Bowl (Ceremonial Oil Dish)

The massive spiral horns of the mountain sheep furnished craftsmen along North America’s northwest coast with material for many kinds of portable objects, primarily bowls and spoons. The mountain sheep’s horn is tough and hard, but it can be carved when thoroughly soaked. Heating the horn by steaming or boiling renders it soft and pliable, allowing it to be shaped and spread in a wooden form. When cool and completely dry, the horn retains its new shape.

The Art Museum’s dish was produced by such a technique, probably by a craftsman of the Haida tribe of Queen Charlotte Island, located off the British Columbian coast. The work of a master carver, this piece is exceptional in its artistry. The fine-grained structure of the horn enabled its maker to achieve crisp, detailed relief carving of the vessel’s underside, which bears the image of a hawk on the front and a bear on the back. The bowl itself is carved and shaped in the form of a small seabird, possibly a merganser. Its graceful, long-beaked head has inlaid eyes of abalone shell.

As elsewhere in art of the northwest coast, animal images such as the hawk and the bear were social symbols, emblematic of ancestry and status. The Art Museum’s vessel, with its thin, translucent walls and its refined shape and carving, was clearly produced for an individual of considerable wealth and social standing. The horn of the mountain sheep itself was a valued
commodity for the Haida, who acquired it by trade with peoples from the mainland. Like others of its type, the Art Museum’s dish served as a receptacle for seal oil, a delicacy used at formal feasts as a dip for dried and smoked fish.