Fish Killing Club
date: label: Accession Date
content: 30 Dec 1903
label: Collection Date
content: 1903
name: label: Collector
content: Lt. George T. Emmons
label: Donor Name
content: Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Of wood, carved to represent a sea offer [sic, should be sea otter, not offer]. Carried to kill fish before taking into canoe." Illus. Fig. 412, p. 295 in Fitzhugh, William W., and Aron Crowell. 1988. Crossroads of continents: cultures of Siberia and Alaska. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Identified there: Killer Whale Fish Club, Tlingit. "Clubs of hardwood, sometimes elaborately carved as animals or spirit allies, were used to kill halibut and salmon. Seals and sea otter were killed the same way. Very often these carvings took the form of predators like sea lions or killer whales - animals that feed on salmon and seals."
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=664, retrieved 3-31-2012: Fish Club. Halibut fishermen used wooden clubs to kill or stun their catch; otherwise a heavy, struggling fish might turn over the canoe. The clubs were often beautifully carved, like this one which bears the image of a sea otter. "They didn't want to spoil the head because they were going to cook it, so they were very careful where they hit it [a halibut]. / Yeah, right here in the nostrils. That stunned it and then you turned it over so the belly side was up and then it didn't fight as much. If you leave it belly side down then it bangs the boat a lot." - Delores Churchill (Haida) / Donald Gregory (Tlingit), 2005.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 10 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Wrangell Island / Fort Wrangell, Alexander Archipelago, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Tlingit, Stikine
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 042081
label: USNM Number
content: E224419-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Club
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 47.5 cm