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This mask, carved from yellow cedar, was acquired by the Horniman from Kew Gardens in 1958. Kew had held the mask since 1886, when it was on display at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, a great exhibition held to celebrate and share the wonders of the British Empire with the Victorian public. It was, of course, a simplified and jingoistic depiction of the people of the Empire, but it did include real objects such as this mask, collected on the Northwest Coast.

The mask is known as a portrait mask and depicts a human, possibly a woman, during Haida dances, the face painted with red ochre and blue dye. In Haida stories and ceremonies, humans are frequent characters, often playing the hero in battle against monsters or the Raven's tricks. Since these characters are allegorical, it was important that the mask showed not the specific person dancing with the mask, but a generic Haida individual that fitted into the story alongside the other characters. Thus, the human mask was necessary for the dancer to participate in the story as it unfolded.

Masks of this type were particularly common in the mid-nineteenth century, around the time that the Haida people were coming into significant contact with large numbers of Europeans for the first time. The appear as men or women, although on this mask, it is difficult to tell which is depicted. They were acquired by many visitors and can now be found in collections all over the world.