Identifier: annualreportofbo1888smiths (find matches)
Title: Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution
Year: 1846 (1840s)
Authors: Smithsonian Institution. Board of Regents United States National Museum. Report of the U.S. National Museum Smithsonian Institution. Report of the Secretary
Subjects: Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Institution. Archives Discoveries in science
Publisher: Washington : Smithsonian Institution
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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view in Fig. 286. Legend inChapter VII. Common type. Cat. No. 89085, U. S. N. M. Haida In-dians, Queen Charlotte Islands. British Columbia. Collected by JamesG. Swan. Fig. 288. Rattle. Top view of same kind of rattle as Fig. 287. Cat. No. 89078, U.S. N. M. Haida Indians, Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia.Collected by James G. Swan. Fig. 289. Rattle. Of carved wood. Design, a duck, with ornaments of beaks ofthe puffin. Cat. No. 20828, U. S. N. M. Klowak Indians (Hanegatribe). Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. Collected by James G. Swan. Fig. 290. Rattle. Top section of usual type of rattle. See Figs. 287.288. Cat. No.10309, U. S. N. M. Tongass village, Alaska (Tlingit Indians). Col-lected by Lieut. F. W. Ring, U. S. Army. Fig. 291. Rattle. Of wood; ancient. Design, a crane with tail carved to representthe head of a mountain goat. Cat. No. 73798, U. S. N. M. Auk In-dians. Alaska. Collected by Lieut. T. Dix Bolles, U. S. Navy. Report of National Museum, 1 888,—Niblack. Plate LIV.
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Ceremonial Rattles from the Northwest Coast. THE INDIANS OF THE NORTHWEST COAST^ 325 the endeavor to accumulate enough property or wealth to enable a free-man to rise to this dignity of a petty chief. A great deal of mysteryhas been thrown around these pictographic carvings, due to the igno-rance and misconception of some writers and the reticence or deliberatedeception practiced by the Indians themselves. They are in no sense-idols, but in general may be said to be ancestral columns. The legendswfiich they illustrate are but the traditions, folk-lore, and nursery talesof a primitive people; and, while they are in some sense childish orfrivolous and at times even coarse, they represent the current of humanthought as truly as do the ancient inscriptions in Egypt and Babylonia,or the Maya inscriptions in Yucatan. The meaning of a few of thesecolumns may, by inference, be taken to represent the general characterof all. In Plate xxxv. Fig. 179, is a carved column in front of the model ofa

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