses the whole torso. The carving of the disk-shaped head is highly stylized in the Kwakwaka'wakw manner and is painted black, yellow, green, and white. A carved rim resembling rope surrounds the face. It probably represents the twisted red cedar bark that has such a prominent role in the Tseyka ritual. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

This bentwood bowl has high ends and low sides that imitate the shape of a carved oil dish. The formlines painted on the surface are in a freer style than those of nothern artists (compare the bentwood box to the right).