Portfolio plate no. 350
Title
Nimkish village at Alert Bay
Curtis Caption
The figure at the bottom of the column in the foreground, with the painting on the front of the house, represents a raven. When a feast or a dance is to be held in this house, the guests enter through the raven's beak, the lower mandible of which swings up and down on a pivot. When a guest steps beyond the pivot, his weight caused the beak to clap shut, and thus the mythic raven symbolically "swallows" the tribesman one by one. A view from the other end of this street is shown in the illustration facing page 8, Volume X.
Creator
Curtis, Edward S. 1868-1952
Physical Description
1 photogravure : brown ink ; 45 x 33 cm [plate size]
Original photogravure produced in Boston by John Andrew & Son
Date of Original
1914
Source
The North American Indian (1907-1930) v.10, The Kwakiutl ([Seattle] : E.S. Curtis ; [Cambridge, Mass. : The University Press], 1915), plate no. 350
Relation
Digital images of the plates supported by an award from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition, and mounted in American Memory. See http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/curthome.html
Digital reproduction of the photomechanical print
Digital I.D.
cp10022
Rights
For educational, non-commercial use only. Written permission
required for any reproduction beyond fair use. Credit: Northwestern
University Library, Edward S. Curtis's "The North American Indian," 2003.
http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/curtis/
