Totem-Pole Model

Item number E74744-0 from the National Museum of Natural History.

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Notes

Evelyn Windsor (Heiltsuk elder) of the delegation from Bella Bella, Bella Coola and Rivers Inlet communities of British Columbia made the following comments during the Recovering Voices Community Research Visit May 20th - 24th, 2013. These are story poles or talking sticks. We keep them as stories of who we are and ancestral beginnings. These objects were banned for a time by Europeans and missionaries.Brendan Maloney via RRN, 5/23/21: "Captain Carpenter IMO [in my opinion]. Salmon Trout Head Ovoids light and thin; reminiscent of many of his old paddle designs." Christopher Smith via RRN, 5/31/21: " I agree with Brendan that the formline base is by Captain Carpenter, but the pole (not pictured) is by another Heiltsuk artist, Robert Bell (1859 – 1904). I spent a lot of time with this base and the pole it is matched with (as well as the other poles collected by Swan at the same time) when I was at SIMA in 2019, and the base is clearly by a different artist than the pole and was added as an afterthought. The base looks to have originally been a panel of a box or dish, but was definitely different than the bases of the other poles (also by Bell), as they were mostly figural and were obviously originally matched to the poles themselves. Just wanted to clarify. I've linked to info from the MOA about Bell [http://collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/search/person?person=4287&tab=biography]."