Portrait figure
The Haida woman represented in this carved figure wears a pleated cotton dress and holds what appears to be a wafer. In the mid-nineteenth century, Haida men and women made regular journeys to Victoria, British Columbia, five hundred miles south of their homeland on Haida Gwaii, also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. The woman likely acquired her garment there, and the wafer may refer to the Christian Eucharist, perhaps symbolizing her religious conversion.
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