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This article appeared in Discovery Magazine 1997 |
Seated Human Figure Bowls Soapstone
seated human figure bowl from Lytton 
In the 6,000 drawers holding the Royal BC Museum's
Archaeology Collection there are a small number of intriguing stone sculptures
that have certain characteristics in common. They have come to be known
as "seated human figure bowls," as they depict a human figure with the lap
forming a bowl or, less commonly, a bowl in the head. They are usually carved
with the face slightly upraised, the mouth smiling or grimacing, ribs showing
and often with a snake, lizard, or bird added to the human figure.
The distribution of these bowls includes the mouth of the Fraser River and extends upriver as far as Kamloops, Lillooet and Shuswap Lake and the east coast of Vancouver Island from Victoria to Courtenay. The small soapstone examples from the Lytton area represent the highest point of artistic achievement. Soapstone
figure bowl from Yale 
There is some debate over the age of these bowls. A
few have been found in contexts that indicated great age. Little, if anything,
is known about them by First Nations peoples today; one reason might be
the bowls were never objects of everyday use and their function not a matter
of common knowledge. There is some evidence that their use continued into
fairly recent times.
Although no direct evidence links these stone sculptures with shamanic rituals, there is a strong suggestion that this was their function. There are a number of tantalizing references in the ethnographic literature. Wilson Duff, BC's pre-eminent anthropologist, believed that they were used by shamans or ritualists (priests) and represented and contained their spirit power. These powers were sought through a vision quest, inherited or spontaneously acquired, such as by means of a life-threatening illness. The shaman was a medium between the people and the spirit world. Through trances, visions and ecstatic experiences such as lucid dreaming, the shaman acquired knowledge and healing powers (or, in some cases, negative powers). The seated human figure bowls, as a form of three-dimensional art, may represent the shaman or the deceased person who is the guardian spirit of the shaman. Trances are suggested by protruding eyes and an upward gaze; fasting (or the dead) by exposed ribs; and transformation by amphibian or reptilian forms. Bird motifs may be suggestive of the shamanic astral flight to other dimensions. Sandstone
figure bowlfrom Mt. Newton, Saanich 
There is an intriguing aspect to these bowls
that may or may not hint at an ancient link between Asian and Northwest
Coast beliefs. A number of the bowls have the spinal column represented
by a serpent with the head at the top. This is in accordance with the Buddhist
belief in the Kundalini or power of wisdom, represented by a serpent that
with great discipline and effort rises from the base of the spine, and upon
reaching the brain, a state of enlightenment is attained. Like the powerful
dualities expressed in Northwest Coast art styles, this power is either
extremely beneficent or, in the wrong hands, unspeakably dangerous.
Whether there is any significance to this observation may never be known. The explanation could be found in archetypal imagery common to all humanity, ancient circumpolar shamanism shared by all northern people or simple coincidence. In the meantime, the seated human figure bowls
in the RBCM Archaeology Collection will keep their mysterious secret and
enigmatic expressions.
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