Speaking of canoes, 100 came to the Paddle to Squaxin this summer and next year it takes place at Quinault. His grandson, Michael Lawrence (nickname Toogie) is Vice Chair and was Chair during the Paddle to Makah. Al knew Wilbur and his wife Muzzie too since we often had picnics with their family in Neah Bay while working at Hoko. Wilbur indicated that the schooners were later confiscated by non-Indians for some reason. I worked a lot with Wilbur Claplanhoo, a Makah Elder and fur seal hunter who also carried the name Maquinna as a descendant of that royal family in Yuquot, and he indicated that his father, also of Neah Bay, owned two schooners himself and took sealing crews north. Wow, I’d like to have the original of the painting!Īl points out that schooners picked up fur sealers and canoes and took them north to hunt. The host chief, in the shadow of the houses above the beach, greets his guests who are dancing and singing in their canoes clustered in the channel just offshore. It is a clear winter morning, with the sun low in the south and Mount Edgecumbe looming over Japonski Island to the west. The Tlingits had been trading with Europe for nearly a decade by that time, so trade blankets and European shirts would have been seen among them. At that time the classic Chilkat blanket was just on the verge of appearing, so all the twined blankets in the picture are of the early geometric or the transitional design. Since the early form of the northern canoe was just being developed at the beginning of the century, I chose 1803 as the date of the picture. When they returned to Sitka in 1821, the head canoe had gone out of use. Since the setting of the picture is the beach in front of the Sitka village, the time had to be before Baranof drove the Tlingits from this site in 1804. I wanted to show three canoe styles: head-canoes, the early form of the classic “northern” canoe that superseded them in the first decade of the nineteenth century, and the northern Tlingit “spruce” canoes that were related in form to the head canoes and continued in use until the twentieth century. “The painting was made to illustrate my article “The Head Canoe” for the Sheldon Jackson Museum’s centennial volume Faces, Voices, and Dreams. I was doing it from memory, but Holmes has a good description under the earlier link you made and I don’t think I balled too much up: It is a skillful and atmospheric rendering of Nuu-chah-nulth life shortly after first contact with Europeans.īecause this is too far north for cedar. It’s not clear what the kneeling man on the right is doing: is he using a mussel shell to dig? Several harpoons complete with foreshafts seem to be visible. Cook described the men’s dress as generally bare in the ‘… Middles, nor are they ashamed to appear naked’. It is probable that Webber modified the drawing for the sake of decency and for public viewing. The head was covered with a conical hat made of matting. According to Captain Cook, the cloth was the bark of the pine tree, beaten flat like a sort of rough felt. Their clothing, basically the same for men as for women, consisted of a woven cloth, fastened at the shoulder or neck. The terrible weather, which left the trees ‘mutilated by rough gales’ contrasted greatly with the tropical scenes ans palm trees enjoyed by the explorers in Tahiti. High cliffs, rocks that reach right down into the sea, and the jagged shore line gave it a ‘melancholy appearance’. The written descriptions of the location are confirmed by the drawing. Webber was one of several artists employed to record the peoples, animals birds, fishes, plants and landscapes of the newly discovered Pacific Islands. The artist, John Webber (1751-93), accompanied Captain Cook on his third voyage of exploration in the South Seas and Pacific Ocean, which lasted for four years from 1776 to 1780. It is drawn in ink, pencil and wash and watercolours. This drawing records this bay and some of its inhabitants. Nootka Sound, on the Pacific coast of Vancouver Island in Canada, was discovered by Captain Cook in his two ships, Resolution and Discovery in 1778.
Source: British Museum.įrom the British Museum, a superb watercolour: Detail of a Nootka Sound watercolour by John Webber, 1778.
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