CWS Review

This small, compact panel pipe compresses an astonishing number of figures into a dense sculptural mass. The maker pierced the form only sparingly, perhaps just enough to make the pipe functional. Later panel pipes often moved in the opposite direction, stretching the figures into thinner, more open compositions with extensive piercing. That development appears to have unfolded gradually over at least the following decade.

At least eight beings crowd the surface. At the lower left, a bear reaches forward with its forefeet while a frog rises above its head. Its body tucks beneath what is probably a wolf, identified by its longer snout and ears, whose elbows and ears flank the bowl. Below the bear, a human figure faces downward with arms and hands extending to either side of the panel, while raven wings spread beside the body.

Behind the bowl, a humanoid bird faces upward, its hands and elbows bracketing the pipe bowl and its wings opening beneath the head and torso. Nearby, a large humanoid figure extends its tongue into the beak of a raven, grasping the bird’s head on either side. The raven angles upward, while its wings descend from the human figure and sweep along the base of the pipe beneath the bowl.

At the far end, an unusual bear-like being faces upward and supports the raven’s angled head with its forearms and body. Between its upright ears, the pipe stem begins and runs through the clustered figures to the base of the bowl.

Flat surface design appears only sparingly, principally on the bird wings, but these passages retain the formal character of early nineteenth-century Northwest Coast design.