THE CHIEF DIRECTS THE CEREMONY FROM THE STERN OF THE CANOE

Every article of dress and regalia from the smallest ivory ornament to the largest ceremonial robe is reproduced in durable materials and with fidelity to nature

—"Work on the Ceremonial Canoe," page 238

# The American Museum Journal

Vol. X

DECEMBER, 1910

No. 8

## HERCULEAN TASK IN MUSEUM EXHIBITION

### FOREWORD REGARDING THE CEREMONIAL CANOE SCENE IN THE NORTH PACIFIC HALL

Photographs from the North Pacific Coast by Lieutenant George T. Emmons, Museum photographs by Thomas Lunt

A N unusually large task in exhibition entered upon by the Museum is that of filling a Ceremonial Haida Canoe sixty-four and a half feet long with Indian figures, about forty in all, representative in physique, garb and action of the tribes of the North Pacific Coast. The conception is that of Director Hermon C. Bumpus, supervision of scientific details is under Lieutenant George T. Emmons, and the technical work is being carried out by the sculptor, Sigurd Neandross.

Lieutenant Emmons has spent some thirty years among the Indians of the Northwest Coast, working with deep interest along the lines covering their culture and is abundantly equipped in knowledge. The Museum will always be in his debt for invaluable service. Sigurd Neandross is an American sculptor of Norwegian parentage who has been honored at home and abroad. Notable among his works are a monument in the public square in Copenhagen — an imaginative figure of a nymph singing the song of the Vikings, a bust of a mother and child shown at the Berlin International in 1897 and now in the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum at Krefeld, Germany, and in this country a bronze statue of an officer of volunteers in the public square at Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Mr. Neandross has at present several large idealistic figures and groups in progress.

The Ceremonial Haida Canoe was made many years ago on the Skeena River near Port Essington on the Alaskan Coast and formed a part of the Powell collection secured by the Museum in 1883. The monstrous boat hung for many years from the ceiling of the hall, taking its present place in 1908. In this year decision was made to convert it into a great open exhibition case in which to set forth the primitive culture of the Northwest Coast Indians, and the idea advanced by Lieutenant Emmons was accepted that the exact expression of the exhibition should take the form of an institution known as the "potlatch," a ceremonial allowing attractive use of the rich Northwest Coast materials in the possession of the Museum.

227

SKETCH MODEL IN CLAY

Work was begun in the summer of 1908. The time represented by the scene is somewhat over a century ago when these Indians first came in contact with Europeans. The canoe is supposed to have reached the surf of the beach, being kept in position there by the paddlers holding water and the bow and stern men operating the poles while ceremonial speeches and dances are rehearsed. The result of the positions chosen for paddlers and polemen is not only an artistic one but gives opportunity for mechanically bracing the boat so that there can be no vibration of the exhibit, the poles being anchored in the floor and the paddles riveted in the cement base supporting the canoe.

Mr. Neandross has taken hold of the Museum's problem with unusual insight into the needs of the case, designing an immense composition with sweep and balance in the grouping, yet each figure an accurate study of tribe, suited in dress and action to its particular part in the meaning of the whole. The ideal of exhibition in a people's museum must be accuracy and completeness of truth in such combination with beauty, life and action that there is produced a resultant of human interest and educational force. Mr. Neandross has proved in his work as a sculptor before the world that he is on the way to mastery of a combination in art unusual and difficult, that is of realism and idealism. It is this power of the sculptor which is in considerable part bringing success to the Museum's giant task.

M. C. D.

The actual story of the great canoe's journey to New York is as follows: It was paddled by Haida Indians to Victoria, carried by schooner to Port Townsend, Puget Sound; by steamer to San Francisco; by Pacific mail steamer to Panama; across the Isthmus on the Panama Railroad from Panama to Colón, whence it was shipped on the deck of a Pacific mail steamer to New York. In crossing the Isthmus, to avoid injury during sharp turns, the canoe was adjusted on two platform cars, being fastened securely on the forward car and swinging loosely on greased guys on the rear car. Free transportation from San Francisco to New York was contributed by the President of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.

