Wooden Soapberry Spoon
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1874
name: label: Donor Name
content: U.S. Coast Survey
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "16253-6. NOS. 16253-5: ILLUS. IN USNM AR, 1888; PL. 42, FIGS. 231-5; P. 318." A soapberry spoon.
label: Notes
content: Anthropology's catalogue card and ledger book list the locality for E16253 - 6 as Nunivak Island, however this appears to be a cataloguing error. These artifacts are Dall original #s 1145 - 1148, and Dall's field catalogue, filed under accession no. 3258, identifies them this way: "Wooden utensils used like chopsticks, Chimsyan [sic] Indians, Main Land S. E. of Sitka."
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=515, retrieved 4-24-2012: Soapberry spoon. Soapberries are plentiful in the upriver territories of the Nisga'a and Gitxsan, who traditionally traded them to people on the coast. The berries were dried, whipped with water into foam, sweetened, and served with flat, beautifully carved hardwood spoons. During an 1858 feast that marked a high-ranking girl's initiation into the Destroyer secret society, her father ordered two large canoes to be carried into the house and filled with soapberries, frothed with black molasses. The guests were unable to finish the huge serving. "The Tsimshian word for soapberry is "as." You whip it up, add a little sugar, maybe some salmonberries or blueberries." - David Boxley (Tsimshian), 2009.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 18 Jan 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Tsimshian (Ts'msyen)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 003195
label: USNM Number
content: E16255-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Spoon
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 38.7 cm