Isaci Etidloie is easily considered a modern Cape Dorset master for his work in stone. Inspired from a very young age by a very artistic family, much of his earlier work depicted “regular” themes of daily life: hunters, women cooking or sewing, and drum dancers. This important work by the artist illustrates his exploration of the supernatural. The drum has transformed into the bearded face of what is likely a spirit. The head of the drummer himself is almost doubled to illustrate its ecstatic or frenzied movement as he chants to the beat of the drum. The sculpture reminds us of Manasie Akpaliapik’s great two-headed whale bone Drum Dancer of 1989 (see First Arts, 13 July 2021, Lot 7).

References: For a drumming Singing Shaman by the artist in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada see Christine Lalonde, Inuit Sculpture Now, (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2005), p. 17; the work was also featured on the cover of the Inuit Art Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2, Summer 2005. For another important work by the artist see Jean Blodgett, In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun: Sami and Inuit Art 2000-2005, (Hamilton: Art Gallery of Hamilton, 2007), p. 38.