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Rare wooden feast bowl carved in the form of Basket Ogress Dzunukwa - Donald Ellis Gallery

Dzunukwa Feast Dish

Kwakwaka'wakw
Vancouver Island, British Columbia

early 19th century  

cedar wood, paint, metal nails

height: 36 ½"
width: 14 ½"

Inventory # N3855

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acquired by The Audain Art Museum, Whistler, BC


This monumental feast dish represents Dzunuk’wa, or “woman of the woods” a mythical being who lived deep in the woods and had a hunger for fish and human children (Boas 1897:372 and 1966, 307).

PROVENANCE

Reportedly descended through the family of Joseph Nathaniel Greene (b. 1893 at Fort Logan, CO)

Related Examples

Jonaitis, Aldona. Chiefly Feasts: The Enduring Kwakiutl Potlatch. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991 pgs. 198-199 and pgs. 200-201