Head with spike

This carving seems to imitate the form of the spikes on a shaman’s goat-horn head-dress, where a face was sometimes carved at the base (see de Laguna, 1972:693, pl. 175, for a Tlingit example). The face here has human features but large, bear-like ears; the bear spirit, if encountered during a shaman’s vision quest, was among the most important of his helpers. This is too small to be part of a head-dress, but it may have been a shaman’s pendant or attachment of some kind. A clue to its former function is provided by a similar ivory in the Peabody Museum, Harvard (69-30-10/1922), which serves as a toggle on the end of a strap which ties a pouch of gambling sticks. The Skeena River provenance makes it likely to have originated among the Tsimshian.

Steven Hooper, 1997

Entry taken from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, Vol. 2: Pacific, African and Native North American Art, edited by Steven Hooper (Yale University Press, 1997) p. 268.