2-728-597 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Fighting Knife, late 1800s-early 1900s. After Europeans introduced firearms, the native dagger gradually transformed from a weapon into a status symbol worn in a sheath that hung around the neck. That is probably the case with these daggers which have elaborately carved hilts. One depicts a grotesque head surmounted by a fish, perhaps a salmon, and the other shows a bear's head over a supine human.