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• 1 2021-07-29T21:03:39+00:00 Annotation 8.4 | Object (Pl.36) 36 plain 2022-03-07T16:03:38+00:00 Annotation

  Plate 36 features a painting by Kuhnert depicting an imaginary ’Walasa’ax̱a (“Great Wolf Dance”), a ceremony he never witnessed in person. Like his composite painting in Pl. 10, this one is based on multiple sources. The four visible wolf masks are derived from three headdresses, all collected by Jacobsen, that were in EMB at the time: the first, second, and fourth masks from the left are based on IVA421 and IVA1269 (see Fig. 140); the third mask from left was inspired by IVA1257 (currently DAM 1949.3642; AFigs. 8.4.1 and 8.4.2). In the background, the hanging curtain and row of seated singers (some of whom beat time on a floor plank) are based on one or more photographs taken by Grabill of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw troupe at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair (AFig. 8.4.3; see Pl. 15, 28, 35, 38, and 47). The two house posts rising behind the curtain are derived from drawings or photographs of posts (see Fig. 22) that Hunt collected for display at the Chicago Fair (currently FM 19614 and 19615). Presumably, Boas also supplied Kuhnert with a textual description of choreographic gestures, like the one in the accompanying passage on pg. 477. In the 1920s, Hunt confirmed that this scene depicts a ’Walasa’ax̱a; in the 1930s, Hunt wrote a long passage of notes about having witnessed a Nuu-chah-nulth Wolf Dance, which he said resembled the one pictured in Pl. 36 (APS.A.W3, 1932:5356-65). [Original painting, location unknown]

  AFig. 8.4.1: Denver Art Museum, 1949.364

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  AFig. 8.4.2: American Museum of Natural History Z/43 R

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  AFig. 8.4.3: American Museum of Natural History Boas B673, Box 18_001