Randy's Museum

This is Randy's private collection. Nothing on this page is for sale, but as these are his favorites he would like to share them with everybody.

The first item in this photo is a slate salmon club. It was used to quite fish, and keep them from flopping back into the water when the nets were brought in.
The second item is a traditional Karok dance blade. This dance is the white deer dance, and is also done by the Yurok and Hupa tribes. The purpose of the white deer skin dance was to renew and maintain what had been established as their way of life: To have bountiful wild crops and plenty of salmon and to invoke their gods to prevent earthquakes, devastating floods and famine. Participating dancers, all male, carried albino or black deer skins mounted on poles, the head and neck of the deer skins stuffed with grass. The ears, nose and eyes of the stuffed heads were decorated with red woodpecker feathers, beads and shells. In front of the deerskin dancers were the obsidian dancers, usually two, each carrying matching blades. One blade, wrapped in skins, was held at the left side, while the right hand held the other blade aloft. It was also wrapped in protective cloth or skin in the middle and tied to the wrist by a thong as a precaution against dropping it. This dance is still practiced today on a bi-annual basis.

"Slave Killer" Experts doubt that Slaverkillers were ever used to kill slaves. This name was given to these artifacts by early collectors, who belived this to be true, and the name stuck. I have read that there are less than 75 of these know. Most were found near Eureka California.

Two fish "hooks" and their sharping stone.

Bolo Stone. These stones were attached to the ends of a thong or cord, and were used by hurling and entangling birds or small mammals.

A pair of nice blades.

A few clans on the upper Sacramento River were said to carry inscribed stones. This is one of those stones.

Two clay figures found in Shasta county CA. It was believed that there were no clay items from Fresno CA. to central OR. These two items along with some broken pieces that were found with the longer piece, and a figure almost identical to the shorter one that was found near Redding have disproved that theory.

Some of my best points.

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For anything else, e-mail randy@randysrockshop.com