From card: "Old label: "Made of whale's skull. Handle, a bar between two upright end-pieces, terminating in animal heads. Ornamented by the conventional dot and circle." From late 19th or early 20th century Smithsonian exhibit label stored with the card: "Braking tool - Made of whale's skull. Handle, a bar between two upright end pieces, terminating in animal heads. Ornamented by the conventional dot and circle. Length of blade 9 inches. Washington Territory, 1854. Collected by George Catlin."Illus. Fig. 5.17, p. 88 in Brotherton, Barbara. 2008. S'abadeb = The gifts : Pacific Coast Salish arts and artists. Seattle: Seattle Art Museum in association with University of Washington Press. Figure caption notes: "This functional tool was used to break down the fibrous inner bark of the red cedar tree to make it pliable for weaving mats, hats and baskets, or to break down bark from the yellow cedar with which to weave robes, capes, and dresses. Softened bark was also used for bandages, baby diapers, and rope. The dried strips of bark cut in uniform lengths would be laid over a sharp edge - like a canoe paddle - and chopped with the shredder. ... On each end this shredder has identical creatures with open mouths, short ears, and rounded eyes. Each creature's foot, as well as the blade, is decorated with incised circles and dots."

This [E73333-1] is the smaller wooden cradleboard with plaster baby head, described on the catalog card for 73,333-B. It is distinguishable from the others by the nail in the baby's bottom lip and the carved wood "cords" across the body. The "Northwest Coast" attribution is from unknown source. See catalog cards for discussion of the history of these objects. Note: This object also at one time appears to have been called # 73311B, as the description and drawing on the catalogue card for that number appear to match this object.

ILLUS. FIG. 64, P. 87, IN DOWN FROM THE SHIMMERING SKY BY PETER MACNAIR, VANCOUVER ART GALLERY, 1998. IDENTIFIED THERE BY PETER MACNAIR AS MASK REPRESENTING MALE ANCESTOR.Illus. Fig. 18, p. 29 in King, J. C. H. 1979. Portrait masks from the Northwest Coast of America. [New York]: Thames and Hudson. Identified there (p. 28) as "Haida mask of a man. ... this was originally decorated with fur to represent a moustache and beard; the unusual feature is the combination of traditional formline designs with entirely abstract markings around the left eye. Unlike most early nineteenth-century Haida human face masks, this was evidently made for use; at some stage - perhaps before it was collected - it split open and was pinned together again. c. 1800-50."

PROBABLY MADE OF FINELY TWISTED TWO-PLY CATTAIL (TYPHA LATIFOLIA) LEAF CORD - *SEE* A TIME OF GATHERING BY ROBIN K. WRIGHT, 1991, P. 34, 40, 48. Illus. p. 247 and described p. 247 and p. 382 in Gilman, Carolyn. 2003. Lewis and Clark across the divide. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books. Identified there as Chinook.A similar Chinook skirt, from Lewis and Clark, is in collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, # PM 99-12-10/52990. The Peabody Museum website notes that Lewis and Clark "... described at length the unique twined cordage skirts that women in the lower Columbia River area made from cedar bark or cattail leaves, which were valuable commodities in local trade networks." Peabody Museum curator Castle McLaughlin has noted that the Catlin cordage skirts E73291, E73306 and E386547 have red paint applied to them, but this is not typical for these types of skirts. The red paint may have been applied by George Catlin?During the cataloguing of quillwork E386582B in 1948, a tag was found with it that stated "From a Lewis and Clark Chinook Skirt in Catlin Coll". Curator John C. Ewers determined that the tag did not actually belong with E386582B. It is possible that the tag might instead have been associated with Chinook skirts E73291, E73306 or E386547. This tag has not currently been located. Nor can the source of the possible ID of a Chinook skirt in the Catlin collection to Lewis and Clark be determined.

From card: "Oak frame with two braces, pointed toe and heel, toe curved up. Foot netting of finely woven prepared buckskin or babiche, fastened over braces and frames, protected from chafing by pieces of cloth, heel and toe netting of finer babiche rove through the frame. Sides of frame ornamented with tufts of red flannel. Deerskin strips for fastening toe part to the boot."These snowshoes resemble a pair illustrated in Figure 240d, after p. 138 in Catlin, George. Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Conditions of North American Indians: Volume II, 1841. Catlin identifies them as Sioux.See U.S. National Museum Annual Report for 1894, p. 405, where these snowshoes are described and identified as a Cree type.

