Four Views on Thunderbird and Mimlos-whale

Dublin Core

Title

Four Views on Thunderbird and Mimlos-whale

Subject

Wood carving of Thunderbird and Mimlos-Whale

Description

Old wood carving in my mom's dental office

Creator

Donated to us by Duwamish tribe patients

Source

https://pnsn.org/outreach/native-american-stories/thunderbird-and-whale/thunderbird-and-whale-overview https://www.pnsn.org/outreach/native-american-stories/thunderbird-and-whale/thunderbird-and-whale-stories/tales-from-the-hoh-and-quileute https://nativecanadianarts.com/gallery/kwa-gulth-thunderbird-and-killer-whale/ https://theenlightenmentjourney.com/the-thunderbird-and-whale-tlingit-story-of-transformation/ https://www.britannica.com/topic/thunderbird-mythological-bird

Publisher

Was made before I was born and probably before my parents were born or even further back.

Date

A long time before Seattle became a big city, maybe even a city

Contributor

Duwamish Tribe and my mom

Rights

Given as gifts to us.

Relation

My mom has this in her dental office

Text Item Type Metadata

Text

This piece of art is from the Duwamish Tribe back in Seattle Washington and we were actually given these when my mom started her Dental Practice there over 20 years ago. I’ve seen this piece of art countless times as I go into work but I actually have never done any research on where this is from or what it represents. So after some time and research, this piece of art was relevant to trade because of the story that it tells. There are many interpretations of this artwork since there are many tribes in the Pacific Northwest, but they all have the same basics. On top is the mythical Thunderbird and on the bottom is the mimlos-whale. There was a great flood at the time and the thunderbird fought a long battle with the mimlos-whale. He would seize the whale in his talons but the whale kept escaping. It was a game of cat and mouse, but finally at the end the mimlos-whale managed to escape to the deep sea. Due to this event, the Duwamish and other native tribes believe that this is why no trees grow on the Olympic Peninsula prairies and other places around there because the winds were so strong that it pulled trees out of the ground.

From the old tales, the mimlos-whale/killer whale is actually depicted as the evil nature in this story. The Duwamish believed in balance and harmony and this killer whale represented the bad of it. From the story it also explains that this battle was the reason why the mimlos-whale decided to stay in the deep ocean and the thunderbird stayed in the skies. Balanced as it should be. Although the killer whale is represented as evil in the story, the animal is assigned with great strength and longevity. Which has been shown in the story on how he keeps battling and never giving up even when it seems like it's over.

So this is the legendary Thunderbird. The thunderbird was a mighty beast that was said to bring lighting, floods, thunder, and great winds. This mighty beast brought lighting from his chest, made the strong winds from the flapping of his wings, which is why no trees grow on the Olympic Peninsula. He also could bring great floods with just an angry mood. He is rumored to have lived in the Olympic glacial field under the ice, and everytime he returned the ice would move and shake. Most importantly, this creature was very important to Indigenous Tribes in the Pacific Northwest because he represented a supernatural being that connected the spiritual world with the physical world.

The faces and markings on the whale are a bit odd but they make sense. The face next to the head of the whale is actually the white spot on the orca, like how they're actually eyes are not the giant white spots on their head. However I think that this face is meant to represent some kind of evil or bad action.

The middle part of the thunderbird is actually said to be two monstrous feathered snakes and they dart out whenever they want to create lighting when angered, but these two faces are a part of something good(Thunderbird).

The face on the orca’s fin represents evil. Just like the other face, they all add up to make the evil(which is the whale), and in balance you have the two snakes to balance out the two faces. In the end everything is balanced.