Speakers Staff
Dance leaders staff.
- Object: Speakers Staff
- Artist: -
- Circa: -
- Dimensions: 6' 33.5cmW (long 8cmW (at center)
- Culture Area: Northwest Coast
- Cultural Group: Unspecified
- Cultural Context: Speakers staff were ceremonial and featured most often in ceremonies such as the potlatch, the largest ceremonial institution. The speaker would act as an intermediary or middle man between the chief the rest of the people. The speaker is a hereditary position. Stylized patters, strategic repetition, symbolic metaphors and tapping the staff add significance and emphasis to what is being said. The chief would quietly tell or whisper the message to the speaker and the speaker would interpret and orate the message to the people in the proper manner. The staffs were an essential part of the speaker’s regalia, as essential as dances or other wardrobe pieces. The winter is a time of ceremonies, feasting, and performance for many pacific north west cultural groups, such as the Haida and Tlingit, sharing oral traditions and histories such as lineages and origin stories. https://www.academia.edu/35175996/Northwest_Coast_Speaker_s_Staffs Bibliography Bunn-Marcuse, Kathryn 2017 Northwest Coast Speaker’s Staffs. accessed May 12, 2022. Langdon, Steve J. 2002 The native people of Alaska. 4th ed. Wizard Works. MacDonald, George 1997 Haida Art. Craftsman House, Fisherman’s Bend, VIC, Australia. Stewart, Hilary 1979 Looking at Indian art of the northwest coast. University of Washington Press, Washington, D.C., DC.
- Donor: Sharon Koch
- Catalog #: 114.178