The grace and beauty of horn spoons and ladles belie the processes employed to create them. The techniques sound simple; take the raw, rough horns… smooth them down, and cut them to a predicted pre-shape. Boil them to make the material flexible, and begin to open the round horn into the gently curved width of a ladle. The work is incremental; a little shaving here, a little more there, and the tip will curve upward as the sides get wider. When it’s there, tie it to a curved form that matches the shape you’re after, and let it cool and dry out. Then it will maintain that shape and allow itself to be fastened to another horn, unmodified in shape but carved into a tiny, tapered totemic sculpture. Overlap one within the other, and rivet the joint with pins made of copper or horn itself. Hundreds, if not thousands of these were made and used by Native families, sometimes in matching sets by the same carver, passed down through generations along with the histories that are illustrated on the handles.

The figures on the handle of this spoon, top down, begin with a bird, probably a raven, with a pointed beak and humanoid hands that grasp the headgear of a small human figure who sits between the ears of the lower, larger image. The lower figure is part human, part animal, though what kind of animal is ambiguous. The symbolism is embedded in Northwest Coast mythology: In the Beginning, animals removed their animal clothes to become the First People. The head on this spoon has animal-like characteristics and human hands poised beneath the chin, a blend of both worlds.

Steven C. Brown

References: For a study of the very similar Tlingit spoons see Anne-Marie Victor-Howe, Feeding the Ancestors: Tlingit Carved Horn Spoons, (Cambridge: Peabody Museum Press, 2007).