Mythic Beings: Spirit Art of the Northwest Coast

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

Mythic Beings presents a breathtaking collection of 75 powerful works by
34 contemporary First Nation artists who are currently working on the
Northwest Coast. It illustrates—together with Steven Brown’s Spirits
of the Water (2000), a companion volume—how the late 18th and
19th-century traditions of the Northwest Coast carvers are being freshly
interpreted by their descendants.

Gary Wyatt studied at the Alberta College of Art, the University of
British Columbia, and the Museum of Anthropology in British Columbia.
His first book, Spirit Faces: Contemporary Masks of the Northwest
Coast  (1994), has been widely acclaimed.

Wyatt’s Mythic Beings is more eclectic than Brown’s Spirits of the
Water. The stunning color photography displays fewer masks and a wider
range of carvings and ceremonial objects such as robes, chests, medicine
bowls, shamans’ rattles, and small sculptures in argillite, horn,
shell, and ivory. My favorites include Ken McNeil’s The Wind, an
unforgettable mask of alder wood and goat’s hair that illustrates the
distinct personalities of the four winds “asserting their own
identities and at the same time sharing their collective identity.” A
ceremonial robe by Cheryl Samuel represents a journey into both past and
future. In this robe, entitled “Klukwan Yadi” (the Grandchild of
Klukwan), the weaving techniques of two tribes have been incorporated
into a single work. Mythic Beings blends art and anthropology into one
beautiful, well-researched work.