A SUGGESTION OF THE PLAN

## THE POTLATCH OF THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST

By Lieutenant George T. Emmons

THE potlatch is the distinctive feature of aboriginal life along the North Pacific Coast from the Strait of Fuca to the vicinity of Mt. St. Elias. It is the great giving ceremony when individuals and families gladly impoverish themselves that the dead may be honored, the emblem of the clan exalted and social standing recognized or increased.

What was probably a simple feast for the dead in primitive days, in the progress of time has become a most complex observance which however is regulated by the strictest laws of etiquette and though varying somewhat in minor details among different tribes is recognized in the main by all.

OF THE TLINGIT RACE

Underlying the potlatch as a social function is a deep religious fervor in the worship of ancestry and the communion with the dead

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The social organization of the Tlingit is founded upon matriarchy and consists of a number of clans or totemic families grouped under two exogamous phratries which intermarry and supplement each other upon all occasions of ceremony. In the building of the home, the erection of the heraldic or mortuary column (totem pole), the preparation and cremation of the dead, and the mutilations of the body, the service is invariably performed by those of the opposite party, and the potlatch is given in payment for these acts; but underlying the more social function is a deep religious fervor in the worship of ancestry and the communion with the dead. The food and tobacco that are cast into the fire become a spiritual administration to those who are ever present though invisible, and with each offering there is called the name of one departed who receives honor in proportion the gift.

The peculiar food and climatic conditions throughout this area have not only rendered this wholesale giving possible but also have encouraged its practice and development to an enormous degree. Here life is comparatively easy. The wonderful annual run of salmon, trout, herring and eulochon, the steady supply of halibut, cod, whale, seal and shell fish, the generous yield of berries, roots and green things, as well as the great forests of cedar, spruce and hemlock, and pure water ever at hand, combine to offer the greatest advantages with the least exertion. Along this Pacific coast there are but two seasons. During the milder and pleasanter period from April until October the food supply is procured, and the remainder of the year, not extreme in temperature but wet and stormy, becomes a time of leisure. These leisure months from October till May are devoted to social pleasures and ceremonies among which the potlatch holds the first place.

Preparations for the function may occupy much of a lifetime in the accumulation of material to be given away, and the invitations are personally delivered months or a year in advance. The guests, including generally two tribes or village clans, if living at a distance get ready as soon as they return from the summer camps. The canoes are repainted and decorated, dancing paraphernalia is unpacked and gone over, a sufficient food supply for the travel is put aside, and a programme of dances and songs with which to honor their host is arranged. Households embark together in the largest canoes and as in war parties they are under the direct supervision of their chief. They travel and camp together and practice their dances and songs en route. From time to time the host receives notification of their progress and when they are within one camp of their destination, he sends out envoys and food to them. The final day when they embark, the canoes are assigned their places with the chief leading. The men and women

IN THE LAND OF THE POTLATCH

TLINGIT CHILDREN

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have put on their ceremonial dress, the face has been painted and the hair dressed with red ocher and birds' down. With drum, rattle and dance staff they take their places in the sterns of the canoes which now follow each other in column until near the village of their host when they form in line abreast and holding gunwale to gunwale stand in slowly to the shore, the occupants singing and dancing to the accompaniment of the drum. When nearing the beach those paddling hold water, the bow and stern men get out the poles and the line of boats is kept in position, while speeches are exchanged through several hours. With the signal to land the canoes are backed around stern first and beached, the villagers rush into the water to greet their friends and carry the party's belongings to the house which has been prepared for reception and all is confusion and bustle.

In early days the Tlingits had many slaves who paddled the war canoes besides performing all work for their masters. They were not permitted to take part in the ceremonies and were often sacrificed upon the occasion of the potlatch. The group which Mr. Neandross is so skillfully executing represents a Chinat chief and his followers in ceremonial dress in the war canoe just before landing to attend a potlatch. The dress and materials represented on the figures are all from the North Pacific Coast and in the possession of the American Museum.

SUCH IS THE COUNTRY OF THE TLINGIT INDIANS

A POLEMAN IN THE CEREMONIAL CANOE, SHOWING THE SCULPTOR'S SKILL IN MAKING CASTS OF FIGURES IN ACTION

235

# THE WORK ON THE CEREMONIAL CANOE

## A MODIFIED METHOD OF MAKING PLASTER CASTS FROM LIFE

By Sigurd Neandross

THE Museum is continually carrying on experiments to find methods for reproducing objects which cannot in themselves, because of the very nature of the case, be exhibited, and when the work was started upon the Ceremonial Canoe Scene of the Chilcat Indians it was found that the earlier methods of cast taking were not entirely satisfactory.

