Helmets were designed to protect a warrior’s head from traditional weaponry used in battle.  The helmet was designed to provoke fear among the enemy and often depicted the face of a crest figure, a human, or an animal.  This particular war helmet is a replica of a helmet that resides in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History collections.

2006
Alder wood, paint, hair
Tommy Joseph, Tlingit, Sitka Kaagwaantaan

Sealaska Heritage Institute Collection

This helmet was modeled after an eighteenth-century Tlingit war helmet.

2009
Wood, paint
Matthew J. Helgesen, Haida

Sealaska Heritage Institute Collection

The helmet features the face of a woman warrior.  Tlingit women were active participants in war and peace.  Historical sources document women’s involvement with fighting the Russians at Sitka in 1802 and 1804 and reference Tlingit women warriors being captured in war.

2014
Wood, abalone, shell, hair, paint
Tommy Joseph, Tlingit, Sitka Kaagwaantaan 

Sealaska Heritage Institute Collection
Purchased with funds from the Rasmuson Art Acquisition Fund

This war helmet with a Raven design includes hair insets at the top of the ears and braided chin ties.  

Wood, spruce burl, hair
Michael L. Beasley, Tlingit, L’uknax̱.ádi

Sealaska Heritage Institute Collection

The war helmet has a Raven design.  The face on the back is a spirit protector.  

Tlingit artist Héendeí Donald Gregory was inspired to make this helmet by well-known Tlingit carvers Michael and Rick Beasley. He found the spruce burl down at the beach near the former Nakahidi Theater on Franklin Street in Juneau.

Spruce burl, human hair, abalone shell, paint, epoxy
Héendeí Donald Gregory, Tlingit, Angoon Deisheetaan

Loan of Donald Gregory

This Tlingit war helmet is from Yakutat. It was collected in 1867-1868 by Lieutenant Edward G. Fast. Fast sold his collection to the Harvard Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in 1869. The war helmet was repatriated to Sealaska from the Museum in 2010 on behalf of the Yakutat clans until they can build an appropriate facility for its display.

Sealaska Corporation Collection