Feast Bowl depicting Bear with Raven Ladle, 2005
by Gary Leon, Chehalis Nation
Red cedar, pigment
Bowl: 5” high x 16.5” long x 10.25” wide
Ladle: 4.75” high x 14” long x 3” wide
Feasting was different than everyday eating and often involved the use of dishes, ladles, and spoons to support notions of rank and identity. Simple horn and wooden spoons were used on a daily basis, but elaborately decorated utensils, bowls, and dishes were reserved for special occasions. Such celebratory meals would take place often when there was a seasonal surplus of salmon or a successful hunt. The food served would vary seasonally and include dried salmon or some other fish, seal meat, seaweed or herring spawn, berries, beaten soapberries, and frequently, fish or seal oil, in which food was dipped.
Northwest Coast feasting bowls were made in a variety of forms and sizes. They were typically constructed out of mountain goat horn or wood, and were made in sizes ranging from tiny individual containers for candlefish and seal oil to feast dishes up to twenty feet in length. While some bowls were made in the form of bent-corner boxes, others were made of hollowed out sculpted animals or globular forms. Some were rectangular or square in shape and carved from solid blocks of wood.
Feasting bowls varied in their degrees of embellishment, though they were often elaborately decorated with painting, carving or inlay of shell or opercula. Most were painted on the sides and at the ends, usually depicting either the clan or crest of the owner.
Gary Leon is an Indigenous artist from the Sts'ailes (Chehalis) First Nation. Watch this wonderful video featuring Gary discussing his collaboration with students and staff to create artwork for École Salish Secondary School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvGH90BQ6WY
