The Tlingit and Grizzly Bear House-Partition Screen :: Essays Papers

The Tlingit and Grizzly Bear House-Partition Screen The region of the northwest coast was blessed with an abundance of natural recourses for human existence and made it possible for the area to thrive. As a result of this unusual abundance, the area could sustain large populations and a complex social order for many Indian groups. Because of the level of sustainability, the cultures had more time for artistic and intellectual activities and endeavors and over time, art became very important and vital to the complex social structures of the groups of the northwest coast. One such group, the Tlingit, used art to create and portray its rights, privileges, and talents inherited to them and became symbols of tribal importance. As they lived in extended family tribal canoe houses, they used art to decorate and empower their tribe in their social structures and often commissioned elaborate artwork in order to create jealousy within the groups. Because the Tlingit culture believed that they were all descendants of animals, the subject matter of most Tlingit art is a highly stylized representation of their ancestor animal. Though religious belief was integrated into Tlingit artwork, it remained an iconographic representation of a tribe’s lineage serving many roles such as power and protection. The Grizzly bear house partition screen is one such example of important, symbolic Tlingit art. The partition screens were used both symbolically as well as served as a dividing screen for the chief separating his living quarters from the rest of his tribal house. This example is made in an unusually grand scale of 15 x 8 feet and is carved in bold low relief from cedar and was later painted. It artistically and symbolically represents Chief Shakes extended family’s origin, the grizzly bear, with smaller heads of the bear making up other parts of its body such as the eyes, ears, chest, as well as many other sections of the piece. The smaller heads create a highly symmetrical design within the piece as well as further symbolize the important image of the bear. Carved out of the reproductive area of the bear is the doorway for the chief, additionally creating an important symbolic representation of their chief being birthed from the grizzly bear every time he enters and lea ves his sacred quarters. This work exhibits mostly all the characteristics cited by Stockstad as it provided background information into understanding the Tlingit culture and their beliefs.