Showing 314 results

Image of the Gilford Island longhouse, see from the water.

Image of two carved house posts at the Mamalilikulla village, Village Island. The posts are now lying in the grass.

Image of carved house posts at the Mamalilikulla village, Village Island. The post is now lying in the grass.

Photograph of three men carving totem poles that would become part of the bighouse in Alert Bay, BC.

Image of a memorial pole at Alert Bay. Inscription at the bottom held by the figure reads "In loving memory of Tlaowa Latle of the Qiowasudinuk (Kwakwaka'wakw: Kwikwasut'inuxw) Tribe. Died Nov. 9 [rest of inscription illegible].

Item is a hand-tinted glass lantern slide of a street with five totems. According to annotations, photograph was taken in Alert Bay.

Item is a hand-tinted glass lantern slide of a totem with a building in the background and a boat in the foreground with low tide. Based on the original order of the collection, photograph might have been taken in Alert Bay.

Item is a photograph of a procession of people (men, women, children) in ceremonial dress (button blankets, headdresses) walking away from the ferry terminal dock [?] in Alert Bay. The procession is led by Mungo Martin and Daisy Neel. A man dressed in regular clothes, smoking a pipe looks on from the left.

Item is a photograph of three young women, and two young girls standing in ceremonial dress (button blankets; carved and painted [wolf?] mask; and headdresses made of woven cedar, weasel(?), abalone, and eagle feathers). They are gathered for an event celebrating British Columbia's centennial in Alert Bay in 1958. Daisy Neel is in the centre wearing the frontlet and her twin sisters are the young girls in front of her. Emma Sewid [Seewid; Seaweed?] and Mabel Sewid [Seewid; Seaweed?] are on either sides of them.

This pole was on display at UBC in Totem Park in the 1960’s and 1970’s and moved to the Museum in the late 1970’s. It was carved in 1914 in Tsaxis (Fort Rupert) by George Hunt Sr. for the Edward S. Curtis film "In the Land of the War Canoes" which was originally titled "In the Land of the Head Hunters". The pole was collected by Marius Barbeau and Arthur Price in 1947. The pole was repaired and re-painted by carvers Ellen Neel in 1949 and Mungo Martin in 1950-51. It stood at Totem Park, UBC Campus until it was re-located to the Museum's Great Hall in 1976.

Iconography: Kolus is a young thunderbird. Thunderbird is a supernatural bird identifiable by the presence of ear-like projections or horns on the head, and a re-curved beak. The pole alludes to the story of Tongas people in south Alaska, who migrated south.