Anaija was one of the pioneers of the Taloyoak carving style that focused on shamanic and spiritual themes beginning in the late 1960s. The preeminent Taloyoak carver in this early period, he influenced many artists including the much younger Karoo Ashevak, whose meteoric rise in the early 1970s eventually overshadowed Anaija’s own achievements. While Anaija’s raw material of choice was whale bone, this wonderfully sinuous composition is delicately carved from caribou antler set into a bone base. The undulating, serpentine forms of these Bird Spirits remind us of the elegant antler birds carved by Baker Lake artists in the mid 1960s, but this brilliant composition by Anaija infuses the work with the powerful sense of spirituality and the surreal that is the hallmark of Kitikmeot sculpture.