'Kaakanél (Bent-corner dish with Orca design)

ca. 1820

Native American, Kadyisdu.axch', Tlingit, Kiks.adi clan

active late 18th - early 19th century

Native American , possibly Wrangell

Tlingit

Sculpted heads of mighty killers bearing human features adorn the two ends of this bowl; the engraved designs on the sides feature the whales' dorsal and pectoral fins and blowholes. As a clan crest, the double whale signified an ancestral connection to this leviathan of the sea. The bowl may have held bounty from the sea--in the form of fish, seafood or herring eggs--to serve Native royalty at potlatch feasts.

Maple, paint, red cedar, opercula shells, spruce root

5 3/4 x 11 in. (14.61 x 27.94 cm)

L.: 13 3/4 in.

Gift of John H. Hauberg

91.1.56

Photo: Paul Macapia

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Native Visions: Northwest Coast Art, 18th Century to the Present, October 1, 1998 - January 31, 1999

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, The Box of Daylight, September 15, 1983 - January 8, 1984

Published ReferencesBrown, Steven C., Native Visions: Evolution in Northwest Coast Art from the Eighteenth Through the Twentieth Century, Seattle Art Museum, 1998, pg. 36

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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