Ho'koma (human face mask)

ca. 1890

This humanoid face is typical of Nuu-chah-nulth masks in its prismatic form, the wide under-brow plane and eyes placed flat on the cheek level. Asymmetrical painting with different designs on each side suggests a being with changing identity. Like many masks and headdresses, this is one of a pair that would have been performed together.

Red cedar, cedar bark, paint

12 x 8 1/2 x 7 3/4 in. (30.48 x 21.59 x 19.69 cm)

Gift of John H. Hauberg

91.1.23

Provenance: Micheal R. Johnson, Seattle, Washington, until 1971; John H. Hauberg, Seattle, Washington, 1971-1991; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington

Photo: Paul Macapia

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Collects Northwest Coast Native Art, February 12, - May 17, 2015

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

London, England, Kansas City, Missouri, Sacred Circles: Two Thousand Years of North American Indian Art, 1976-77

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. 136

The Spirit Within: Northwest Coast Native Art from the John H. Hauberg Collection, Seattle Art Museum, 1995, pg. 26.

Holm, Bill, Box of Daylight: Northwest Coast Indian Art, Seattle Art Museum, University of Washington Press, 1983, no. 30, p. 34, illus.

Coe, Ralph T., Sacred Circles: Two Thousand Years of North American Indian Art, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1977, no. 270, p. 137, illus.

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