Notes

From card: "Illus. in USNM AR, 1888; Pl. 40, fig. 204; p. 316. Illus. in The Far North catalog, Nat. Gall. of Art, 1973, p. 175. From: page 49, Boxes and Bowls catalog; Renwick Gallery; Smithsonian Press; 1974, (object illus. on same page): "Animal-form bowl; wood; carved in relief, Length: 10; Haida, Skidegate, British Columbia; 'Food dish; mountain demon and crow'; Collected by James G. Swan; October 1883." Illus.: p. 195, Pl. 240c, Celebrations catalogue, Smithsonian Press, 1982; from Celebrations caption: "Crow Feast Dish, ca. 1850-83, 4 1/8 x 10 x 6 (10.5 x 25.4 x 15.3); Wooden bowls were used to serve seal oil and candlefish oil, two highly prestigious foods. This bowl shows two aspects of the human-spirit transformation: Crow with his human soul emerging from his mouth and the shared human-bird soul with its characteristic recurved beak in Crow's tail." Loaned R. H. Lowie Museum, 12-31-1964; returned 2-15-1966. Loaned: Vancouver Art Gall. 4-18-1967; returned 12-13-1967. Loaned to the National Gallery of Art, October 20, 1972; returned 5-29-1973. Loaned Renwick Gal. 11-7-1976; loan returned 8-24-1976. Loaned to Renwick 2-4-1982; returned 6-1983. Loaned to SITES- Treasures 5-10-1984; returned 11-21-1984." Jay Stewart and Peter Macnair 7-20-2005 identify this as oil dish; raven with human.This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.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=633 , retrieved 2-4-2022: Bowl. On this feast dish for serving seal or eulachon (candlefish) oil, a carved Raven holds a small human figure in its beak, recorded by collector James G. Swan as the representation of a "mountain spirit." A hawk with a short, curved beak is depicted on Raven's tail. The bowl came from the Haida Gwaii village of Skidegate in 1884 [sic, should be 1883], and is still saturated with the oils it once contained.