Carved Stone Image

Item number E325170-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

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Notes

From card: "A very remarkable carving in gray sandstone representing a kneeling woman evidently in the act of giving birth to some animal. The carving no doubt represents an episode from some myth. One of the best examples of native American stone sculpture." Illus. Pl. 15b, after p. 24, in B.A.E. Bulletin 124, "Nootka and Quileute Music" by Frances Densmore. Densmore also describes it on pp. 31-32 of that publication. Densmore states that she showed a photo of this artifact to her Makah informants in 1926, and Young Doctor identified it as made by Santiano, a medicine man who died around 1909: "... one of Santiano's fancy sinkers that he used on his fishline. The old fellow was handy at carving and had several of them. Young Doctor remembered this one and said that Santiano had pounded a nail in the top of the head to fasten his fishline to it. ... He said further that the little animal clasped in the arms of the figure looked like a baby hair seal and that Santiano obtained the rocks for his carvings from a place at Warm House. Apparently the figure represents a creature to which the Makah attributed the characteristic of a mermaid."