Subject: x'igaa káa warrior
Culture: Tlingit
Setting: Russian warfare, Northwest Coast 1802-1867
Object: x'aan yinaa.at armor
Helmet
* National Museum of the American Indian Heye Center > Listening to Our Ancestors
"In the late 18th and early 19th century, warriors wore wooden collars and helmets decorated with clan crests, spirit designs, or fierce human faces for protection."
* Feest 1980 p82 f92
"Tlingit wooden helmets consisted of two parts. The lower section or visor, with shallow notches along the upper rim serving as eye-holes, was topped by a mask-like helmet. The realistically carved human or animal faces, which were set with hair and opercula shell for teeth, added to the illusion of the giant size and ferocious nature of the warrior."
* Fitzhugh & Crowell 1988 p232 f310
"Tlingit Helmets and Visor ... Battles were transformed by the fantastic helmets worn atop the heads of Tlingit fighters into clashes of towering supernatural beings. [...] A visor was worn below a helmet and covered the warrior's face to the level of his eyes; shallow notches in the upper edge allowed fuller vision. It was held in place by biting a loop of heavy spruce-root pegged to the inside."
* Paterek 1994 p331
"Atop the armor was a large wooden collar, with slits so that the wearer could see and breathe. Warriors also wore carved wooden helmets, visored and painted with a fierce scowling face (the ferocious face was a distinctive Tlingit characteristic); the helmet fitted closely over the eye area and the face was covered with a visor of bent wood, held in place by a loop of spruce root that the warrior clenched in his teeth. After armor was outmoded in the nineteenth century these helmets became clan hats for ceremonial use."
* von Aderkas ill. Hook 2005 p45 (reconstructing a Tlingit warrior)
"Wooden helmets were carved in the shape of mythical monsters. The Tlingit chose gnarled and knotted pieces of wood that would not crack easily when hit. [...] Below this, the warrior wears a wooden face guard with a small ventilation hole; he peers out below the helmet through two small cut-outs in the upper rim of the face guard."
* Crowell 2010 p214
"Europeans described Tingit helmets as images of ferocious or monstrous beings. Tomas Suria, who was at Yakutat in 1791, wrote, 'They construct the helmet of various shapes; usually it is a piece of wood, very solid and thick, so much so that when I put one on it weighed the same as if it had been made of iron.' Urey Lisiansky, who fought the Tlingit at Sitka in 1804, observed that their helmets 'are so thick, that a musket-ball, fired at a moderate distance, can hardly penetrate them.' Nonetheless, Tligit armor went out of use as firearms became more common. Helmets remained in use by clans as at.óow."
* American Museum of Natural History > Hall of Northwest Coast Indians
"Besides the carved wooden helmet that shielded the head and upper face, a suit of armor included a wooden collar to guard the lower face and neck. During battle, the warrior kept it in place by holding an attached leather loop between his teeth."
Coin & Hide Cuirass
* Krause 1956 p145-146 (writing in 1885)
"In former times the customary garb for war consisted of thick leather armor worn, according to Dixon, in several layers. Of the five specimens which we brought back, one, kēk-ke, reaches to the knees, the others, chlǔch-tschí-nē, are shorter and cover only the upper body. One of the latter, obviously of recent make, is cut like a jacket without sleeves and is buttoned down the front with brass buttons; the second consists of separate breast and shoulder pieces, the latter being fastened front and back like a broad packstrap. The left one of these packstraps is attached both front and back to the breast piece by means of wooden pegs which are put through loops. The breast piece itself is fastened in the front by means of thong lacings which are drawn through a row of eyelets. These were made by drawing strips of leather through cuts like buttonholes and knotting them on the inside. A similar loop is found on the left side of the breast, probably to slip through a knife."
* von Aderkas ill. Hook 2005 p45
"The Tlingit's traditional moose-hide armor proved ineffective when the Russians arrived in Alaska, but adding Chinese trade coins made the armor to some degree bulletproof." [CONTRA Krause 1956 p172]
* American Museum of Natural History > Hall of Northwest Coast Indians
"Suits of armor highlight the importance of war, art and trade in the lives of Northwest Coast peoples. Men wore armor in the intertribal warfare that raged through the region for plunder, slaves or to avenge a wrong. ... Northwest Coast Indians harvested large quantities of sea otter furs for trade with Yankee sea captains, who bartered them in China. The Chinese coins sewn on the armor at right reflect this trade."
Rod & Slat Cuirass
* Krause 1956 p146 (writing in 1885)
"Even more remarkable than these leather suits of armor are the suits of body armor, uó-nda, made of wooden rods. ... Two which we brought back must be worn uner the armpits since they have no opening for the arms and are therefore only part of a complete outfit. One suit is made of round staves, the other of flat ones. On the latter the staves gradually increase in length toward the middle being from sixty-fout centimeters to seventy centimeters long. The middle staves are also the widest ones, being up to two and one-half centimeters thick, while the outer ones are almost round, their thicknesses being uniformly one centimeter. Altogether there are thirty-nine staves which are bound together with three broad bands of sinew cord, closely wound. On both sides there are leather laces to tie it together."
*Crowell 2010 p215
"The Tlingit fighter wore body armour made of wooden slats or rods, over a sleeveless coat of thick moose, elk, or sea lion hide."
* Waldman & Braun 2000 p147 (describing a Tlingit attack on the Russian post at Prince William Sound in the 1790s)
"The warriors wore animal masks to protect their faces as well as chest armor of wooden slats lashed together with rawhide strips, which actually repelled Russian bullets." [CONTRA Krause 1956 p172]
* McNab 2010 p200-202"The early accounts of settlers in the Northwestern region reveal very sophisticated types of armour indeed. Tlingit warriors observed in the late eighteenth century, for example, wore entire suits made from wooden slats stitched together with thick cord or rawhide. This flexible system sometimes protected the warrior from his neck to his ankles, and included arm protection also, while the entire head was encased in a solid wood helmet -- vision came via a thin eye-slit in the front. Thus protected, the Tlingit would have been hard targets to wound or kill, not least because the wooden armour was worn over the top of a thick leather coat. In fact, stories from around this period state that the Tlingit armour was even capable of stopping a musket ball at relatively close range. A Russian account of 1792 observed that Russian troops engaging the Tlingit fired directly at the helmets to achieve penetration."
