Rare and majestic, bentwood closed-crown hunting hats embody a remarkable convergence of Eskimo art traditions. Combining the techniques of woodworking, painting, ivory carving, gear-craft, and magical symbolism, these works represent a special synthesis that has few parallels in the Arctic world. Hats of such projecting length were rare among the Aleut who created them, and though the complete range of contexts in which they were used is unknown, it is understood they were a type of whaler’s hat worn exclusively by chiefs and exceptional hunters. Closed-crown hunting helmets as a general type in Alaska date to prehistoric times, and the peaked form seen here originated in the headgear of Kodiak Island, with influences from the woven hats produced by Tlingit tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

Whaling was a highly spiritual and ritualized practice, and skilled whalers commanded significant social prestige as well as a marked degree of ritualistic awe. The magical power with which they were associated was profound. Scholar Lydia Black has argued the closed-crown hat in fact represents a unique form of mask that transformed the hunter and endowed him with supernatural ability to seek out and claim his prey. Eye motifs and ranks of curved bands are invariably found painted on these hats, designs which Black identifies as stemming from archaic Old Bering Sea and Okvik traditions and which symbolize all-seeing universal vision and cyclical, cosmic regeneration. In addition, animal figurines carved of ivory were often attached to these hats. Charms such as these were a widespread hallmark of Arctic cultures and helped to metaphysically align their bearer with the spirits of their quarry, ensuring a successful hunt.

Young or inexperienced hunters wore a common, short-billed visor made of wood, baleen, or sea mammal skin, and as he advanced in age and skill he would graduate to a long-billed visor. With sufficient success and honor, he could eventually attain the closed-crown hat of the expert whaler, the peaked form of which differentiated its wearer from the rest of the community.  

Closed-crown hats were constructed through a laborious process that began with the rare discovery of large pieces of driftwood, usually spruce, cedar, or birch.The makers carefully cut and scraped out the found wood into a thin plank flexible enough to bend into shape, then steamed and softened it by using hot stones and pouring water over the wood. They then bent the wood into the desired shape and fastened the ends together at the back of the hat using sinew or baleen threads. Once complete, the craftsmen decorated the headgear with painted designs, as well as bone plates (volutes), ivory or bone figurines, and sea lion whiskers, depending on the level of elaboration. The paints used were mostly made with mineral pigments and were mixed with bodily fluids s plasma or mas a binding agent.

One of the earliest records of a closed-crown hat was noted by Carl Heinrich Merck in 1778, when an Unangan group was seen capturing a whale at Unalaska Island. Merck had also begun to record the details of these hats by at least 1790, stating specifically that the motif of the eye was associated with them in every case. By the nineteenth century, further recordings of the headgear were noted by other explorers. During his voyage to Unalaska Island in 1805, German naturalist, explorer, and diplomat Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff described a closed-crown hat, observing that "the most elegant and expensive headdress is a pointed wooden hat with an umbrella-like projection over the eyes and is rounded cap-like in the back.”

The example presented here shows both the fine craftsmanship and extensive decoration that characterize these magnificent hats. Faded polychrome stripes and eye motifs, once vivid with red, black and blue-green pigments, adorn the surface. Two trios of beads stand up from the top of the hat, tied with fiber through the surface of the wood. A large, vertical volute is found at the rear of the hat, its edges worked with semi-circular cutouts to form a pattern resembling peaked ocean waves. Holes bored into the volute hold a group of sea lion whiskers that project far out from the back of the hat, remnants of a hunter’s prestige crest that would have bobbed and waved in the breeze. There is an old indigenous repair along the right front side of the hat, attesting to the value, efficacy and importance of this hat to its owners.

By the end of the eighteenth century, at least two hundred European scientific and commercial voyages had been made up the northwest coast of North America. Navigators from Russia, Britain, Spain, France, and the United States set out to claim what they could for their nations in the New World, and this hat was probably collected by a French expedition at that time. An old, handwritten collection label is found on the top surface of the visor, reading “Chapeau d’un naturel – Detroit de Behring.”

Closed-crown hats were already uncommon in the eras in which they were created and are of extreme rarity today. In her book Glory Remembered: Wooden Headgear of Alaska Sea Hunters, Lydia Black identified just fifty-one known examples of this type around the world, held almost exclusively by institutions in Russia, Europe and the United States. Black refers to a single known example at the time of writing in private hands, which may be the hat offered here. The detailed workmanship, exceptional condition and deep, rich patina of this hat place it among the best examples known.

Objects of this rarity, age, and quality seldom, if ever, come to the market and we are honored to present this stunning example, held in a private collection since 1969 and offered for the first time in over fifty years.