Canoe Breaker: Southeast Wind’s Brother

2010

First Nations, Haida, born 1946

According to Haida oral traditions, Canoe Breaker is one of ten brothers of Southeast Wind, who is responsible for the turbulent weather on Haida Gwaii.

Southeast Wind is in the form of a killer whale. The [white] ovoid actually separates the lower teeth from the upper teeth in the mouth. And the top shape would be the tail and this U-shape could be the pectoral fin and dorsal fin. When you see the killer whale in their world we see them as killer whales but when…they go into their dwelling [below the sea] they will take off their skins and hang it near the door..so that’s why…human attributes [are] mixed in with what a killer whale looks like.

Acrylic on canvas

60 × 40 in. (152.4 × 101.6cm)

Purchased with funds from The MacRae Foundation, Native Arts of the Americas and Oceania Council, and Ancient and Native American Art Acquisition Fund

2013.35

Provenance: The artist

Photo: Kenji Nagai

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Robert Davidson: Abstract Impulse, Nov. 16, 2013 - Feb. 16, 2014 (New York, New York, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Apr. 12, 2014 - Sept. 28, 2014). Text by Barbara Brotherton. No cat. no., pp. 26, 88-89, 101, reproduced pl. 17 [no object number when published].

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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