During the first decade of his research on the Northwest Coast, Boas was dedicated to sorting Indigenous material culture into discrete classifications generated by local, as opposed to European, cultural forms and terms. In his 1897 book, Boas categorized these three masks as Nulamal (“Fool Dancer”) because of their pronounced noses and the twisted rings encircling their faces.¹ The Nulamal is an aggressive figure in the Winter Ceremonial who enforces proper cultural protocols by punishing those who behave poorly, and is commonly recognized by his high-pitched cries and unpleasant appearance (for instance, masked dancers sometimes have simulated mucous streaming from their nose).

Building on Boas, art historians commonly identify two styles of Nulamal mask: a human-type (Fig. 1) and a lion-type. The latter masks are thought to have been derived from lion figures seen on European ships or maritime material culture in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries. In particular, “catheads” constructed of wood, iron, or bronze were positioned on the outboard end of some ships’ anchor-bearing beams (Fig. 2).² Given its prominence on Royal Navy flags, figureheads, and carved plaques, it is possible that First Nations understood the lion as a kind of “crest” of the English (whom they called “King George’s men”) as a way to distinguish them from Americans (“Boston men”).³ Typical lion-type masks exhibit a twisted, leonine mane with rounded projections (possibly representing ears) on either side; prominent ridges in between thick, up-raised eyebrows; rounded, elongated noses with the septum attached to the upper lip (rather than protruding from the face, as seen on humanoid masks); radiating whiskers; and a downturned scowl (sometimes with carved or inlaid teeth).

In 1899, Hunt collected a lion-type mask, now at the American Museum of Natural History, along with a Gusgimaxw charter narrative about “Chief-Destroyer” that identifies such masks as representing Sepa’xais (“Shining Down Sun Beam”), a sky-dwelling spirit being.⁴ Boas initially dismissed this re-classification, suspecting Hunt’s suppliers of relating the masks to stories in order to increase their monetary value.⁵ However, in his subsequent revisions to the 1897 volume, Hunt associated four other Sepa’xais masks (including two of those pictured here) with specific Kwakwaka’wakw bands from around Quatsino Sound.⁶ Due to their location on the outer coast, Quatsino communities were some of the first Kwakwaka’wakw to have sustained interaction with—and collections made by—European explorers and merchants. By the time he published Primitive Art in the late 1920s, Boas acknowledged that Hunt’s alternative reading might be correct for at least some users of the lion-type masks.⁷

Based on the available material, textual, and oral history evidence, it seems that Kwakwaka’wakw carvers around Quatsino Sound first adapted European leonine imagery to masked representations of Sepa’xais in the early nineteenth century.⁸ This perhaps resulted from a visual association between sunbeams and the radiating hair of an exotic lion’s mane. Like some gilded catheads, these masks often feature reflective materials such as mica or copper, a trait they share with other Kwakwaka’wakw carvings depicting celestial beings. In subsequent decades, the innovative motif may have diffused to neighboring coastal groups that lacked Sepa’xais stories and prerogatives. In these villages, it appears that some of the leonine imagery was absorbed into the more widespread Nulamal tradition, as illustrated by the latest and most humanoid mask featured here (where the mane of hair now mimics twisted cedar-bark fringe, and the former whiskers have become painted lines that invoke streaming mucous).

In any case, the lion-type masks have not been carved or used ceremonially in Kwakwaka’wakw communities for the past century, making their definitive identification very difficult. With the loss of the Sepa’xais association and the absorption of leonine imagery into the more common Nulamal masks, many speculate as to why this figure was depicted in this distinctive style. Contemporary artist and hereditary chief Beau Dick once pointedly noted that the choice to use Euro-American imagery to represent the boorish and authoritarian Nulamal was “not without significance.”⁹

By Lillia McEnaney and Aaron Glass