Raven rattles as a group are a type of bird-form rattle with traditional subsidiary figures that vary but little between northern Northwest Coast groups. This example contains all the basic images regularly seen among raven rattles: a central raven image, a subsidiary figure (usually but not always human) facing upward on the back of the raven, the raven’s tail raised up and featuring a long-beaked bird facing forward, a formline face on the breast of the raven that features a hooked nose, and in some cases a frog appearing between the man’s mouth and the tail-bird’s beak.

Simultaneously, this rattle exhibits some substantial variations from the most typical forms. The raven’s head, for example, attaches to the neck at the level of the red ‘ears,’ where in older examples the neck meets the back of the head itself. The face on the breast of the raven does not follow the typical formline construction, instead including only the two pairs of ovoids and separate nostrils and lips, without the usual formline joinery between them. The frog is unusually large, and lacks the definition of its legs and feet. The raven’s neck is long, but the body and wings are uncommonly short and not as widely developed as is often the case. Nonetheless this rattle exhibits an established history of use in the patinas of its surface, appearing most often in conjunction with a frontlet headdress and a high-status robe in what is sometimes called the ‘Peace Dance,’ performed at gatherings to demonstrate the peaceful intentions of the ritualists involved.

Steven C. Brown