Tsimshian Raven Rattle

This Tsimshian rattle is in classic raven form with a reclining human figure, the human tongue held in the beak of the bird’s head incorporated into the raven’s tail. The human figure has slim limbs, the fingers of the hands painted on in geometric form. The flat, formline embellished face of the human is often seen in Tsimshian versions of such a rattle, where Tlingit or Haida rattles as often would exhibit a masklike sculptural face. The thin slab body is painted red with rows of fine dashing parallel to the body. Rows of dashing are a common Tsimshian characteristic of the mid-nineteenth century. The eyelid lines of the raven’s head, breast, human face and tail are thinly defined by carving but are unpainted, as is common among Tsimshian historical works of this period.

The black and red formlines that embroider the surfaces of the rattle are composed and proportioned in a manner typical of the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and imaginative red secondary designs combine with the refined sculpture to indicate the work of an experienced master.

Raven rattles are held and employed to accompany certain dance performances of chiefs and high ranking individuals, who wear carved forehead plaque headdresses hung with white ermine skins and topped with the long, resilient whiskers of large bull sea lions [see lot 72].

It has been suggested that the raven/human imagery of these rattles illustrates Raven the Creator's own self-creation. Nass-shaki-yeil (Raven-at-the-head-of-the-Nass) was the keeper of all the light in the world, and was often depicted as a huge bird with a completely recurved beak. Raven entered the body of the daughter of Nass-shaki-yeil by disguising himself as a hemlock needle in her drinking water, and was reborn as her raven/human child. The raven child later stole the light from his grandfather and released it to the world. Nass-shaki-yeil is a high-ranking crest of the Gaanax.ádi Tlingit (as well as certain Tsimshian-speaking groups), and it may be that this important mythological figure is represented by the formline face with a recurved beak seen on the back of nearly all raven rattles.

Steven C. Brown

March 2021

This rattle was acquired on the Northwest Coast by Royal Navy officer Lieutenant Edmund Hope Verney (1838-1910), who spent three years on Vancouver Island commanding HMS Grappler during the Cariboo Gold Rush of the early 1860s.

Verney collected several important objects during his time on the Northwest Coast. In February of 1863, he sent a group of items to his father, Sir Harry Verney, including two K’ómoks house posts now on view at the British Museum (inv. nos. Am1944,02.393 and Am1987,Q.5). It appears, however, that Verney made his most significant acquisitions in October of 1863 during a visit to Metlakatla in Alaska with his friend the Rev. R. J. Dundas, whose famous collection of Northwest Coast art was sold in these rooms in October 2006. Dundas had asked the missionary William Duncan to obtain objects for him, and in his journal entry for Monday, October 26, 1863 he wrote that he and Verney “spent the morning examining some Indian curiosities, Mr. D. had collected for us. I wished if possible to obtain some of the Medicine Men’s implements and tools […]” (quoted in Christie’s, London, June 26, 1995, p. 51).

Verney probably acquired the present rattle during this visit. When he sent a second group of objects to his father in March of 1864, the list of items mentions “2. Medicine-man’s rattles.” and “1. Carved chiefs-rattle” (Pritchard, ed., Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 1862-65, Vancouver, 1996, p. 197). By October of 1864, Verney wrote to his father, “I am buying one or two curiosities, but very few: I sent you a really good collection at the beginning of this year, and there is no object in getting more of the same […].” (ibid., p. 226).

In 1931 the English collector Harry G. Beasley (1881-1939) acquired several Northwest Coast items, including this rattle, from Sir Harry Verney, Edmund’s son. The entry dated June 11, 1931, in Beasley’s ledger reads, “First portion of the Verney Collection. Bought from Sir Harry Verney, Bart, Steeple Claydon, Bucks. Collected by Capt. Edmund Hope Verney, H.M.S. Growler In the Pacific 1864. N.W.Coast Haida:- A rattle carved as a raven, with figure subjects, and coloured red, blue and black.” (Beasley’s ledgers, Anthropology Library and Research Centre, British Museum, London).

In both his ledger and the inscription on one of the raven’s wings, Beasley notes that the name of the vessel which Verney commanded was HMS Growler rather than HMS Grappler. This is a misunderstanding; Verney commanded HMS Growler in the Mediterranean in the early 1870s, and his son presumably gave Beasley the name of this later vessel rather than HMS Grappler. Beasley attributed all of the Northwest Coast objects from the Verney collection to the Haida people, but, as Steve Brown notes here, the rattle is the work of a Tsimshian master.