This beautiful mask was made by a Tlingit or Tsimshian master carver. It was made for a specific person and was a representation of his or her spirit helper/guardian. In Tsimshian culture, this is called a Nax Nox; in Tlingit it is yéik.

Tsimshian master carver David Boxley explains: "A man would actively search for his spirit power to aide him in whatever life journey he was about to embark on, whether as a leader, a warrior, a hunter/fisherman, a shaman, or an artist. Some Nax Nox were found through great stress and trials, others by accident or happenstance...The owner of a Nax Nox would often have a mask of his spirit guardian made, and the story or incident would be displayed at potlatch by someone other than the owner acting it out or dancing to show the Nax Nox. After, the owner would distribute payments to his guests, who had witnessed this example of his personal spirit power."

Tlingit elder Harold Jacobs elaborates: "Often associated with use by an íxt’ (shaman), such masks represented their yéik (spirit helper); some were made to place over the face of the íxt’ as s/he went into a trance, while others were made to locate and drive sickness out. Today some songs belonging to the íxt’ are still used by the clans in ongoing ceremonies...Another use of such masks was for storytelling...Masks in the yíkteiyí always have a song and show family crests, events in the history of the clan, and even debts owed by other clans."

-Excerpted from Native American Art from the Thomas W. Weisel Family Collection, 2022.