Dancing Mask
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1876
name: label: Collector
content: James G. Swan
label: Donor Name
content: James G. Swan
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "20576-8. ILLUS. IN BAE 3RD AR, PL. XIII, FIG. 21, P. 171." Description of mask in the publication cited above is on p. 116: "A well-carved modern mask, collected by J.G. Swan for the National Museum at Bellabella, British Columbia, near Milbank Sound; history wanting. It is carved of Alaska cedar, rather thick and heavy. The ears, nostrils, lips, upper forehead, bands around the face and across the cheeks are colored red; the eyebrows and irides are black. The remainder of the portions dark-shaded in the figure are blue, powdered while wet with triturated mica, which adhered when the paint had hardened. The surface of the wood is bare in some of the lighter-shaded portions. The eyes are not perforated, the wearer peeping through the nostril holes. This mask was held on by cords passing through its ears and around the nasal septum. The interior is soiled with red paint, which appears to have been rubbed off the painted face of the wearer. This is also evidently a festival mask, not used in connection with, or, at least, not symbolic of, ... totemic ritual."
label: Notes
content: Illus. Fig. 25, p. 36 in King, J. C. H. 1979. Portrait masks from the Northwest Coast of America. [New York]: Thames and Hudson. Identified there as: "Northern Kwakiutl human face mask. A heavily carved mask painted black, red and blue, of unknown significance. The eyes are not pierced so that the wearer would have looked through the nostrils. It was collected in the 1870s by J.G. Swan at Bella Bella, British Columbia, c. 1850-1875.
label: Notes
content: Clyde Tallio (Nuxalk) and Ian Reid (Heiltsuk) of the delegation from Bella Bella, Bella Coola and Rivers Inlet communities of British Columbia made the following comments during the Recovering Voices Community Research Visit May 20th -24th, 2013. This mask has eye orbs the same as the classic Nuxalk style.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 11 Sep 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: British Columbia, Canada, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Bella Bella (Heiltsuk, Haíłzaqv) (?)
label: Culture
content: Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw) (?)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 004686
label: USNM Number
content: E20578-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Mask
physicalDescription: label: Height - Object
content: 23 cm