Bentwood Bowl

Bentwood dishes were usually used for serving food, including fish oil, at feasts. They were also used as trade goods or gifts, and were symbols of wealth and prestige.This box appears to have been used for serving oil.

oil serving; status; ceremony

Designs on bentwood boxes are often ambiguous, so that various meanings could be assigned by the owner, or the imagery may be more complex than just crest representations.

Bentwood, or kerfed-corner, containers are constructed by a process unique to the Northwest Coast Aboriginal peoples. The carver begins with a single straight-grained plank of red cedar, or sometimes yellow cedar, spruce, or yew. The surface of the plank is finished with chisels, adzes, and knives; in earlier times, it was smoothed further with sandstone or dried sharkskin. Then three parallel kerfs, or grooves, are carved out at measured points across the width of the board, at right angles to the long edge. The kerfs, which will become three corners of the box, allow the board to be steamed until the wood fibres are softened, and then carefully bent to form a box with symmetrical sides. The final corner, as well as a fitted base, are joined and fastened with pegs (through drilled holes) or laced with spruce root or twisted cedar withes (branches). Storage boxes also have fitted lids of cedar, hollowed from the inside. Finally, painted compositions may be applied to the completed box and shallow carving added to bring the forms into relief. A well-made bentwood box is watertight. Historically, most boxes were used to store preserved foods and material goods; plain cooking boxes could be used to steam or boil food by adding water and heated stones.

A rectangular bentwood dish, or box, with bulging sides. The flat lip on top overhangs the concave interior sides. The lip curves up on the ends, and slightly down along the long sides. There is one inlaid opercula shell left on one lip side. Each end has seven indentations for shells, and eight or nine on each long side. There are two different designs with both ends, and sides similarly carved, respectively. The ends are bilaterally symmetrical; sides are bilaterally symmetrical with circles at the top corners. The carving is deep in some areas. Thick base is lashed with cedar (?) to the box sides. Inside base shows parallel adze marks.