Feast Bowls

Wooden bowls are among the most iconic works created by the Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast of North America. Large bowls, occasionally reaching twenty feet in length, were used to display and serve food during the great gift-giving feasts known as the potlatch. These bowls feature slightly bulging sides carved in relief with designs representing family crests. In contrast, small water-tight bowls were most often made to contain individual or family portions of eulachon, a flavourful oil rendered from fermented candlefish, a species of smelt occurring abundantly along the whole of the Northwest Coast including Alaska. Because eulachon was considered such a delicacy among Indigenous Northwest Coast peoples the top sides of the bowls were carved with an inward bend to prevent any spilling of their precious contents.