Ka'heit'am (Club)

pre-1778

A rare object collected by Captain James Cook on his voyage to the Pacific in 1778, this elegant sculpture originally was adorned with human hair and green bird feathers. The hole that serves as the eye of the bird would have held a cord to keep it attached to the wrist of the warrior. The simple yet forceful rendering of a wolf head on the striking end and a bird at the pommel are characteristic of pre-contact Nuu-chah-nulth art. Powerful supernatural wolves are often cited in their oral traditions.

Ground and pecked basalt, human hair, spruce pitch (once had feathers)

6 x 2 in. (15.24 x 5.08 cm)

L.: 14 in.

Gift of John H. Hauberg

91.1.21

Provenance: Collected by Captain James Cook (1728-1779), England, in Nootka Sound, British Columbia, 1778; to Admiral John Schank (ca. 1740-1823), England, builder and commander of the HMS Inflexible, ca. 1778; {probably given to the Leverian Museum, London, England, by 1783}; sold via auction to ‘Rowe’ for his brother-in-law ‘Clarke’, 1806; sold via auction in Torquay, Devonshire {probably part of lot no. 6644} to [J. J. Klejman, New York, 1967-1968]; purchased from gallery by John H. Hauberg, Seattle, Washington, 1968-1991; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1991

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistoryVictoria, British Columbia, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Images, Stone, B.C.: Thirty Centuries of Northwest Coast Indian Sculpture, Mar. 4 - Apr. 13, 1975 (Vancouver, British Columbia, May 7 - June 4, 1975; Toronto, Ontario, Royal Ontario Museum, June 23 - Aug. 24, 1975; Ottawa, National Museum of Man, Nov. 15, 1975 - Jan. 11, 1976; Winnipeg, Manitoba, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Jan. 27 - Mar. 7, 1976). Text by Wilson Duff. Cat. no. 89, pp. 181-182, reproduced.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Box Of Daylight: Nortwest Coast Indian Art, Sept. 15, 1983 - Jan. 8, 1984.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Hauberg Collection, Aug. 22, 1985 - Mar. 16, 1986.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Native Visions: Northwest Coast Art, 18th Century to the Present, Oct. 1, 1998 - Jan. 31, 1999.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, American Art: The Stories We Carry, Oct. 20, 2022 - ongoing.

Published ReferencesForce, Roland W. and Maryanne Force, Art and Artifacts of the 18th Century: Objects in the Leverian Museum as Painted by Sarah Stone, H onolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1968, p. 149. (Sara Stone's sketch ca. 1783)

Duff, Wilson, Images Stone B.C.: Thirty Centuries of Northwest Coast Indian Sculpture, Saanichton, B.C.: Hancock House Publishers, Ltd., 1975, fig. 89, p. 103, 181

Holm, Bill, Box of Daylight: Northwest Coast Indian Art, Seattle Art Museum, University of Washington Press, 1983, cat. no. 165.

The Spirit Within: Northwest Coast Native Art from the John H. Hauberg Collection, Seattle Art Museum, 1995, pg. 258

Brown, Steven C., Native Visions: Evolution in Northwest Coast Art from the Eighteenth Through the Twentieth Century, Seattle Art Museum, 1998, pg. 40

Stark, Peter, Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire, A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival, New York: Harper Collins, 2014, illus. on unnumbered plate, credit p. 353

Barnett, James K. and David L. Nicandri, Arctic Ambitions: Captain Cook at the Northwest Passage, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015, fig. 9.16, p. 182.

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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