Haida or Haisla Painted Spruce Root Hat

Spruce root weaving is one of those arts in which the gathering and preparation of materials consumes more time than the weaving of the final product. Long, branchless roots must be found and dug, preferably in sandy soil for ease of extraction. The best small roots are then heated over a fire to soften the bark and drawn through a split stick to remove it. Once seasoned and dry, the roots are laboriously split through their length more than once, to preserve the smooth outer surface and remove the fibrous interior. All this can take weeks to prepare enough prime material for the weaving of a hat or basket.

Among northern Northwest Coast groups, three types of twining are employed in this style of hat; two strand over single warps in the upper area, or crown; one row of three strand to mark the transition from crown to brim, and two strand over single warps combined with what is often called ‘skip stitch’, or self-patterned twining. The latter creates geometric patterns on the surface, in this case zig-zag lines that extend out to the brim. Other examples exhibit diamond shapes in the skip-stitch on the brim. Hats in this shape are traditionally woven in these patterns, as were earlier hats with a lower, more conical shape. In the 18^th century, the smooth surface of the crown was reserved for painted designs, which did not extend into the region of skip-stitch patterns. By the late 18^th and early 19^th century, painted designs had begun to extend out to the brim, often covering the entire surface of the hat. This taller shape and more extensive painted area were picked up and emulated in hats created on the central Northwest Coast like this very fine example.

The painted design on this hat represents a bird, most likely a raven based on the long tapered beak. The image is composed of thin formlines compared to related compositions from the Tlingit or Haida. Thinner formlines evolved through the early 19^th century, with the greatest strides in this direction taken among artists of mainland groups, such as the Tsimshian, Haisla and Heiltsuk, with the latter achieving the most extreme expression of this formline style, most often seen on the sides of boxes and chests.

In this design composition, the raven’s head occupies the front of the tall crown, with the beak extending to reach the perimeter of the brim. Below the head on each side are ovoid and U-shape complexes representing the raven’s wings, while on the rear of the hat the bird’s tail extends out to the edge of the brim.

Steven C. Brown