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Property of Various Owners, Lots 139-145
Lot 139

A Nuu-Chah-Nulth (Nootka) copper club

19 June 2017, 11:00 PDT
San Francisco

US$15,000 - US$20,000

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A Nuu-Chah-Nulth (Nootka) copper club

Of the type sometimes described as a "slave killer", with stylized eagle or thunderbird's head in profile, the beak open, surmounted by another bird head, an incised curvilinear and punctate design separating the two, a similar row of outlined circular devices up the length of the blade, terminating in a forked design.
length 17 1/2in

Footnotes

Provenance
Collected Pickering Passage, near Shelton, WA, in the late 19th century by Malcolm D. Stewart, a pioneer of the Puget Sound area

See Brown, Steven C. (ed.) Spirits of the Water, Native Art Collected on Expeditions to Alaska and British Columbia, 1774-1910, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2000, pp.90-91, for a discussion of similar clubs made from whalebone, "The imagery symbolizes the power of the mythical world and is emblematic of the highest-ranking chiefs. These clubs were symbols of the status and prestige of the chiefs, who gave the clubs ceremonial names and referred to them as such."

Additional information

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