Found 17 items made of Refine Search .
Found 17 items made of Refine Search .
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Mrs. Ann Barber, the Maidu owner sold this belt to the Museum curator Stewart Culin. According to another Maidu informant, Mrs. Azbil, when she came into the country everyone of any wealth and importance had a belt. People could marry with them. The man gave it away. They also wore it in the War dance and this was the only way a man used it because it actually was a women's belt. This particular belt had been given to Mrs. Barber by her first husband, Pomaho, who married her with it. When he died it became hers and she was criticized for not burning it. The belt would be wrapped around the waist of the dancer twice for the Hesi, Toto of Kenu dances. The patterns on the belt mirror those used on baskets. The red triangles are composed of the scalps of twenty-five woodpeckers and are called grapevine leaves. The two narrow strips, composed of duck feathers, were named after the tongs used to lift the boiling stones out of the baskets when boiling mush. The knot of the belt where the threads come together is called the navel. Feather belts were the supreme Maidu representations of wealth and as such were prime candidates for destruction at death of the owner. Thus they are rare.
A cedar mask carved by George Pennier called Mother Earth Looking at the Universe.. The mask has heavy black eyebrows, pierced eyes rimmed with black and red, red nostrils and an open red lipped mouth. The majority of the face is painted with white and blue, representing the sky and stars. The upper rim of the mask has a row of white goose feathers. The inside of the mask is smoothed, and signed by the artist. The mask was carved by a Coast Salish artist, George Pennier, a resident of Chilliwack, B.C. The style of the mask is Northern rather than Coast Salish, attributed to the fact some artists carve in styles that are not necessarily their own tribal group. The mask is an expression of the artist' s own place within the universe, and was inspired by looking out at the night sky in Chilliwack. Carved in a traditional style the subject matter is very personal, concerning identity and the place of the individual within the world. The mask also references the concern for the environment, Mother Earth exhibited by many First Nations artists, and is an aspect of a Pan-Indian culture which is becoming more prevalent in North America. The mask was bought directly from the artist. Excellent
Dari (or dhari) feather headdress. Headpiece is shaped like an inverted-U, with a horizontal line through the middle. Three lines extend from the top of the centre line, connecting with the top edge; outer lines are curved, middle line is straight. All pieces are made of cane, wrapped in orange fibre. Headpiece has an outer border of plastic; connected to headpiece with black cane, shaped into a zigzag. White feathers protrude from outer edges of plastic, secured with black fibre; feathers in bottom corners are longer than rest and undecorated. Rest of white feathers have had their ends cut; each has three small triangles on either side and long diagonal lines at the tip. Large red seed is tied to the top centre of the headpiece and has three feathers extending from it. Long grey feather in the middle, framed by smaller white and black ones, is topped with a tuft of white feathers; secured to grey feather with white fibre.