The work as a whole brings an unusually large number of technical problems, for here must be reproduced some forty figures for exhibition without the protection of glass cases in the center of the North Pacific Coast Hall. The lack of protection means that not even the garments, the furs, the masks and regalia can be used, for a few years of such exposure would mean great deterioration in value of some of the richest possessions of the Museum. Therefore everything from the smallest ivory ornament to the largest ceremonial robe has to be reproduced and that in durable materials. The work presents unusual difficulties also, because in addition to its artistic scope, it has to be given great scientific value as a record of individual types of these Indian tribes, requiring at every step work most accurate of form and lifelike in coloring.

In the figure work a new method has been developed to a most successful working so that perfect life casts can be made. A paraffin spraying machine, the idea of which was obtained by Director Bumpus in Europe, has been utilized to cover the model with a coat of wax preliminary to the application of the plaster. Some time after the work was begun, however, a simple brush method of applying the paraffin was substituted for the machine. This yields equally good results and has the advantage of making the method possible for a man working alone in the studio or in the field. The method makes the process less disagreeable for the model than is the case in making the ordinary plaster mold. It is also possible to make larger casts in this manner than by the usual method, such as the full head and shoulders as in a portrait bust, even half the body or in fact the whole if the pose permits. One principal gain in plaster casts taken from molds in which the paraffin process is used is the advantage of accuracy of form whereas in the old method the weight of the plaster compresses and distorts all the softer parts of the body. The threads used to cut the mold being first laid over the model in the usual way, warm paraffin heated in a

238

### SHAMAN'S RATTLE

One is the original, the other a reproduction in plaster. The half-tone shows only in part the striking similarity of the two because of lack of color

### SHAMAN'S CEREMONIAL MASK

Lack of color and unequal lighting prevent the apparent identity that exists when the masks are taken in the hand. That on the right is the original

239

CANOES OF THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST INDIANS 243

THE CEREMONIAL BEAR DANCER

double boiler is painted over the model with a soft brush. The work is started at the lowest parts; each stroke of the brush leaves a film which immediately becomes hard; the painting or splashing of the paraffin is continued until about one-fourth of an inch is covered over the model. A coat of this thickness will resist any pressure from the plaster which at this stage is applied over the paraffin and in such thickness as to insure the safe handling of the mold. Before the plaster becomes entirely hard the threads are drawn to cut the mold into manageable parts as in the ordinary "piece mold."

In the matter of dressing the figures it was soon found that plaster alone was too brittle and that for clothing or objects of regalia each specimen must have a different treatment. Woven cloth and skins are copied in burlap or caracas cloth which, dipped in a warm solution of glue water, is hung upon the plaster figure and allowed to stiffen there after adjustment in a natural arrangement of folds corresponding to pose and action. This garment can then be covered with a mixture of plaster and glue, and almost any texture imitated by applying the sticky composition with a modeling tool or

brush. The substance adheres to the fibres of the cloth, becomes tough and quite hard, suitable to take a coat of varnish and the color, and is remarkably well fitted for the work as it can be kept in plastic condition for three or four days. As to the color work on both garments and figures, it has proved better to put on a priming color in a higher key than nature after which a thin wash of shellac over the thoroughly dried color forms a backing for a stippling of transparent colors to accentuate the desired effect, eliminating opaque colors in this finishing work. Finally the oily finish of the new paint may be removed and a lifelike texture given to the surface by rubbing over lightly with pumice stone and turpentine.

Results essential to the representation of life as well as the work of suiting the subject, pose and dress to artistic uses must always remain to the skill of the artist working. The method is valuable in museum work and presents a possibility for a new level of accomplishment.

## CANOES OF THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST INDIANS

By Harlan I. Smith

Photographs by the Author

ALONG the Pacific Coast from Puget Sound in Washington past British Columbia to Mt. McKinley in Alaska live seven great groups of sea-faring Indians and canoes make one of their most valuable possessions. Their canoes for use on the ocean differ from those for river navigation and those of the south differ from those of the north. Certain tribes have a characteristic type, but the Indians travel great distances and have traded their canoes from tribe to tribe, so that a given type may be used throughout the entire region.

