Warwick L Nixon Wrote:
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> this is an interesting article
>
>
>
> from same..."a culture whose spiritual beliefs
> with few exceptions did not allow the depiction of
> life forms."
>
>
> Warwick
>
> Persistance is Utile

This from one of the pages, maybe shows links to NW coast:

1. Bear Effigy Vessel - 360 (replica)
Effigies of animals have been found in many Okhotsk sites, whose pithouses sometimes have ritual altars. This bear head (ca A.D. 800) was carved on a large wooden bowl that was carbonized in a house fire; it was recovered from the Matsunorikawa Kitagishi site, Rausu, Hokkaido. The presence of a design resembling the Ainu itokpa (ancestral mark) of repun-kor-kamuy, the killer whale and god of the sea, suggests the vessel had a ceremonial function. Similar effigy vessels (without itokpa) were used by Northwest Coast Indians.


3. Bone Spoons (replicas), Epi-Jomon
These spoons, from the Epi-Jomon Esan site, are of bone and one has a killer whale on its handle; they date from ca. A.D. 1. They were probably used in animal-related rituals. Siberian peoples used similar effigy spoons to feed spirits until modern times. Recently, spoons like these dated to 4,500-5,000 years ago have been found in British Columbia, Canada.

Esan site, Hokkaido
The Historical Museum of Hokkaido

DDeden