The Haidas show great ingenuity in their carvings on wood, but it is in their slate modelings that their greatest skill is exhibited. They mine their peculiar quality of slate on Queen Charlotte island. When it first comes out of the ground it is soft and easy to work, but after it has been exposed to the atmosphere for a few weeks it becomes very hard and takes a good polish. On this slate they execute work that compares favorably with many of the productions of highly civilized sculptors.
One of their best specimens is the Bear Mother, which also illustrates a legend. There are several versions of it, but here is the most usually accepted:
A number of Indian squaws were in the woods gathering berries when a chief’s daughter, who chanced to be among them, ridiculed the whole bear species. The bears poured down upon them and killed all but the chief’s daughter, whom the king bear made his wife.
She bore him a child, half human and half bear. She was discovered up a tree one day by a party of Indians, who were out hunting. They mistook her for a bear, but she made them understand that she was human. They took her home and she became the ancestor of all the Indians belonging to the bear totem.
The carving represents the agony of the mother in suckling this rough and uncouth offspring.
The Haidas believe in the transmigration of the soul and that men are merely bears, wolves, ravens and the like transformed into men.
Upon examining their work on silver and copper one will be struck by the neatness of the workmanship as well as the oddness of the designs of the Haida smiths. If the Haida wishes to draw the picture of a man or animal on a bracelet, ring or breast pin, he will split the face in the middle and draw two side views, one facing the other.
HAIDA CHILD DANCE AT HOUKAN