Exhibit Label

This is a replica of a pole that once stood in front of the house named "House Passers-by Always Looked Up At" in the village of Haina (New Gold Harbor) on Maude Island in the Queen Charlotte Islands. It was erected around 1870 by "He Whose Word Is Obeyed," belonging to the clan of Those Born on the Stasaos Coast, and displays both his crests and those of his wife, "The Sound of Coppers Clanging," of the Pebble Town Eagles. From bottom to top the figures represent: a killer whale, its upturned tail decorated with a bird head; a woman, identified by the labret in her lip, grasping the whale's dorsal fin and wearing a ringed basketry hat; two watchmen figures at her sides; Tsamaos, the personification of a supernatural river snag who capsizes the canoes of the unwary; a heron with its wings enclosing a human figure who grasps the heron's tail feathers; a man wearing a whale skin with flippers, dorsal fin, and tail; and two watchmen at his sides wearing ringed basketry hats who warn the owners of approaching visitors of danger.This replica was carved by Bill Holm, 1971, based on photos of the original pole, which no longer survives.