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Feast Bowls

Seal Bowl

Haida, Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, ca. 1800-1820


Learn more about 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.


Status: All
Category: Feast Bowls

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Results: 30

Food Box N3981

Food Box

Haida
Haida Gwaii, British Columbia
ca. 1820-40
Inventory # N3981
Sold
Bent Corner Bowl N3641

Bent Corner Bowl

Tsimshian
Northern British Columbia
ca. 1840–1860
Inventory # N3641
Sold
Horn Bowl N1896

Horn Bowl

Haida
Haida Gwaii, British Columbia
ca. 1840-60
Inventory # N1896
Sold
Feast Bowl N4173

Feast Bowl

Haida or Tlingit
Northern BC or Southeast Alaska
ca. 1860
Inventory # N4173
Sold
Bowl N4152

Bowl

Columbia River
Wishram (?)
Washington State or Oregon
mid 19th century
Inventory # N4152
Sold
Grease Bowl N4181

Grease Bowl

Haida
Haida Gwaii, British Columbia
ca. 1840-1860
Inventory # N4181
Sold

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