THE EAGLE

References:
Plate 1, Figure 6. Gambling Stick. Tsimsyan.
Plate 3, Figures 1 and 2. House Front Painting
(detail). Haida.
Plate 7, Figure 1. Eagles and Giant Clam. Haida.
Plate 9, Figure 6. Carved Grave Monument. Kwakiutl.

3
PlatelO, Figure 1. Design on Dish.
Platel0, Figures 3 and 4. Carvings on Horn

Spoons. Tsimsyan.
Platell, Figure 1. Engraved Crest on Silver
Bracelet. Tsimsyan.
Platell, Figure 6. Carved on Slate Box. Haida.
Plate 16, Figure 2. Conventional Design on
Coiled Basket. Salishan.

The Eagle represented authority and power. Prominent as
one of the two great phratries of the Haida and also among the
four corresponding phratries of the Tsimsyan the Eagle is
familiar as a crest or in other decorative artistic output of
the Northwest Coast tribes.

He is recognizable by the downward curve of his beak which
distinguishes him from an otherwise Superficial resemblance to
the Raven. It is interesting that he forms a favourite though
severely conventionalized design imbricated on the coiled bas-—
kets of the women of the Thompson Tribe of the Interior, which
are usually definitely geometrical. "Snukum," the Sun, ap-
parently assumed the form of "Skamswin," the Ragle, in some Haida
myths and Eagle also plays a part in many legends in the Interior
as well as in those current on the coast. A finely engraved ex-
ample of the use of the Eagle crest is shown on Plate 11, Figure
1; and another representation, delicately carted on the curved
handle of a horn Spoon, appears on Plate 10, Figure 4. Full of
vitality, also, is the Eagle shown on a slate box, Plate 11,
Figure 6.

The representation of an Eagle on Plate 1, Figure 6, is
reproduced much enlarged from a gambling stick of Tsimsyan
origin collected on the Naas River in 1905 by W. A. Newcombe ,
of Victoria, B. C. These sticks measured about 5 inches in.
length by half an inch in breadth. They were frequently
decorated with a wide variety of delicately executed figures of
Symbolic fish, birds or animals, in this case highly polished.
The attitude of indignant amazement in this Eagle constitutes

EAA ae