One display in the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma is called The Richness of Everyday Life.
With regard to the basket, the display states:
“Smaller baskets of berries might be emptied into a larger basket like this one on the gathering grounds. Later it could be tied to a saddle and taken home.”
According to the display:
“With her bag tied and hanging from her waist, a woman’s hands were free to use her digging stick. This style bag is still in use today.”
Masks and Spirituality
The people of the Northwest Coast, particularly those in the Northern and Central portions of this culture area, are well known for their ceremonial masks. Archaeologist Roy Carlson, in an article in American Indian Art, reports that
“the masking tradition goes back in time at least four thousand years.”
Masks are made from wood, primarily cedar and occasionally maple, which is then painted with three primary colors: black or blue, red, and white.
These masks are both art objects and objects with spiritual significance. According to Bruce Grenville, the curator of the Vancouver Art Museum, in his chapter in Down From the Shimmering Sky: Masks of the Northwest Coast:
“Masks are a manifestation of powerful ancestral spirits and are used to make the supernatural world visible.”
According to the Museum display:
“The spiritual world of Indian people granted the same moral rights and responsibilities and the same humanity shared by men and women to the woods, the river, and the weather—to the world around them. This very human world was alive with power and desire and influence. Many winter ceremonials were associated with spirit powers and the act of communicating with this world.”
According to the display:
“This alder mask with movable eyes was once brightly colored and would have had hair attached along the top rim.”
According to the display:
“Masks, rattles and other ceremonial objects were usually painted by men using plant or mineral pigments mixed with a binding of saliva or salmon eggs. Fingers, sharpened sticks or, for finer work, brushed were made from the guard hair of animals such as the porcupine.”
According to the display:
“Carvers used this style of knife, held horizontally to the body, to hollow out the inside of the masks and put the finishing touches on facial features.”
Indians 101
Twice each week Indians 101 explores various American Indian topics. More museum tours from this series:
Indians 101: Plateau Women's Gathering Bags (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Nisqually and Puyallup baskets (photo diary)
Indians 101: Makah, Southwestern Coast Salish, and Chinook Basket (museum tour)
Indians 101: Oregon Coast Indian Baskets (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Suquamish Basketry (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: Model canoes (museum tour)
Indians 101: Food for Life in California (Photo Diary)
Indians 101: A Collection of Tenino Indian Artifacts (Photo Diary)