Tsimshian Rattle

Raven rattles are among the great icons of Northwest Coast art, appearing in simplified forms from at least the eighteenth century and becoming more refined and elaborate as the nineteenth century developed. This example is particularly complex, and has been rendered with graceful lines and superb finish work.

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. 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, including the present example.

One of the uncommon features of the present rattle is the fact that the tail bird has a short beak and is facing toward the handle. The great majority of raven rattles are made with a long-beaked tail bird facing away from the handle. In this reversed orientation, the tail feathers extend toward the man on the back of the raven, and his feet are tucked up beneath them, instead of flat on the raven’s back on either side of the tail as in the usual composition. The man’s body is elevated, his weight supported by his elbows resting on the raven’s back.

The frog, often but not always present in a raven rattle, is shown here crouching on the man’s chest, its mouth clasped onto the man’s tongue, said to be a sign of communication between species, of esoteric information being exchanged. The frog’s forefeet are pressed against the man’s shoulders, its hind feet tucked up snugly beneath itself. In rattles with the more common long-beaked, forward-facing tail bird, many lack the presence of a frog, and the man’s tongue is held in the tip of the beak. If a frog is present, it is often held in the beak and it holds the end of the man’s tongue in its mouth.

The man’s head and face are carved in a flat-design style, the perimeter surrounded by a black formline that dips down in a V between the eyesockets. The nose and nostril flares are black, the cheeks and tongue red. Some raven rattles feature a human head carved like a tiny mask, often naturalistic, while other rare examples display the mask-like form of a bear. In the rattle’s overall profile (above left), a graceful transitional curve is formed by the raven’s head and beak flowing into the raven’s neck and then outward and back onto the upper surface of the bird’s wings.

The formlines that make up the designs on the raven’s breast and body are of medium to heavy-weight formlines, and the eyelid lines throughout exhibit long and graceful curves without black-line definition. Only the crisply carved rims of the hollowed tertiary areas that surround them outline their forms.

Steven C. Brown