The Haida of the islands of northern British Columbia and southern Alaska make an ocean-going canoe with a breakwater at the prow and both ends curving upward. Canoes of this type are sometimes only large enough for two or three people, while others, especially those formerly made for warfare, will hold as many as forty. In 1909 two of these canoes more than sixty feet long and with prows and sterns extending higher than a tall man's head were seen on the beach of the Kwakiutl village at Alert Bay. This Haida type is one of the most important and seaworthy of all canoes of the coast. The Tlingit Indians, who occupy the coast of Alaska from the Haida country to that of the Eskimo, own many Haida canoes although they make several kinds of their own.

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A Grave Monument probably signifying that the deceased "potlatched" many canoe loads of property

The Chinook is another seaworthy and extensively used type. The Nootka of Cape Flattery and western Vancouver Island use it for whale hunting and launch it skillfully through the tremendous breakers constantly washing their coastline. They use a facing canoe also, somewhat similar in shape but long and narrow.

A river type rather smaller than the Chinook sea-going canoe is used by the Salish of Puget Sound and vicinity and also by the southern tribes of the Kwakiutl of northern Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland. The prow which extends horizontally over the water has a deep notch in the end and meets the main part of the prow to form almost a right angle. A river canoe with spoon-shaped ends is found among the Bella Coola of the inlets of the northern Kwakiutl country, who are very skillful in navigating the swift rivers fed by melting glaciers. Such a canoe is usually poled, one man standing in the prow, another in the stern and poling on opposite sides. This type of river canoe is also used by the adjacent Kwakiutl tribes. The Salish Indians of the west coast of Washington have a canoe very much like it for river navigation but the prow and stern are like those of a scow.

Decoration of the canoes with carved and painted animal figures characteristic of this general region is common, especially among those of the Haida and Chinook types, and the canoes are always cared for as valuable property. Paths are cleared in the rocks on the beach so that the canoes may be drawn up without injury, and sometimes skidways are formed of cross poles

weighted at the ends with stones. A canoe party was observed to improve such a skidway when landing at a strange beach. The men jumped

into the shallow water and carried their women ashore, then returned to the canoe, flung the dogs into the sea to swim ashore by themselves and next carried arm loads of small slabs to the women. These slabs the women placed crosswise on the beach and as the men pushed the canoe on to the improved skidway, the women gathered up the slabs as fast as the canoe passed over them and ran ahead to repeat the operation.

Curiously enough a canoe sometimes has a width greater than the diameter of the cedar tree from which it was dug out. To effect this result, the dug out canoe is filled with water, then hot stones are added, and after the wood is somewhat softened, the sides of the canoe are

pressed outward and fastened in place by means of thwarts which are tied in with spruce or cedar rootlets. When the canoe is nearly finished great care is taken in adzing it down, measures being used to get it to the proper thickness throughout. The surface of the canoe is usually charred, which not only serves to give it a good black color but tends to prevent it from decaying.

There is some doubt as to whether sails were used on any of the canoes before the Indians first saw white navigators, but it is certain that they were used before canvas was a commodity in the country, strips of cedar bark being woven together for the purpose as in some of the mats of to-day.

Chinook canoe. Note overhanging prow and vertical stern. Seaworthy and outside of the Haida the most extensively used

River canoes owned by Kwakiutl. Semi-circular in cross section, spoon-shaped at the ends. Poled by two men, one in the prow, one in the stern

CANOES OF THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST INDIANS 245

THE NEW PLESIOSAUR

A GREAT MARINE REPTILE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. IN APPEARANCE
COMPARABLE TO "A SNAKE THREADED THROUGH THE BODY OF A
TURTLE." THE FOSSIL SKELETON IS NOW ON EXHIBITION ON
THE FOURTH FLOOR OF THE MUSEUM

By W. D. Matthew

THE latest addition to the fossil skeletons on exhibition is a great marine reptile, eleven feet long, six feet and seven inches across from tip to tip of the paddles. It belongs to a group long since extinct and is very obviously unlike any living animal. The long flippers, broad compact body and short tail suggest a huge sea turtle; but there the resemblance ends, for the creature had no bony carapace or "shell" and the long stiff neck and small flattened head with sharp teeth flaring out from the jaws are very unlike those of any turtles.

