Lucas Fujii
Professor Andrella
History 181
31 May 2024
Thunderbird and the Mimlos-Whale
I cannot believe that it is already the end of the final term of this year. This class has gone by really fast and I want to thank you for being such a great teacher who makes coming to class enjoyable.
The item for my four view projects was a wood carving of the Thunderbird and the Mimlos-Whale, the wood carving tells of a battle between these two ferocious beasts. I was very fortunate to actually have this piece of art in person. It was given to my mother from one of her Duwamish patients at her dental office. This piece of art is older than me for sure and probably my parents. I have walked by this piece of art countless times when I go into work, but I had no clue what it was until this class has pushed me to learn more about the people who used to live on the land before us. After a lot of research and time spent I found out that tribes across the pacific northwest have different stories involving these two beasts, however all the stories consist of the basics. The Thunderbird is represented as good and the mimlos-whale is represent as the bad in this story. The Thunderbird and the miklos-whale had a fierce battle long ago when there was a great flood. The Thunderbird seized the whale in its talons, but the whale kept slipping out. It was a constant struggle for the whale as it barely kept escaping each time, although in the end it ended up escaping to the deep ocean. However the flapping wings from the Thunderbird was so strong that the winds pulled the trees out of the ground on the Olympic Peninsula, and that’s why no trees grow on the Olympic Peninsula Prairies anymore. The placement of this story is very important because it has a deeper meaning than the fight. I seemed to notice a pattern of tribes in the pacific northwest and their beliefs in balance. These two beasts represent the balance of nature, the whale takes place in the ocean while the Thunderbird takes place in the sky. Also there are the faces on the carvings of these two beasts, there are two swirls on the breast of the Thunderbird. These two are snakes which are said to bring lighting when angered or when in danger. Then there are two faces on the mimlos-whale. Once again we see the balance between good and bad in two different ways from this one piece of art.
During my research process I had no idea what my item actually was, so I had to search up broad descriptions of what it looked like. As I narrowed the search down I found similar carvings that look kind of like the one I had. Eventually I found a site that explained what the Thunderbird was and what the mimlos-whale was. It told me a couple stories about the Thunderbird and about the battle it had with the mimlos-whale. However, the item’s metadata varied story descriptions from different sites. This was very confusing to me until I found a page where it told me that the stories actually vary because the different tribes have different stories of the two beasts. I also find it important that it is very different to observe an item on a digital platform compared to seeing it and holding it in person. When I hold the item, you do not realize how dense and thick the wood is, how smooth it is when you run your hand across it one way, but when you go the other way the wood is rough and coarse. Also you can see the colors, in the photos it looks dull and dry, but in person you see how the color was very vibrant before but just over time it wears down. Also it has a very distinct smell of cedar wood, like the wood you smell when you are in a lush and vibrant forest.
The object that I have chosen was given to my mom as a gift and was consensually obtained. For objects that are in non-native museums, archives, and libraries are complicated topics. There are some occasions where the objects are obtained through trades where it is perfectly okay to have these items on display. Then there are objects and artifacts that have been obtained through non-consensual ways. A lot of the British artifacts that I have seen on the online databases were obtained a long time ago and it has some skeptical backgrounds. Being honest, I did not realize that so many objects were obtained non consensually and it really made me think. I realized this when I was watching Black Panther and how he grabs the vibranium ax back from the museum. Then after taking this course, I found out good organizations like NAGPRA exist. I think having organizations like these are very important all over the world because many museums and archives have artifacts that do not belong to them and I think it should be returned, especially in this day and age. We should acknowledge the past and return what was taken from the people here before us, but also to learn and preserve information about the things that have been on display.
From this wood carving, there was some information about this object that I did not know. First off I did not know which tribe this was from until I actually had to look through a bunch of different versions of my Thunderbird and Mimlos-Whale. Secondly, I had no idea when this item was actually created until a stroke of luck actually happened. The patients who actually gave us these items came back into my moms dental office a couple days ago and she asked them questions for me. They told her that the item that was given to the office years and years ago has been in their possession for at least 60 years before they decided that they had too many I guess and wanted to spread their love and culture with others. Gaps in history are important because something is always happening, and when there is a gap we need to find out the truth about what happened. It’s like missing puzzle pieces and you’d like to see the whole picture rather than just the incomplete puzzle. So when we have gaps, they are important because there was probably a reason why the people here before us made that gap within history. Was it to hide their crimes, what they did, or who they did it to?