Haida art is renowned among Indigenous art styles.
Gagiid Coming Back, 2021
- cedar, cedar bark, paint, hair, bird down, leather, nails, about 11" high.
Haida art is renowned among Indigenous art styles. About 12" by 11", red cedar with cedar bark hair, copper eyes, a nose ring, and abalone earrings. Carved by Corey Bulpitt.
'This mask is a shaman mask or Sgaaga in Haida. He is wearing a hairpin in his top knot, has a copper nose ring and abalone earrings. He is surrounded by sacred red cedar bark. He has the tail of a killer whale painted on his face and a dorsal fin on his forehead. The killer whale is often a spirit helper of the shaman. His eyes are rolled back and tongue is out as he is depicted here in a healing trance.' Corey Bulpitt
Taakeit Aaya or "Gifted Carver" Haida of the Naikun Raven clan was born in Prince Rupert BC in 1978. He is a great-great grandson of the famed Charles Edenshaw and Louis Collison.
The shaman fulfils a vital role in Haida traditional society, a society that believes all living beings and phenomena have a spirit and a soul. The shaman is a mediator between this world and other worlds. He or she can relay information back and forth, and can access help from the spirit world. The horns carved at the top of the masks head represent something like antennae, or the shaman’s sensitivity.