This skeleton was found in an unusually complete condition and more-
over, the bones were not distorted by crushing, which made it possible to
articulate the skeleton in its true proportions and form, and mount it in a
characteristic pose. Generally speaking skeletons as ancient as this one
are found flattened in the rock, so that while they make a good bas-relief
when the rock is chiseled away, they do not show the real form of the ani-
mal as when alive.

Plesiosaurs were both numerous and varied in the Age of Reptiles, and their remains have been found in marine formations of this era in all parts of the world. In the United States they occur in many localities from California to New Jersey, but the best specimens are from the Cretaceous formations of the Great Plains. The remains have been mostly fragmentary,

Sketch Restoration of the *Cryptoclidus*, by Edwin Christman. Note the small head, stiff neck and the turtle-like paddles. Based on the mounted skeleton in the American Museum

Scientific Staff

DIRECTOR

HERMON CAREY BUMPUS, Ph.D., Sc.D., LL.D.

DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY AND INVERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGY

EDMUND OTIS HOVEY, A.B., Ph.D., Curator

DEPARTMENT OF MINERALOGY

L. P. GRATACAP, Ph.B., A.B., A.M., Curator
GEORGE F. KUNZ, A.M., Ph.D., Honorary Curator of Gems

DEPARTMENT OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY

Prof. HENRY E. CRAMPTON, A.B., Ph.D., Curator
ROY W. MINER, A.B., Assistant Curator
FRANK E. LUTZ, A.B., A.M., Ph.D., Assistant Curator
L. P. GRATACAP, Ph.B., A.B., A.M., Curator of Mollusca
WILLIAM BEUTENMÜLLER, Associate Curator of Lepidoptera

Prof. WILLIAM MORTON WHEELER, Ph.D., Honorary Curator of Social Insects
ALEXANDER PETRUNKEVITCH, Ph.D., Honorary Curator of Arachnida
Prof. AARON L. TREADWELL, B.S., M.S., Ph.D., Honorary Curator of Annulata

DEPARTMENT OF MAMMALOGY AND ORNITHOLOGY

Prof. J. A. ALLEN, Ph.D., Curator
FRANK M. CHAPMAN, Curator of Ornithology
ROY C. ANDREWS, A.B., Assistant in Mammalogy
W. DE W. MILLER, Assistant in Ornithology

DEPARTMENT OF VERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGY

Prof. HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN, A.B., Sc.D., LL.D., D.Sc., Honorary Curator
W. D. MATTHEW, Ph.B., A.B., A.M., Ph.D., Acting Curator
WALTER GRANGER, Assistant Curator of Fossil Mammals
BARNUM BROWN, A.B., Assistant Curator of Fossil Reptiles
WILLIAM K. GREGORY, A.B., A.M., Ph.D., Assistant

LOUIS HUSSAKOF, B.S., Ph.D., Associate Curator of Fossil Fishes
JOHN T. NICHOLS, A.B., Assistant Curator of Recent Fishes

DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

CLARK WISSLER, A.B., A.M., Ph.D., Curator
PLINY E. GODDARD, A.B., A.M., Ph.D., Associate Curator
HARLAN I. SMITH, Associate Curator
ROBERT H. LOWIE, A.B., Ph.D., Assistant Curator
HERBERT J. SPINDEN, A.B., A.M., Ph.D., Assistant Curator
CHARLES W. MEAD, Assistant
ALANSON SKINNER, Assistant

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSIOLOGY

Prof. RALPH W. TOWER, A.B., A.M., Ph.D., Curator

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Prof. CHARLES EDWARD AMORY WINSLOW, S.B., M.S., Curator

DEPARTMENT OF WOODS AND FORESTRY

MARY CYNTHIA DICKERSON, B.S., in charge

DEPARTMENT OF BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS

ANTHONY WOODWARD, Ph.D., in charge of Maps and Charts

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

Prof. ALBERT S. BICKMORE, B.S., Ph.D., LL.D., Curator Emeritus
GEORGE H. SHERWOOD, A.B., A.M., Curator