A Tsimshian Polychromed Wood Headdress

probably depicting a mosquito, with a domed helmet, finely carved with a long proboscis, teeth bared, backswept wings, and short rounded ears; the whole painted in red and black pigments against the natural ground, with formline designs.

For a related example and discussion of the mosquito in Northwest Coast art see Wardwell, 1996, p. 101, No. 78: “…a mosquito…in shamanic art, is a metaphor for the shaman’s ability to suck illness from their patients.”

p. 101

“Other spirit animals that are infrequently represented are mosquitoes, owls and woodworms. Their ability to suck blood can explain mosquitoes’ role as a shamanic symbol, for they served as metaphors for the manner by which the shaman sucked the disease or evil from his patient. Emmons (n.d. 19/922), referring to a shaman’s headdress representing a mosquito in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, writes, “The mosquito is supposed to draw bad blood from the patient.” These insects were believed to have been born from the ashes of a powerful, cannibalistic monster that had been killed and cremated. (Boas, 1916, pp. 740-41: Collins et al, 1973, p. 244, no. 307).”