Stumbled upon this little lot while browsing around in my area. The box is made by the Haida people out of Canada and it and it’s contents were brought back by the seller as souvenirs from his travels. The cuffs immediately caught my eye and when i saw the asking price (more or less the silver’s worth of the sterling items for the entire lot) i immediately jumped on it. I believe they are Hopi and one of them seems to be stamped with a Floyd Namingha Lomakuyvaya hallmark. The other is unmarked. The seller mentioned he bought them both at the same shop, my guess is in the 90s.
I am quite curious to learn more about the symbols, one cuff features bear or badger paws with a healing hand type spiral, the other consist of elements of lightning & rain clouds? Or maybe a stylized kiva? I ordered a little book on Hopi symbols, but that’ll probably arrive next week.
Secondary faves are the Sunface button covers, which feel nice to wear as they are, but could easily be modified as well. I turned one of them into a pendant without doing any damage to it. Once i get better at soldering i’d like to make a ring out of another one.
I like pocket knife too, even though the turquoise appears to be block. Furthermore a great little book, bone choker, some Shells and more bits and bobs. Very happy camper over here
What a wonderful surprise in that beautiful box! And I love the design on the it; trying to see how many animals I can find in there
I also think those are Hopi cuffs, and that you are right on the hallmark; they are gorgeous. Great job on the pendant conversion (love that chain), and one of those would be perfect as a ring! The western/native art museum near us has bone chokers, but I can’t remember off the top of my head which tribe makes them (Cherokee or Lakota? Maybe several do).
@Bluegreen Oh, this is what I call a treasure box! Those cuffs are fantastic & I believe they’re Hopi. You did a splendid job of converting the button cover to a pendant. I can’t wait to see one converted to a ring. The box itself is beautiful. Does the image represent Orcas?
Yes, i believe so too, i also found an article about the origins of the design which explains a bit more:
And i agree about the cowrie shell items. When i do an image search i always get results saying that they originated from Mali. Also the carved fish hook pendant seems to be of Maori origin. I wonder if they might have ended up in the US or Canada via import trade, but haven’t been able to find out so far.
Yes i agree, i too feel that it’s a little treasure. And i love treasure hunting (:
And thank you for the compliment! It was really easy to do; i simply had to gently remove the steel thingy on the back and attach a clickable silver bail that i had laying around. I’m very happy with the result. I’ll wait a bit with the ring, cause i really wouldn’t want to mess anything up and i find soldering a bit tricky still hehe.
That’s what I was thinking also, that they look like salmon with one in between that they are holding, although I wasn’t sure if the one in between was a fish or a bird. It also looks like there are eyes in the fish tails! I have a pendant that is a cross of a raven and an orca, the fin is narrower on my orca. We bought a couple prints when we were on Vancouver Island, and one of them has salmon on it. When I get home I have to look at it, and see what they look like exactly as compared to the orca on my pendant.
And yes, I was leaning toward Lakota, which also is often referred to as Sioux (although there are numerous different groups of Sioux).
yes, spawning salmon. you can see one has “eggs” near her tail. and the roe is placed between the tails of the two parents. Looks like it may have been a shipping box for one of the smoked salmon companies that ships seafood from the PNW.
That sounds very nice @Ziacat ! I’m curious about your raven & orca pendant. I’m hoping to find an item that features a raven (or crow to be exact) because i’m a huge fan of them. I have a couple of crow friends in my street (:
And thanks for pointing out that Lakota and Sioux are the same. I really need to read the little book that was in the box, because it seems to describe most, if not all North American tribes.
I think you are spot on @Jemez2 , since the people that created the box mention that it was meant for their salmon products (and doubling as a general gift box).
The Haida style boxes sometimes came with smoked salmon and other delicacies inside (we’d get them for Christmas), my son has a lovely salmon lid (not sure what happened to the box part) that he hung on the wall.
