Frontlet

CHAPTER IV: 1893 CHICAGO WORLD’S FAIR

Frontlet

Frontlet
Attributed to Sdiihldaa/Simeon Stilthda, Haida (ca. 1799-1889)
Wood, paint, abalone shell,
7 x 5 ¾ in. (17.9 x 14.8 cm)
Collected by Wolfgang Paalen in 1939
Anonymous loan to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, L52.3

Plate 47 from Boas’s 1897 book.

Hunt’s 1920s notes on plate 47:

ʟᴇᵋwālā´xā
come Down from above Dance. in the old
times this kind of Dance is not known
By the kwā´goł speaking tribes. ontill
âᵋwāde who toke a Hełdzāq women
for his wife in the year 1866. and this
Dance was given to him in marriage By
his Father-in-law. and from that time all
the other tribes. toke a wife from the
Hełdzāq and ᴇwek!enox. this is the
Dance mostly used now By all the tribes

This painted wood and abalone frontlet, credited to the nineteenth-century Haida artist Sdiihldaa (Simeon Stilthda), has led a peripatetic existence for over a century, surfacing in Chicago, Mexico City, and Brooklyn. Likely carved in Haida territory before 1889, when Sdiihldaa is thought to have died, it was used by the Kwakwaka’wakw troupe that performed at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In Plate 47 of his 1897 monograph, Boas used an edited image of Tom Hemasi’lakw wearing the frontlet to illustrate a chapter on the “Lao’Laxa” (Dła̱wa̱lax̱a) dance series, which was acquired by the Kwakwaka’wakw from northern groups.1 Archival photographs of Rachel Drabble (T’łat’ła̠ła̠widza̠mg̱a) donning the frontlet at the fair show details of its original ermine-covered headdress (Fig. 1). Many of the objects used or displayed at the Exposition (like the ceremonial belt in this exhibit) were later accessioned into the new Field Columbian Museum, however the frontlet returned to British Columbia—a potential indication of its ownership by an elite family.2

Fig. 1: Rachel Drabble wearing the frontlet at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago. Chicago History Museum, ICHi-025062. Photo: C.D. Arnold

Little is known about Sdiihldaa, whose pieces were long confused by scholars with those of renowned Haida sculptors Charles Edenshaw and John Gwaytilth, all three of whom worked in the village of Massett. Art historian Robin Wright has argued that features of the frontlet’s lower portrait face—the knobby chin, nose with rounded bridge, and graphic eyebrows—are hallmarks of Sdiihldaa’s style.3 His judicious use of paint lets the silky surface of the wood speak first, and the piece is imbued with serene naturalism. At the same time, the abalone inlay adds dimensionality and vibrancy that would be animated by both firelight and sunlight.

The strength of the design and its execution give the impression of a stand-alone sculptural relief. However, frontlets are just one part of multifaceted ceremonial assemblages.4 In a culture in which the ability to transform wood is held in the highest regard, only the most skilled artists are commissioned to produce elite regalia. Here, the central figures—a raven emerging from the mouth of a humanoid whale—likely represent crest images that telegraph the wearer’s clan and status.5 The abundant use of imported California abalone gestures both to the artist’s skill and the owner’s wealth. Typically, such carved wooden plaques are positioned at the forehead and secured in a cylindrical frame covered in exceptional materials, such as swanskin, buckskin, and flicker feathers. Dozens of ermine pelts usually trail past the shoulders. Long sea-lion whiskers form an upright ring holding loose eagle or swan down, which shakes loose as the wearer moves and floats around the dance floor as a symbol of wealth and plenty; Haida artist Robert Davidson describes such headdresses as the “chief’s status symbol… almost like a trophy.”6

Although this particular frontlet may have been produced by a Haida artist, it became associated with the Kwakwaka’wakw and was described by Boas as an integral piece of their performance regalia.  Along the Northwest Coast, there was a longstanding tradition of elite gift exchange, trade, and artistic commissions. The result was that new artistic forms and their related performance practices diffused culturally and geographically. As Boas described in his book, this kind of ceremonial regalia is worn in dances performed as part of the Tła’sala or Dła̱wa̱lax̱a (Peace or Chief’s Dances), which begins as an invitation and promise to distribute wealth.7 Both the headdress type (called yaxwiwe’ in Kwak̓wala) and its related dance (Hoylikalał) are believed to have originated with the Nisga’a-speakers of the northern Nass River area.8 Through marriage, trade, and warfare, the practice spread both north and south along the coast. In his 1920s emendations to the 1897 book, George Hunt clarifies how the larger dance series came to the Kwakwaka’wakw after 1866, when a Kwagu’ł man married a Heiltsuk woman and received the rights as part of her dowry, thereby prompting other chiefs to seek northern brides in order to acquire these valuable foreign prerogatives. Hunt said nothing about the frontlet itself.

More than forty years after the World’s Columbian Exposition, the Surrealist artist Wolfgang Paalen acquired the frontlet in 1939 “from the descendants of one of the principal Kwakiutl chiefs” on Vancouver Island.9 Using the frontlet as an example in his groundbreaking essay, “Totem Art,” published in 1943 in the short-lived journal DYN, Paalen argued for the rejuvenation of contemporary (Western) art through the universality of what he called “Amerindian” art (Fig. 2). Next to a photo of the frontlet was Plate 47 from Boas’s book, although the source was not clearly stated.10 His writing on the subject had a significant influence on the next generation of Abstract Expressionist artists like Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko. After Paalen sold the piece in the late 1940s, the frontlet changed hands a number of times. It was acquired for the private Guennol Collection, and has been on long-term loan to the Brooklyn Museum of Art for decades.11

Fig. 2: Cover of Wolfgang Paalen’s journal DYN vol. 4-5, Mexico, 1943, featuring a painting of a whale attributed in the journal to
Kwakwaka’wakw artist James Speck, but more likely by Henry Speck.

By Sarah Reetz

PAGES IN THIS CHAPTER

  1. Boas, The Social Organization, 621.
  2. There is currently no indication of which individual or family owned the frontlet. Of the two Chicago troupe members photographed wearing it, Tom Hemasi’lakw died childless in 1924, whereas Rachel Drabble lived into the 1950s (Judith Berman and Bill Holm, personal correspondence).
  3. Wright, Northern Haida Master Carvers, 286-296.
  4. Holm in Wade et. al, The Arts of the North American Indian, 133.
  5. Wright, Northern Haida Master Carvers, 295; Holm, The Box of Daylight, 115, 118.
  6. Brown, The Spirit Within, 100.
  7. Jonaitis, Chiefly Feasts, 113.
  8. Brown, The Spirit Within, 155; Holm, The Box of Daylight, 125; Jonaitis, Art of the Northwest Coast, 150.
  9. Paalen, “Totem Art,” 13. Paalen did not disclose the exact site of acquisition, much less the name of the chief in question, although from records of his travels it seems likely to have been in Alert Bay, where Rachel Drabble lived with her husband, the ’Namgis Chief John Drabble (Colin Browne and Andreas Neufert, personal correspondence). The Brooklyn Museum of Art also lists Alert Bay as the collection location, though it is not clear why.
  10. Paalen, “Totem Art,” 13. It is possible that Paalen learned of Boas’s plate from collectors George Emmons or William Newcombe (son of Charles Newcombe), with whom he met and later corresponded with after his trip through British Columbia (Browne, Interesting French Artist, 67-68).
  11. Fane and Poster, The Guennol Collection, 68.
2019-06-21T15:33:37+00:00
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