Helmet

"OLD. WELL CARVED. ENTIRELY FROM THE SOLID. UNLIKE THE HAIDA HELMETS WHICH ARE CARVED FROM A SOFTER SPRUCE OR CEDAR, THIS HELMET IS CUT FROM THE HARDWOOD. FACE UNPAINTED, EXCEPT FOR EYEBALLS AND EYEBROWS. TOTEMIC CARVINGS IN VERMILLION AND A BROWNISH BLACK. NEG. NO. 43,228-B (FRONT), 43,228-D (PROFILE-LEFT SIDE) 43,228-C (PROFILE-RIGHT SIDE). 41,207 A. LOAN: CROSSROADS SEP 22 1988. LOAN RETURNED: JAN 21, 1993. ILLUS.: CROSSROADS OF CONTINENTS CATALOGUE; FIG. 310, P. 232. ILLUS.: HNDBK. N. AMER. IND., VOL. 7, NORTHWEST COAST, FIG. 13 TOP LEFT, PG. 218. "
Per Repatriation Office research, as reported in the Tlingit case report (Hollinger et al. 2005), in 1893, Herbert G. Ogden received a wooden helmet in trade from the leaders of the Ishkeetaan clan from the Upper Taku River area of British Columbia.
Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=261 , retrieved 9-20-2011: Helmet. Tlingit warriors wore carved and decorated helmets, mask-like wooden "collars" over their necks and faces, thick leather tunics, and wooden body armor. Their weapons included bows and arrows, short spears, war clubs, and double-bladed daggers.(1) This helmet, collected in 1893 from the T'aaku/Taku of the upper Taku River in British Columbia, shows a wrinkled human face that was once embellished with bear fur whiskers and shocks of human hair.(2) Its eyebrows are painted brown, the eyes black, and the lips reddish brown against a background of light green. The figure's pierced hands stretch across the front rim of the helmet, joined to a stylized body that is painted around the back. The helmet was carved from a hard, dense spruce burl. Tlingit helmets depict human beings or crest animals belonging to the owner's clan. (3) Helmets were carved from tree roots or knots for strength, and were very dense and heavy. Tomas Suria, who was at Yakutat with the Malaspina expedition in 1791, wrote that, "They construct the helmet of various shapes; usually it is a piece of wood, very solid and thick, so much so, that when I put on one it weighed the same as if it had been of iron."(4) Some type of padding needed to be worn underneath the hat, such as a fur cap.(5) Russian naval office Urey Lisianskii, who helped the Russian-American Company's Alexander Baranov fight the Tlingit at Sitka in 1804, noted that the helmets "are so thick, that a musket-ball, fired at a moderate distance, can hardly penetrate them."(6) Nonetheless, Tlingit helmets and wooden body armor gradually went out of use as firearms became more common on the Northwest Coast. The helmets continued to be important as at.óow, or crest objects owned by clans and presented at potlatches.(7) Tlingit warfare usually pitted one clan against another, rather than whole tribes or villages. It often developed from the harm or insult that one individual suffered at the hands of a person from another clan, and escalated into a conflict that involved all of the relatives on both sides.(8) One observer wrote in 1885 that, "For every bodily injury, for any damage to his goods and property, for any infringement by strangers on his hunting or trading territory, full compensation is demanded or exacted by force."(9) Raiders often attacked their enemies at dawn, killing the men and taking women and children as prisoners and slaves.(10) However, disputes were sometimes settled by duels in which solo fighters from each side fought each other armed only with daggers and dressed in their armor and helmets.(11) 1. DeLaguna 1972:590-91; Emmons 1991:337-46; Holmberg 1985:22; Hough 1895; Lisianskii 1968:149-50; Olson 2002:109, 478-89. 2. DeLaguna 1990:218; Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988:232 3. Emmons 1991:344-45 4. W. M Olson 2002:479 5. Emmons 1991:342 6. Lisianskii 1968:150 7. Jonaitis 1986:21; Lisianskii 1968:150 8. Emmons 1991:328; R. L. Olson 1967:69-82 9. Krause 1956:169 10. Krause 1956:170; Litke 1987:87; Niblack 1890:340-42 11. Holmberg 1985:22; Niblack 1890:342
This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2017.