As soon as northern Northwest Coast people acquired from Euro-American seamen the custom of smoking tobacco rather than chewing or sucking it, they began to make pipes. Those they made for their own use were usually of wood, with the bowl reinforced or made of metal. Sometimes this metal, which protected the wooden pipe from the heat of the burning tobacco, was merely a lining of copper. The favorite material for pipe bowls, however, was a section of musket barrel. By the early nineteenth century, firearms had come into common use all over the coast, obtained from Euro-American traders. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)

Made to be held in each hand, the rattles represent the upraised paws of the grizzly, the fearsome crest animal of the Nanyaayi. The claws curving over the face from the naturalistically rendered foot on the back of the rattle show that the intent was to represent the bear's foot with a human face on the pad. Human faces often appear on the palms of hands and soles of feet of humans and animals in northern Northwest Coast art. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)