NAAXEIN • NAAXIIN • GWISHALAAYT • CHILKAT WEAVING

Naaxein (Chilkat Robe)

Purchased by Pruell’s Gift shop, Ketchikan, 1933. ASM II-B-1520

This robe was purchased from a Native American person by Pruell’s Gift Shop in Ketchikan in 1933 and sold shortly thereafter to a California collector. The subject of the robe is ambiguous. A robe with the same pattern in the Field Museum in Chicago belonged to Haida leader Guunyaa. George T. Emmons identified the pattern as a sitting wolf and/or diving whale.  Or perhaps a supernatural sea creature, such as the Gunakadeit, or Sea Bear.

Naaxein (Chilkat Robe)

Gift of the Alaska Packers Association, through J.D. Cooper, Vice President and General Manager, Blaine, Washington. ASM II-B-1265.

This robe is a rare combination of crest designs rendered in both stylized formline and semi-naturalistic realism. According to Harold Jacobs, there is an identical robe from the Angoon Tlingit called Yéil wulishaayi kéet (Raven Married to the Killer Whale), a crest of the Dakl’aweidi (Killer Whale) clan, Angoon Tlingit.