This elaborate Nuu-chah-nulth dance mask, from the West Coast of Vancouver Island, features several articulated mechanisms that roll the eyes up and down, open and close the jaw, and spin the crown on the top of the mask. Dating between the 1890s to, perhaps, 1910, this mask is a good example of the ingenious and theatrical technologies developed by Northwest Coast artists to be used in the potlatch cycle in the 19th century. The presence of the crown and the spade-like shape of its design elements may indicate that this mask represents an undersea being or the Chief of the Undersea World.

This mask is carved in red cedar and painted in bright commercially made paints, including a white base coat with blue, red, yellow, and green accents and formline details. The white undercoat was an innovation that likely originated with the Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw, in order to increase contrast between the colours in their designs and enhance the mask’s impact when danced by the firelight in a longhouse.

The almond shape of the eyes and mechanisms behind the eye and jaw movement on this mask are very similar to a mask in the collection of the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop in Seattle, Washington, that is identified as the work of the Makah artist Young Doctor (1851-1934) from around the same time. For two other similar examples in the collection of the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, see MOA catalogue numbers 3172/1 and A1962.

FA