a) 4 crutch type canoe paddles; b) cedarbark mat sail; wolf design on canoe in black and red. Wolf design identified by Charles Brown.
Donor:
W. Barclay Stephens
Collection place:
Masset, Graham Island, Queen Charlotte Islands
Verbatim coll. place:
Canada; British Columbia; Queen Charlotte Islands; Masset
Culture or time period:
Haida and Tlingit
Collector:
Willie J. Clark Dodd
Collection date:
1887-1890
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Canoes and Models (concepts)
Function:
5.7 Objects made for sale, souvenirs, models, and reproductions
Accession date:
1936
Context of use:
This model of canoe used for going to potlatches in another town.
Department:
Native US and Canada (except California)
Dimensions:
length 74 centimeters
Comment:
This guy did it exactly because at the ends he added the pieces on. The bow and stern pieces were added on. That's what we do on the real larger canoes. He didn't have to do it on this small one. It might have been a model for a real one. A lot of the canoes were made for families - you could go anywhere in the shallows. The painting looks like a bird. Looking at it, it feels like he understood a lot about making canoes but not much about designing. A lot of the paintings are family crests. The paint wasn't treated but I wouldn't worry about it wearing out. The paint is made of fish eggs for binder - you'd chew up the fish eggs and spit out the membrane." - remarks by Reg Davidson and Jim Hart, October 1990. "Canoe made by Masset Haida Indians and traded to the Tlingits who painted the decoration." - remarks by Charles Brown, June 1964.
Loans:
S1963-1964 #91: Haida-Tlingit Organization, Oakland (May 30, 1964–June 1, 1964), S1964-1965 #49: Alaska Alumni Association, California Chapter (January 15, 1965–January 18, 1965), S1964-1965 #6: National Park Service (August 12, 1964–December 5, 1964), and S1966-1967 #10: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque (September 29, 1966–September 11, 1967)