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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 mask was made by Willie Seaweed as part of a set for the Gyidakhanis dance. The most obvious features of the artist are the precision and clarity of the planes of the face and the clean, meticulous painting. The mask is painted a solid white with commercial paint. The tiny mustache, round eyes, and arched eyebrows of typical Seaweed conformation are in glossy black, while the lips and nostrils are in red. (Holm, Crooked Beak of Heaven, 1972)
Though its exact use is undocumented, this humanoid mask is carved in the classic Kwakwaka'wakw style. Compare the sharply carved facial planes on this mask with the rounded contours of the Nuxalk masks above.
Kwakwaka'wakw box lids characteristically have a high, raised edge along one side and it is this flange, painted with a stylized face and inlaid with sea otter teeth, which remains from the ancient lids and which had a prominent part in the ceremonial repayment of the marriage price. The goods to be transferred, among them a box containing ritual material symbolizing the dances, were gathered on the ground within a square bounded by a line of the archaic lids. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)