WEAPONRY
The daggers, spears, and clubs are part of the weaponry that Tlingit warriors armed themselves with when going to battle.
Dartmouth Dagger
This Tlingit dagger was collected by Lieut. George T. Emmons, a self-taught ethnographer and a prodigious collector of Northwest Coast (especially Tlingit) artifacts in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia from the 1880s to 1925. The dagger was collected prior to 1906 at which time it was donated to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Emmons describes the dagger as a war knife originating from old Tongass, Alaska with a brown bear head on the handle.
Wood, steel, cord, leather, and abalone shell
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Acquired by exchange from the Museum of the American Indian, New York New York
Tlingit Dagger
This dagger depicts a sea otter diving for a sea urchin. It has an iron blade with traditional Tlingit blood grooves, while the hilt is decoratively carved from beach-washed walrus ivory with abalone inlays and blue sapphire for the eye.
1996
Iron, ivory, abalone, sapphire
Héendeí Donald Gregory, Tlingit, Angoon Deisheetaan
Sealaska Corporation Collection
Fighting Pick
In 2003, Sealaska Heritage Institute received an object believed to be an old Tlingit fighting pick discovered in the early 1950s in the village of Kake. The pick was found by Lloyd Davis during a construction project and later presented to SHI by Davis’ son, John Davis. Tlingit Elders, museum professionals, and academics suggested that the object is a weapon, sometimes known as a “slave killer.” The stone weighs five pounds, nine ounces.
Stone
Sealaska Heritage Institute Collection