Killer Whale Rattle
Haida
Hardwood, paint, ca. 1880s, 9 ½" long
The Bishop H. R. Powell Collection, American Museum of Natural History, 1898
George Terasaki

Related in concept to the globular rattle form, here the plump body of a killer whale has been hollowed out and filled with tiny pebbles to create a rattle of zoomorphic form. The round eye, abbreviated dorsal fin, and white underbelly of the whale are clearly shown, and the whale's tail is turned under below the handle of the instrument. This form of rattle was most likely used by a clan leader, one to whom the orca or killer whale was an ancestral emblem.