At the Museum

 I spent another hour at the big current exhibit at the Albuquerque Art Museum.  All the works in the exhibit are from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection including these two shown on their website:

There are several examples in the exhibit of animated masks operated with pull strings.  In my picture below the dorsal fin and mouth of the fish figure are opened and closed with strings.

My notes on the images are a bit muddled.  I think the big beaked figure in the glass case is by Henry Speck, Jr.  In the background are pieces by Norval Morrisseau.

Henry Speck Jr. created the three large pieces in the picture below.  The two framed drawings were done by Speck Sr.

The information accompanying Speck Jr.'s work points to an interesting aspect of the cultures of the groups along the Coast of the Pacific Northwest:  the hereditary chiefs are also artists.

This small mask by Beau Dick is said to represent a Wood Bug.

There are only a few pieces in the exhibit that go back beyond the mid-19th Century.  The governments of the U.S and Canada did their best to stamp out the indigenous cultures and nearly succeeded.  Archaeologists and collectors saved some things, but much of the provenance was lost in the process.  Contemporary indigenous artists have taken up the challenge of preserving and carrying forward the traditions and skills of their ancestral predecessors.