Unknown Maker, Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl)

The Kwakiutl probably learned the art of making painted hats from their northern neighbors, the Haida. The hats’ imagery is also often derived from the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian cultures. The figure seen here may represent a sea monster. The head, with its prominent nostrils and mouth, is placed at the front of the hat, with the body depicted along each side of the crown.

Museum Works of Art Fund 44.152

Northwestern peoples made unadorned basket hats in this shape to serve as rain hats whiles fishing, but painted versions were used as ceremonial costume for potlatches and other important social occasions. In the precontact period the motifs on the painted hats represented clan symbols and served as instant identifying marks for thosed who wore them. Toward the end of the nineteenth century when hats were began to be made for sale, they were made without clan symbols. As in this hat the traditional form was retained but patterns became more and more abstract, until it became difficult to tell just what was being depicted. Looking down at the pattern on the hat from the top, we see some aquatic bird or animal, and on the top of the cone, a star, perhaps the signature of an individual artist.