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Longing for London (77)

Totem pole from British Columbia, Canada

Haida, about 1850

 

This pole was originally at the front of a clan house in the village of Kayang. It features crests - ancestral beings that mark identity and assign families with rights to stories and property. Around 1900, Haida Chief Wiah sold the pole to a medical doctor and naturalist C.F. Newcombe and recounted the stories associated with the depicted crests for him. Newcombe sold the pole to the British Museum in 1903.

 

HWW!

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Uploaded on January 25, 2023
Taken on September 9, 2022