Across the Northwest Coast, native people engaged in renewal rites during the winter ceremonial season. This mask, with a beak that opens and head panels that move, may have been used during such celebrations. In 1998, Robert Joseph, a Northwest Coast chief, recalled that when he donned dance masks like this one as a youth, "all the world is somewhere else . . . I am the mask . . . the bird . . . the animal . . . the spirit. I transcend into the being of the mask."

Dark brown wood eagle mask with an open beak, the upper half curving down and in towards the thinner lower half and pigmented red around the inner edges. An inlaid circular eye is surrounded by a loosely diamond red outline, and then blue outline. On top of the head, two ridges run parallel with remnants of red, orange, and blue geometric patterns. Twine extends from holes in the back of the mask.

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Mask: Eagle

Native North America, Northwest Coast, British Columbia, Nuxalk

Description