From card: "Described in Amer. Ind. Costumes in the U.S. National Museum by H.W. Krieger. S.I. Annual Report for 1928, p. 640: "The warp of this specimen is a stiff heavy cord of some fibre not ascertained. The weft is soft pelage of the mountain goat. The colors are dark green, brownish red, black, and white. The patterns are simple, consisting of w shape, comblike, and sets of three horizontal bars, divided by narrow stripes of herringbone pattern. The border is of wedges of black and green on white background. This interesting relic is probably [?] from the Lewis Collection from the Columbia (Lewis and Clark Expedition), which is said to have been acquired by Catlin." Illustrated plate 9 a and b, same publ. Note: "on old museum label this specimen is identified as "ancient blanket of the Nez Perce Indians (Shahaptian stock) [sic]." However, Spinden, in the "Nez Perce Indians" Memoirs AAA. Vol.II Pt.III. states (p.190) "It seems fairly certain that these people never wove blankets."From 19th or early 20th century exhibit label with card: "177,710A. Ancient blanket of the Salish Indians .... The warp is of two-ply twine of Indian hemp. The weft is of dog hair. The warp is not set on a loom, but is suspended from a pole, and the weft is inserted by twine weaving in precisely the same manner as the basketry of the Tlingit Indians and tribes farther south, only the blanket is woven from the top downward."Fragment of Classic Salish blanket, illus. Fig. 29, p. 46, in Salish Weaving by Paula Gustafson, University of Washington Press, 1980. It is described on p. 125, cat. entry 84: "Colour: Dark green, brownish-red, black and white, all faded. Weave: Twine." It is also described on p. 47-8 of Gustafson as: "... both the warp and weft are of vegetable fibre, probably Indian hemp. The blanket appears to have been designed with at least fourteen horizontal bars, six or more of which are broken by dark vertical lines. It is bordered on at least two sides by an arrowhead pattern, and the one remaining edge carries two horizontal panels, one repeating the arrowhead design of the borders but with narrow vertical red and blue stripes, and the lower edge evidencing a red and black zigzag pattern. The original fibre colour has aged to a soft honey yellow and the dyed areas have faded slightly, giving a mellow appearance to the finely woven fragment."There has been speculation (see reference above) that some of the Northwest Coast artifacts in the Catlin collection came originally either from the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806 or from Clark's Indian Museum in St. Louis (1816-1838). Catlin did know Clark, however there is no proof or documentation that Lewis and Clark Expedition artifacts or Clark artifacts are in the Catlin collections. See "William Clark's Indian Museum in St. Louis 1816-1838" by John C. Ewers, in "A Cabinet of Curiosities", ed. Walter Whitehill, University of Virginia Press, 1967.Reference: Solazzo, C., S. Heald, M.W. Ballard, D.A. Ashford, P.T. DePriest, R.J. Koestler, and M. Collins. 2011. Proteomics and Coast Salish blankets: A tale of shaggy dogs? Antiquity 85: 1418-1432. http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/085/ant0851418.htm . Identified there as a Classic (1778 - 1850) blanket - mixture of Mountain goat hair and Salish wool or woolly dog hair in both warp and weft.See p. 296 in Catlin, George. 1848. Catlin's notes of eight years' travels and residence in Europe with his North American Indian collection: with anecdotes and incidents of the travels and adventures of three different parties of American Indians whom he introduced to the courts of England, France, and Belgium, Vol. 1. New-York: Burgess, Stringer & Co. There Catlin is describing his "Indian Gallery" artifacts, and notes that they include "Indian Cloths, Robes &c, manufactured by the Indians from the mountain sheep's wool, and from wild [sic] dogs' hair, beautifully spun, coloured, and woven." See p. 386 in "The George Catlin Indian Gallery in the U.S. National Museum (Smithsonian Institution) with Memoir and Statistics" by Thomas [Corwin] Donaldson, in Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1885, part 5, Government Printing Office, 1886, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31077461 . It is noted there: "After Mr. Catlin's return to London from Paris in 1848, he added to his gallery a series of full-length costumed figures [mannequins]." See also p. 388 of the same publication https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31077463 . There it is noted that one of these mannequins, Catlin display mannequin # 625, depicted "A Nay-as Woman, wearing ... a splendid robe, made of the wool of the mountain sheep and wild dog's hair ... ."Illus. Fig. 40, p. 99 (detail), in Tepper, Leslie Heymann, Janice George, and Willard Joseph. 2017. Salish Blankets: robes of protection and transformation, symbols of wealth.