Tlingit Two Dimensional, Sculptural & Woven Art.
The First Nation People of the Northwest Coast are renowned for their elaborate and original art that exhibits a level of continuity both in concept and style. In the nineteenth century, distinctive traditions developed within the conceptual and formal relationships common to the Native artwork of the Northwest coast (Holm,1990:602).

These characteristic traditions can be grouped into three major conceptual and stylistic branches. The northern branch consists of the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Haisla, Haihais, and the Bella Bella art form; the central branch includes the Kwakiutl and Nootkan arts; and the southern branch is exemplified by the artwork of the Coast Salish, the Chinookans, and the Oregon Coast Natives (Holm, 1990:602).

Where these branches overlap, as in the Bella Bella region, the art tends to include both adjacent traditions.

Tools and Materials.
Woodworking tools in use before contact included those of bone, shell, stone and beaver incisor teeth, with a few iron and steel blades (King 1981:pl.85,nos. 123, 124). The iron and steel may have been obtained from trade across the continent, or salvaged from drift wreckage from Asia (MacDonald1984a:74-76; G.I. Quimby, 1985). The maritime fur trade provided additional metal tools throughout the coast that helped foster artistic activity.

The Natives utilized adzes, chisels, drills, knives, mauls and wedges for their woodworking tools. The crooked knife, similar to the curved bladed man's knife of northern North America (Mason, 1899) became the standard fine carving tool of the Pacific northwest Natives (Holm, 1990:604).

The artwork was either knife finished, for a textured surface, or sanded smooth with dogfish skin or dried stalks of the horsetail (Equisetum) (Holm,1990:604). Paint was applied with brushes made from the guard hair of porcupines, or with smoothly pointed sticks for the fine lines (Holm,1990:604).

Materials such as antler, bone, ivory, and stone were also carved with woodworking tools that were modified as needed. Early in the nineteenth century, natives started metal engraving on copper, silver and gold. They produced magnificent carved formline designs of crests and other figures. Many Native objects were decorated with designs, the utilitarian objects, the cultural, and the artwork that was produced for sale to the Europeans.

Tlingit Two Dimensional Art.
The formline system depicts beings by showing their body parts and details with various broad "formlines " that are joined to give an uninterrupted grid over the entire design area (Holm,1990:606). Shapes such as ovids and U forms are utilized in various sizes and proportions to complete the body parts. The formlines join one another with a limited number of juncture types that allow for a smooth transition from one formline to another without an increase in design weight (Holm, 1990:607). The formline system initially was a painted art, although artists eventually applied the formline rules to their jewelry, argillite and other low relief carvings.

Some of the most impressive and elaborate Tlingit formline painting was found on the great screens that were located on the back platforms of lineage houses, which served as ceremonial partitions to the house owner's quarters (Holm, 1990:607). These early well documented Tlingit screens had massive and angular formlines with very narrow relief slits, and with the tertiary areas recessed (Holm, 1990:607). One of the finest and most famous screens, the Rain Screen of the Klukwan Whale House was thought to be carved early in the nineteenth century (Holm,1990:607).

To identify the many formline designed boxes, bowls and chests as Tlingit as opposed to Haida is not an easy task. To distinguish the Tlingit from the Haida work, one needs to observe when possible the typical Tlingit three dimensional details, such as carved faces. The Pacific northwest people obtained objects from trade with various other groups, making identification of the artwork origin difficult, unless accurate information about its history is known or it is clearly within a tribal style (Holm, 1990:607).

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Tlingit artists adapted their metal carving to include European techniques. Metal bracelets and napkin ring holders as well as other items were fashioned from silver coins and carved with Tlingit formline designs. In precontact times, native copper obtained from trade, meteoric iron or iron salvaged from ship wrecks was utilized to make daggers (Holm, 1990:608;Shotridge,1920; Holm, 1983:98). With the simple tools available at the time, the daggers were beautifully crafted with outstanding workmanship.

The Northwest coast armor that is contained in museum collections today is primarily of Tlingit construction. Their armor was made from heavy hide or hardwood rods and slats joined by finely braided sinew (Holm, 1990:609). Both the heavy hide and the hardwood armor were painted with formline designs, probably representative of the ownerscrest (Holm, 1990, 609).

Tlingit shaman made use of amulets carved from antler, bone, sperm whale teeth, or the canine teeth of bears and sea lions (Holm, 1990:609). These amulets were carved with deep formline designs with sculptural elements that most likely depicted the shaman's experience or power within the spirit world (Holm, 1990:609). The amulets were designed as animals, but with strange combinations of features, sometimes mixing the parts of different creatures. Many fine examples of these amulets can befound in both private and museum collections.

Tlingit Sculpture.
The tribal styles of sculpture for the northern tribes is easier to distinguish, as compared with the two dimensional art form (Holm, 1990:614). The Tlingit sculpture tended to be naturalistic, with the anatomical proportions rendered accurately. The humanoid carved faces tended to have rounded features with large eyes, unconstricted eyelids on rounded orbs, and broad and open lips (Holm, 1990:614).

