Bowl

Food bowl. The bowl smells like seal oil so it may have been used to dip dry fish into oil.

Mythological creature portrayed on bowl is used to recall stories.

Food bowls are made by steaming a thin, grooved slab of wood which is shaped to form the walls of the bowl. The open, tapering edge is stitched or pegged together. The carved bottom is snapped into the side groove. Designs are applied using a mixture of red clay and charcoal, fixed with seal blood. These designs will not dissolve in contact with water or hot food.

Three sided bowl with rounded corners. Wide straight red-brown rim with two indented horizontal lines around circumference. Inner rim is beveled and flush joint shows faintly at outside. Brown bowl tapers to flat bottom. Centre bottom has small rectangular hole with six faint incised lines radiating out. Inner surface is rounded with a black rounded triangular insect-like creature painted at centre. Creature has a series of tiny vertical lines out from tail, bent legs on either side of head, tiny fin-like appendages above each leg, circular eyes and nostrils, and wide curved mouth with tiny lines indicating teeth. Three pronged line extensions from body.