daxdhla (Bowl)

These bowls were used in the past as a vessel for rendering gla-tee (oolichan, or eulachon, oil). Today, as in the past, large feasts mark important occasions and demonstrate the responsibilities of the hosts — high-ranking chiefs and matriarchs — to their communities. Salmon and eulachon fish remain primary foods in the face of declining Indigenous access to resources; the precious eulachon oil continues to be rendered collectively, traded and shared among networks of relations.

Daxdhla (bowl for feasts) was created based on the concept of a double-ended, both-ends-pointed, dugout gelwa (canoe). The metaphorical relationship between this carved dish – made to hold in the hands – and a full-sized Haisla canoe is expressed in the shared form of both vessels and in their connection to a family’s wealth and social standing. If a canoe was the means of harvesting the foods of the sea and of transporting the people to their territorial gathering grounds and to trading sites further afield, the feast bowl was the means of sharing that wealth. Formline carving on this daxdhla (bowl for feasts) is likely a marine creature as it is based on a dugout gelwa (canoe) [Karen Duffek / Lyle Wilson, 2019].

Dish or daxdhla (bowl for feasts) carved from one piece of hardwood in the shape of a foreshortened canoe with fluted edges. The sides are incised with abstract designs and the outer rim is decorated with a band of incised vertical lines. The carved formline image is comprised of a head and mouth that occupy the front, pectoral fin filling the mid-section, and a tail arranged at the back. There is a slight ledge just below the inner lip. Surface is oily, with a reddish outer patina.