From card: "Good old carving representing a duck."

FROM CARD: "CUT FROM THE SOLID (BURL). CARVED TO REPRESENT THE FROG. CLOUD HAT CYLINDER MISSING. TRACES OF GREEN PAINT ONLY REMAIN. NEG. NO. 43,227-B (FRONT). 43,227-(PROFILE-RIGHT SIDE), 43,227-A (BOTTOM). LOANED: OSAKA EXPO-70 JULY 69 - JAN. 71. RETURNED TO COLLECTION DECEMBER 7, 1970." See apparently associated object E60216. December 1881 list in accession file lists the frog helmet as being accompanied by a neck shield.Per Repatriation Office research, as reported in the Tlingit case report (Hollinger et al. 2005), in 1881 John J. McLean purchased this helmet from the Northwest Trading Company at an unknown location in Southeastern Alaska. Evidence supports a cultural affiliation between the Frog House of the Gaana xteidí clan of Klukwan.McLean list in accession file identifies this object as Chilcat. It appears that Chilcat may be meant as a place name on this list, perhaps not specifically or exclusively as a culture name, similar to the way other objects in the collection are identified as Sitka, Kootzahoo, and Hoonia. Chilcat/Chilkat is a name sometimes used for Klukwan.

FROM CARD: "HAND CARVED FROM THE SOLID. TRACES OF VERMILLION, ALSO OF A SLATE COLORED PAINT. BIRD FIGURE. LOAN: MUSEO NACIONAL DE ANTROPOLOGIA [MEXICO], MAY 18, 1964." Loan returned 2012. SEE PROCESSING LAB ACCESSION FILE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. See p. 206-207 in Wright, Robin Kathleen. 2001. Northern Haida master carvers. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Wright identifies this object as having been collected by James G. Swan from Duncan ginaawaan at Klinkwan in 1875.

Spirit of the Ancestors-Many wolf headdresses take this raised snout form. Here the artist has created a hat based on the form of northern Northwest Coast crest hat, using the Nuu-chah-nulth wolf that draws on his own Dit-i-daht artistic and cultural heritage.

The Tlingit warriors who captured and destroyed the Russian fort Archangel Michael in 1802 wore helmets shaped in imitation of ferocious animals with gleaming teeth and of monstrous beings (Kyril Khlebnikov, quoted in Miller and Miller 1967:140). When Alexander Baranoff retook Sitka in 1804, he captured some of those helmets and sent them back to Russia with the Neva's commander Urey Lisiansky. They are among the many old Tlingit helmets in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg today. This killer whale helmet is from that period, and could have even been worn in the 1802 battle, since according to Russian accounts, the plan for the general uprising was made at Angoon, the Hootsnuwoo village. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)

NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN. MURDOCH, DAVID, 1995, Publisher: EYEWITNESS BOOKS - ALFRED A. KNOPF