Abalone shell imported from California and the Pacific islands was an important material for the native artist. The material was often used for inlays, but plaques and shaped pieces were also used as ornaments in themselves. This pair of earrings are shaped of abalone shell to resemble large shark teeth which were prized as earrings. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

Carving on halibut hooks is often simple and rough. Very likely the fisherman himself does the carving, and only if he happens incidentally to be an artist is it expertly designed and finished. The figures are meant to be seen only by the halibut, and their magical power is more important than any artistic excellence. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

An interesting adaptation of introduced materials is often seen in smoking pipes in which sections of musket barrels and pieces of gunstock wood have been combined to form the body and bowl. The bowl of this pipe has been cut from a standard trade musket barrel. The head of a bird, perhaps and eagle, is carved around the base of the bowl with stylized feet trailing behind toward the stem. Abalone shell has been inlaid in the eyes, mouth, and around the back of the head. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

This figure group is a finial from the lid of an elaborately carved argillite chest, the other parts of which are in the United States National Museum. This is the work of Charles Edensaw, one of the great Haida artists. Here, a bear holds the twisted body of a man in its jaws. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

This face mask represents a man wearing what appears to be a ceremonial head ring. The mask has been left the natural color of the wood except for a black band on the head ring, black eyebrows, and narrow black lines defining the eyes. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

Small figures like this one, sometimes dressed in a miniature replica of the shaman's regalia, may have been made for use in his practice. This small man half-crouches, his hands on his knees and his mouth half open as if speaking or singing. A projecting flange on top of his head appears to have been a means of attaching hair or a headdress. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

This mask has features that suggest a conjectural identification as a sea creature on the order of the Kwakwaka'wakw Bugwis. The mask is painted dark red, with the features in black and white. A fringe of grass-like material is attached across the top of the mask and falls behind, simulating hair. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

A human figure with the claws of a bear grasps the pipe bowl, large and barrel-shaped, between his knees and with his clawed hands. The somewhat flattened limbs and the planes of the face show formline influence. The pipe bowl has been lined and rimmed with sheet copper to protect the wood from the heat of the burning tobacco. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

The massive spiral horns of the mountain sheep furnished Northwest Coast craftsmen with material for many objects, chief among them bowls and spoons. The horn is very tough and hard, but when fresh and thoroughly soaked it can be carved. Heating the horn by steaming or boiling makes it somewhat soft and flexible, and it can be bent and shaped within limits. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)

This pipe, apparently from the 1830s, is unfinished. The six figures represented are very difficult to identify, partly because during the period when the piece was carved Haida artists frequently used creatures that combined attributes of different animls as subjects for their work. Also of interest is the fact that some details, particulalry in the whale-like figure protruding from the bowl end of the pipe, are executed in a much later style. Perhaps the very early, unfinished piece came into the hands of an artist of the 1890 period who decided to continue the carving. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)