Silver Bracelets

From card: "20251B-- 3.4 cm wide bear design. Illus. in USNM AR, 1888, pl. 8, fig. 30 [and 32], p. 260. Loan: Crossroads Sep 22 1988. Loan returned: Jan 21, 1993. Illus. Also in Crossroads of Continents catalogue: 20251b, fig. 432, p. 304." Crossroads caption identifies: "Khoots, the grizzly bear, a crest of the Raven moiety ... He has a skeletized back and perforated (or joint-marked) paws and tail rendered in the split form that allows both sides of an animal to be shown on a two-dimensional surface. ... When silver coins came into common use in the mid-19th century, they were hammered into bracelet form ..."

The original Anthropology catalogue ledger book identifies E20251 as one pair of silver bracelets made by Geneskelos. However, at least since1888 there appear to have been 3 bracelets with catalogue number E20251: E20251-0 (20251A) a bear design bracelet; E20251-1 (20251B) a bear design bracelet decorated in a different style than E20251-0; E20251-2 (20251C) an eagle or thunderbird design bracelet decorated in the same style as E20251-0. Per Robin K. Wright and Kathryn B. Bunn-Marcuse, E20251-0 and E20251-2 appear to have been made by Geneskelos. Wright and Bunn-Marcuse doubt that Geneskelos made E20251-1. E20251-0 is Fig. 39, E20251-1 is Fig. 41 and E20251-2 is Fig. 40, all on p. 68 of Bunn-Marcuse, Kathryn B. 2007. Precious Metals: silver and gold bracelets from the Northwest Coast. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007.

19 Feb 2021

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