British Columbia
Northwest Coast / Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw, (also called Kwakiutl)

Wood, paint, pigment
ca. early 20th
Length: 8 inches
Idiophones – Struck Indirectly – Rattles

The Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl), who called hard shell clams ‘quahogs,’ would not only harvest them for food but would use them for many purposes, including making tools and utensils, and later used the shells as a form of currency and decoration.  This Kwakwaka’wakw rattle is carved in two sections, the front in shallow relief and painted in black, green, and red to depict a human face. Above the forehead and the backside are carved with vertical grooves to represent a clam shell.  Leather thongs are wrapped around the handle.

The name Kwakiutl (pronounced kwak-ee-YEW-tul) has two meanings: either “smoke of the world” or “beach at the north side of the river.” In the past the name referred to all the related tribes or groups, those who spoke the Kwakiutl language (known in modern times as Kwakwaka’wakw) and the individual band. In the early twenty-first century the only one to bear the name Kwakiutl is the band located at the village of Fort Rupert. Since the 1980s, the Kwakiutl First Nation now call themselves Kwakwaka’wakw, which means “those who speak the language Kwak’wala”.