440 Chapter 16
What does this headdress tell you
about the people who made it?
You are preparing an exhibit for your local history museum on an early Native
American society—one with no written language. In many ways, you must act like
a detective. You sift through the evidence for clues and then draw conclusions based
on your findings. Imagine you want to include this headdress in the exhibit. Study
the headdress carefully to see how much you can learn about the Kwakiutl,
the people who made it.EXAMININGtheISSUES
• What does the figure represented by the headdress and the
materials used to make it tell you about Kwakiutl culture?
• How else might you find out information about this culture?
Discuss these questions with your classmates. Think about the
kinds of information you have learned about other cultures that did
not have a written language. As you read this chapter, examine the
symbolic objects made by different peoples of the Americas. Think
about what these objects reveal about the various cultures.▲ This headdress was used by the Kwakiutl in religious ceremonies.
Carved of red cedar and painted, it shows a thunderbird, the high-
est of the spirits in the Kwakiutl religion. Like a huge eagle, the
thunderbird flew high in the sky. When it was hungry, it swooped
down to catch and eat killer whales.