1891.49.27

Collection type

Object

Description

Model wooden stick carved and painted on one end with a human face and headdress. [CAK 19/05/2009]

Long description

Model wooden stick carved and painted on one end with a human face and headdress. The stick has been carved from a single piece of wood. It is straight and carved in the round. The stick tapers toward the handle end and is mostly unpainted. At one end, the stick has been shallowly carved with a human face. An open mouth, the bridge of a nose, and eyes are carved and painted red. Above the face, a ring has been carved around the stick, with perpendicular lines carved toward the terminus to form a headdress. The sections between the lines have been painted black. The terminus is slightly rounded. The reverse of the head has a number of small dents clustered together, which may be evidence of use at some time. It may be modelled on a shaman's tool, or a chief's tally system. [CAK 19/05/2009]

Geographical reference

Canada

Northern America > North America > Canada

British Columbia Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) NW Coast

Cultural groups

Haida

Person

Field collector Charles Harrison

PRM source Charles Harrison

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1882-1890

Date collected

Between 1882 and 1890 ?

Acquisition information

Purchased: 03/1891

Materials and processes

Material Wood Plant, Material Pigment, Process Carved, Process Painted

Dimensions

Length: max 347 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1891.49.27 Other numbers: 19

Research and responses

The following information comes from Haida delegates who worked with the museum’s collection in September 2009 as part of the project “Haida Material Culture in British Museums: Generating New Forms of Knowledge”:

This stick was viewed alongside musical instruments on Thursday Sept 10, 2009. There was general consensus among delegates that this stick, as part of the set including 1891.49.27 - .31, was not a drum stick. Delegates wondered if it was something that would have been used by a shaman. Diane Brown proposed that if it was a shaman's tool, each stick may have been used to cure a different illness. Diane also wondered if these were a chief's tally sticks. She recalled that chief's would use sticks to keep a tally of potlatches and the blankets they had given away. They would store bundles of ten sticks in the rafters of their house to signify the blankets they had given away. Christian White noted that there was very little wear on the sticks, suggestion they were models and not used. [CAK 07/04/2010]

The object is one of eleven model sticks collected by Harrison. It bears a resemblance in carving, though not in painting, to 1891.49.23. [CAK 19/05/2009]

Search terms: Model, Figure, Measurement, Medicine, Tally, Medical Accessory