Title: Northwest Coast Indian - Technology and the visual arts | Britannica
Headings: Technology and the visual arts
Technology and the visual arts
Discover wood-carving traditions handed down from past generations of the Northwest Coast Indian peoples
Kinship and family life
Religion and the performing arts

Content: As far south as the Columbia River, wooden boxes were made of red cedar boards that were kerfed—cut nearly through transversely. The wood was steamed at these points until it was flexible enough to shape into the form of a box. Dishes often were hollowed out of pieces of wood, sometimes plain, sometimes in the form of animals or monsters. Other items made of wood included spoons and ladles, canoe bailers, trinket boxes, chamber pots, masks and rattles used in ceremonies, magnificent memorial or totem poles and interior house posts, housefronts and screens, halibut hooks, and even the triggers of animal traps. Sometimes items were made from the horns of mountain goats, bighorn sheep, or elk, which were carved by essentially the same methods as wood. Occasionally sculptures were carved from stone. Haida headdress
Haida headdress, painted wood, swan's down, and abalone, c. 1870; in the Denver Art Museum. Courtesy of the Denver Art Museum, Colorado
Artists in the northern province emphasized low-relief carving accented by painting; their motifs were the hereditary crests of the clans or parts of the crests.