Wooden Bowl
date: label: Accession Date
content: 8 Jun 1954
name: label: Collector
content: Clyde L. Eastman
label: Donor Name
content: Col. Clyde L. Eastman
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Oblong higher at ends than in center. Painted red on inner surface, also on outer upper portion. Two encircling grooves on outer surface." View of bottom of bowl showing red painted "Raven's footprint" design, Norton Sound Eskimo, is illus. Fig. 434, p. 305 in Fitzhugh, William W., and Aron Crowell. 1988. Crossroads of continents: cultures of Siberia and Alaska. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. "For the Eskimos of western Alaska, Raven, Creator of the World and its beings and spirits, was also an untrustworthy trickster. Perhaps for this reason his image was studiously avoided in Eskimo art, in contrast with the frequent representations of Thunderbird, and masks portraying puffins, owls, and other birds and animals. Raven appears in western Eskimo art only as a telltale footprint on the bottom of serving bowls, and occasionally in ivory engravings. Sometimes confused with Raven's footprint is the "Y" motif, used frequently in prehistoric and ethnographic art of Bering Strait and Northwest Alaska, where it represents a whaletail. Siberian groups use the same motif, in inverted form, to represent two-legged anthropomorphic guardian spirits."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 7 Jul 2021
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Stebbins, Norton Sound, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 202367
label: USNM Number
content: E393156-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Bowl