I found these two carved canoes together. They're 21" and 23" respectively. I welcome any feedback on them. The dark unpainted one looks to be cedar. It's quite nice, and even flares out along the sides, which I tried to show in a pic, but maybe I didn't capture that. It looks like an old patina, but there seems to be damage to the top rear. Maybe the painted one is a hobbyist's interpretation? The images seem cartoonish, but maybe there's more to it than that? It looks to me like cedar too. The two fish on the one side are raised up, while the other images are only painted on. The two dorsal fins are interesting too. @komokwa @all_fakes Thanks as usual for help!
The white one is a Northern style Tlingit model canoe...1940 to 60....or there abouts. I say this because the maker cared not to work the interior as it should be, and what you see as cartoonish characters are actually legitimate NWC designs...but those made well after the 20's , at which time the proper design structures were still well understood by native artists..but were lost in the dark cultural years that followed the dark one, is a Southern style Makah model canoe ...of an earlier age....maybe even late 20's...missing it's high rear raised stern. the bow and stern were added on to the main body , as would be for a full sized canoe....thus I think the earlier age ...when a carver knew what the hell he was doing !! both are made for the tourist market.....but.....both are also of excellent size ! this Chief Henry Speck has a more refined cartoonish look....but not to be sniffed at ... late 50's early 60's...
I agree with Komo - as usual. It would be easy to dismiss the first one, because the forms are not really very good, in either modern or traditional terms; but there are too many things that are correct, and which would be highly unlikely to be correct if non-native. Including the overall shape; and the doubled dorsal fins. (The double-fin killer whale is a traditional crest, though less common than the more realistic single-fin; and a non-native would be very unlikely to know that. Caspar Mather was one earlier carver who used the double-fin design sometimes, though this is not one of his carvings. It is noteworthy that Caspar Mather does fit the "loss of knowledge" time-period mentioned by Komo - he had been raised without having any teacher or mentor, and thus had to learn and make things up for himself, without any traditional training; and so his form-usage is not really very good, in traditional terms. There are a number of others up to the 50s-60s with similar bios, though mostly nameless.) As mentioned, Chief Henry Speck is an example of art from times when knowledge was not as refined as either today, or in previous times; but Speck was also one of the first to make drawings of his art, and so is quite significant in terms of preservation of the forms. And, forgive the wandering OT, but Ellen Neel is another whose forms were not always perfect, but who is still highly respected; and she was one of the first to make and sell note-cards; where again we see forms that are a bit cartoonish:
Thank you @all_fakes . I so appreciate your time and knowledge. I will admit that I am neither skilled nor patient at researching items on my own online, and thus I often ask here. But I'll also admit that I had a hunch about the white canoe being authentically made (albeit for tourists), despite the relatively less-refined designs. For one thing, the precise similarity between the two killer whales made me think that the forms were in fact informed by cultural traditions. A non-Native hobbyist carver would have been likely to 'riff' each animal differently. My increasing judgment and perception, such as they are, are in big part thanks to your guys's willingness to help me. And as for 'wandering' onto related topics--- please wander!!!
