SOLD
CEREMONIAL SPOON
Haida, Tlingit, or Tsimshian
Northern Northwest Coast
Second half of the 19th century
Mountain goat horn
Length: 16.5cm
Width: 6.3cm
 
An elegant, and confidently rendered ceremonial spoon, with its handle carved as a figure with a protruding tongue.
 
Aside from associations with the practical and sustenancial consumption of food, protruding tongues among historic peoples of the Northwest Coast have been strongly associated with the transfer of spiritual power.
Tongues often feature prominently on both ceremonial and shamanistic objects, and can be found on large communally owned feast ladles, or as here, in the intimate scale of the individually owned spoon.
 
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Toronto, ON
 
REFERENCES
Victor-Howe, Anne-Marrie, Feeding The Ancestors: Tlingit Carved Horn Spoons, New Haven: Peabody Museum Press, 2007.