Shamans' masks and their headdress masketts were carved with striking portrait like qualities, and often represented the souls of humans (Holm, 1990:614). The Tlingit crest masks were frequently carved with the form of some natural or mythological creature, both usually being easily recognizable (Holm, 1990:614). Another interesting Tlingit carving was the warrior's helmet, often carved as the head of a vicious beast or a terrifying human face (Holm, 1990:614). The helmet, as well as neck and body protection were worn in battle.

The artists frequently made use of copper on the lips and eyebrows, opercula shells and teeth, and human hair pegged along the forehead or lips and chin to enhance masks (Holm,1990:614). Alder was the most common wood that was used for Tlingit masks.

The bowls, crest hats, carved house posts, dancing headdresses, pipes, rattles, and spoons were often carved with lineage and clan emblems, displaying the artists' imagination and technical skill (Holm, 1990:614). The carvings on these items were naturalistic with the details of the anatomy rendered accurately, irrespective of the sculpture size. The shaman's oyster catcher rattles were carved with many tiny figures upon the graceful bird's back.

The Tlingit interior house posts were often carved with figures from the houseowner's lineage myth, either with true formline designs on flat planks or with fully sculptured figures on round posts (Holm, 1990:615). These elaborately carved house posts were made to fit in front of the plain structural houseposts, allowing the owner to remove and place on subsequent houses (Holm,1990:615).

Tlingit Woven Art.
The Tlingit baskets were often made with a combination of simple designs produced by variations in the twining, dyed weft, and false embroidery with colored grasses to give simple geometric bands or repeat patterns (Edmons, 1903). The baskets were made in many sizes with a number of different shapes, depending of the baskets use. Small, telescoping baskets woven as slightly tapered cylinders that fit into one another were often used to carry shot for the muzzle loading guns (Holm, 1990:623). Larger baskets were used to store the eagle down that was used for ritual purposes. Even the cradle used for infants was made from a large basket that was cut apart and formed specifically for that purpose.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many Tlingit baskets were purchased by Euro-Americans. Some baskets with woven designs were specifically created for eventual sale to non-natives. These baskets were beautifully made with extremely fine and regular weave, and sometimes with bands of fine false embroidery. Most of the baskets contained in museum collections were obtained from the Tlingit women who wove them specifically for sale and not for native use (Holm,1990:623).

The Tlingit woven spruce root hats were made with flaring brims and flat tops, the typical Northern shape. These hats were used for both utilitarian and ceremonial wear. The hats worn daily were unpainted, whereas the ceremonial hats were painted with formline designs of animals, most likely the owner's crest (Holm, 1990:623).

Some of the hats worn by chiefs were made with stacks of basketry cylinders woven around hollow cores of light wood. These stacks of baskets on the hollow wooden core were found on top of woven or carved wooden hats that were painted with formline designs (Holm, 1990:624). The significance of the number of cylinders is uncertain, yet the tall stack of rings is often described as representing the number of potlatches given by the owner (Holm, 1990:624). From the center of the basket rings an ermine skin was often attached. These hats were beautifully made and were prestigious possessions for the chiefs.

The Tlingit weavers produced the most sophisticated and prized textile of the Northwest coast, the Chilkat blanket (Holm, 1990:627). The classic blanket was most likely first produced near the beginning of the historic period, since the earliest pictorial record is a drawing from 1828 by a Russian artist (Holm, 1990:627).

The Chilkat weavers were able to invent new techniques from the repertoire of twining stitches utilized for both basketry and the ceremonial robes of mountain goat wool woven with geometrical designs (Holm, 1990:627). The weavers succeeded in reproducing the subtle shapes of formline design into the Chilkat blankets. They also produced aprons, leggings and shirts with the classic Chilkat weaving technique(Holm,1990:627). A number of these magnificent blankets can be foundin museum collections, the earliest blanket was included in the Peabody Museum in Salem, Massachusetts in 1832 (Holm, 1990:627).

Selected Repository Collections of  Tlingit Artwork*:

Alaska State Museum and Historical Library, Juneau.
American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Bancroft Library,University of California, Berkeley.
Thomas Burke Memorial, Washington State Museum, Seattle.
California State Library , Sacramento.
Canadian Museum of Civilization, National Museum of Canada, Ottawa.
Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado.
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.
Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.
Museo de America,Madrid.
Museo Naval, Madrid.
Museum furVolkerkunde , Berlin.
Peabody Museumof Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge.
Portland Art Museum , Portland, Oregon.
Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria.
Smithsonian Institution , Department of Anthropology and National Anthropological Archives, Washington, D.C.
Ubersee Museum, Bremen, Germany.
University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

*Information on museum collections gathered by Joanna C. Scherer and various authors of Volume 7, Handbook of North American Indians , Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 1990.