Images(6)

'Kaakanél (Bent-corner dish with Orca design)

Dateca. 1820

Maker Native American, Kadyisdu.axch', Tlingit, Kiks.adi clan active late 18th - early 19th century

Label TextSculpted 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.

Object number91.1.56

Photo CreditPhoto: Paul Macapia

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, 1984Published ReferencesBrown, Steven C., Native Visions: Evolution in Northwest Coast Art from the Eighteenth Through the Twentieth Century, Seattle Art Museum, 1998, pg. 36

Credit LineGift of John H. Hauberg

Dimensions5 3/4 x 11 in. (14.61 x 27.94 cm) L.: 13 3/4 in.

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