From my father's collection: stars and stripes

This seems the right day to blip this object which is not 'tribal art' as such but more a relic from American history.
It's what's known as scrimshaw,  a carving on a whale tooth done by a sailor or whaler perhaps idling away the days becalmed, iced-up or waiting for their prey to make an appearance. 

Many scrimshaw pieces are very skilled and elaborate in their design, see here for example, but this one is quite amateurish in its execution. (Also very hard to photograph because of its shape and way it catches the light.)

 On one side there's a  fully rigged sailing ship with a bird, an albatross perhaps? in the sky. On the other side a  curious building  with a ? weeping willow  beside it. What is interesting is the flag  flying from the building's pinnacle, above the word WASHINGTON. On the flag are 13 clearly incised stars. This was the first iteration of the star spangled banner.
"Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the American flag on June 14, 1777. The first official version of the flag (1777) displayed 13 stripes and 13 stars, for the 13 original colonies."

Of course it might be that this was as many stars as the artist could fit on but the number does appear to be intentional rather than accidental. It was not until 1818 when two more states joined the union that the number of stars rose to 15.



Well, it's been a momentous day in the USA. It's been four long years since the novelist Ian McEwan wrote

"Charles Darwin could not believe that a kindly God would create a parasitic wasp that injects its eggs into the body of a caterpillar so that the larva may consume the host alive. The ichneumon wasp was a challenge to Darwin’s already diminishing faith. We may share his bewilderment as we contemplate the American body politic and what vile thing now squats within it, waiting to be hatched and begin its meal."

Such a relief for the country and the wider world that the vile thing has been removed from its host, albeit leaving appalling damage in its wake.

(But the news on the Covid front is not so good: Britain's biggest daily death toll reported today.)