The Unusual Views at the Libby Museum

Happy weekend everyone. Last Tuesday I took you all on a visit to the Libby Museum which is a natural history museum in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. I want to take you back today and show you some unusual things .

Like these Inuit (Eskimo) masks. I am not sure if they are from Alaska, Canada or Greenland.

And a little bit of Inuit art too.

 The ones in this last photo are pretty scary looking. I wonder if they  represent evil spirits or if they are supposed to scare away evil spirits.

I've never heard of  birthing eggs before, but I imagine Mom did a lot of squeezing.

And this emu egg looks pretty cool and I like the carved kangaroo.

 Then there are these fish bills-one off a swordfish  and one from a marlin. And then there's this carved scrimshaw cribbage board made of carved ivory or whale bone. This is no longer legal to produce from ivory and whale bone I believe. Now they sometimes get made from plastic or other animal bones. But back in the days when there was a lot of whaling in New England the sailors would spent  their sailing time craving these. The carving are amazing but also the fact they are made from whale a little sad.

And this mastodon tooth fossil.

Not the best photo but this giant shark tooth. I know there is nothing to compare it too, but it was much bigger than my hand, The card says the shark was 75 feet long (almost 23 meters). Holy cow.

And this chunk of wood may not look like much but it is a Native American dugout canoe. The Abenaki who lived here (but had moved north by the time Europeans settled New Hampshire) made this. They would take a tree and hollow it out to serve as a canoe. Now the coolest thing about this canoe to my husband and myself was that it was found and dug out of some sand in the shallows of the lake.just down the lake from where my mother-in-law lives. My husband had been going there all his life before his Mom moved in to live there year round.

An excuse the light reflections, this is cool piece of mulberry paper from Fiji.

 And lastly, a bit of Egyptian tomb paraphernalia.

 Mummy hands. It seems weird someone would have just the hands. And the rings are rather fascinating.

The case of a mummified  ibis bird. 

 And the bird itself.

This museum's collection really was eclectic.

And fascinating. And even a little weird.

Thanks for visiting.

Enjoy your weekend.