Shore leave in Prince Rupert provides the chance to visit the extraordinary Museum of Northern B.C. While all the collections are excellent, I love the First Nations’ regalia. This time what catches my eye are the garments with audible accoutrements. With wearable percussion, dancers interact with and enhance the beats of the drums.

Garment fringed with pieces of metal and Chinese coins.

This bear claw crown would have been worn by the shaman.

Carved goat horns combine in this crown.

Fox skin tunic with with red wool felt and fringes with deer hooves.

When we get to Sitka, I head for the Sheldon Jackson Museum in search of wearable percussion. One of two Alaska State museums, this holds the collection of Sheldon Jackson, a Presbyterian educator who founded a school for Native youth and collected the items in last decade of the nineteenth century.

But here I don’t find a single example of wearable percussion! I suppose people of Jackson’s ilk were not keen on the Potlatch. Instead, this place is a temple of material culture and human ingenuity. Every drawer in the small octagonal museum holds intriguing objects.

A shaman’s rattle hang in a case near the banks of drawers with other collections.

After European contact and the availability of wire. Tlingit artisans tried their hand at stringed instruments.

When hunter scratches on the ice with tool, the sound resembles that of seals. Feeling safe, the seal approaches the hunter.

Wouldn’t a necklace of fox teeth or of crab mandibles make a pleasant sound?

Or how about a Yup’ik necklace of ground squirrel mandibles? These necklaces were worn by both men and women.

I’m sure some vocal sound or drumming accompanied use of these women’s healing belts. Inupiaq belt features porcupine quills, one from the Bering Sea caribou teeth.

Snow goggles save Inupiaq hunters from going blind and certainly make a fashion statement.

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Baggywrinkles Blog shares stories, adventures, and reflections from the Pacific Northwest’s waterways. Explore cruising journeys, local life, and nature-inspired insights designed to inspire you to step off the shore, embrace the unknown, and find your own adventure.

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