Rediscovering an Eagle

Oct 22 2003–ALVER TAIT remembers exactly what it was like seeing the ancient totem pole for the first time.

Until last October, no living Nisga’a person had seen the 30-foot, Western red cedar pole since a Dominion historian named Marius Barbeau took it out of northwest B.C.’s remote Nass River Valley in the 1930s.

It lay inside a storage facility of London’s British Museum for 70 years.

Tait – invited by museum officials to identify the pole – immediately recognized the tell-tale trademarks of a Nisga’a carver. The pole’s sides are rounded rather than squared-off. “That’s the way we do it,” he thought.

He knew he was in the presence of a masterpiece.

“It was breathtaking. It’s so beautifully done. I’m amazed somebody could do a job like that in those days – especially with the tools they had.”

The pole was thought to be the fine handiwork of the legendary carver Oyai in the 1860s to honour Chief Luuya’as of the eagle clan, Tait’s great, great grandfather.

Tait, a hereditary chief named Gadeelip, asked museum officials to let him enter the storage room alone first. One look and he knew.

“It was like showing me a coffin where my father or grandfather was laying. I didn’t say anything for a long time. It was kind of sad. It was really an experience for me.”
To the Nisga’a, a totem pole is no mere wood carving. It’s a living thing; something precious that symbolizes and honours specific individuals, clans and the stories belonging to them.
“It’s sacred to us,” Tait said. “They tell a story about us. On these totem poles are our ancestors. It’s just like a person. You have to treat them with respect.”
Historically, outsiders have found this difficult to understand.
For instance, early Christian missionaries mistakenly thought B.C.’s indigenous coastal people worshipped totem poles.
These days, poles are recognized for their artistic value and their intrinsic historical and cultural significance.
Just last week, Tait was invited to officiate at a special, private ceremony at the British Museum.
On Oct. 17, the pole was lifted into place in one of the museum’s hub galleries, where it will go on display as part of a new exhibit opening up later this month.
The ceremony wasn’t a traditional pole-raising; normally, poles are left where they fall and the ground eventually consumes them.
His presence was requested by the exhibit’s curator, Jonathan King, who was anxious to see the pole treated in a manner that is appropriate to the Nisga’a.
This summer Tait carved a replacement for the large eagle figurine that had once stood on top of the pole. The five-foot eagle is now seated next to the original in the museum.
Tait also completed several replacement pieces as part of restoration work on the Chief Luuya’as pole, which once stood outside a house in Ankid’aa, a Nisga’a village site located on an island in the Nass River west of Greenville (Gingolx).
The river has since washed much of the village away, Tait told the Terrace Standard a few days before he left for England.
The British Museum, home to some treasured antiquities like the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles, has been criticised for not returning artifacts taken from other nations over the centuries.
Surprisingly, Tait is grateful in this case. “It’s kind of a blessing. They would have disintegrated,” he said, referring to his ancestor’s work. “We wouldn’t dream of taking it away from them now. They took such good care of it.”
Today’s carvers can work from photographs, he said.
This isn’t the first time Tait, a master carver, has traveled to a European capital as a cultural ambassador for the Nisga’a nation.
Tait carved a 10-metre totem pole for the Vienna Zoo’s 250th anniversary last summer, performing the “breath of life” dance in full regalia, with his carving tools dangling from a belt around his waist.
A number of his poles also grace the Nass Valley, including the bridge at Gitwinksihlkw.