(Vancouver) Delegates from the Nisga’a First Nation will travel to Scotland next week to discuss the possibility of recovering a totem pole said to have been stolen from them nearly a century ago.
Posted at 12:43pm
Brieanna Charlebois The Canadian Press
Seven members of this British Columbia community, including Chief Earl Stephens, will meet curators and politicians at the National Museum of Scotland on Monday.
“This is the first time in living memory that members of the House of Ni’isjoohl have seen this memorial pole with their own eyes,” Stephens said in a statement. This visit will move us all deeply. »
Also known as the Ni’isjoohl Memorial Pole, the Nisga’a Totem Pole was hand carved in the 1860s and depicts the story of Ts’wawit, a warrior who would become chief of the tribe before dying in a conflict neighboring state.
PHOTO FROM NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND WEBSITE
The First Nation claims that this totem was taken from them without their consent in 1929 by Quebec ethnographer Marius Barbeau during the hunting and harvesting season.
The totem would then have been sold to the Scottish Museum.
Amy Parent, First Nation Fellow and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Education and Governance at Simon Fraser University, says the return of this artifact will restore an element of the nation’s cultural identity.
“I want our kids to wake up every day without having to search for a story about who we are,” she says.
She says delegates wanted to “discuss their real intentions” with the Scottish authorities. They plan to apply for the transfer of the totem’s title deeds to the First Nation during their visit.
So far they have been positive for us. They want to make sure they are culturally respectful by welcoming our delegation. We try to be moderately optimistic about the outcome of our discussions.
Amy Parent, member of the Nisga’a First Nation
Ms. Parent says this is not the first time representatives of the Nisga’a nation have traveled to Europe to identify and claim artifacts belonging to them. A group had visited the Scottish Museum in 2018, but the totem was too fragile to move at the time.
However, she later discovered that the artifact had been moved during recent renovations at the museum.
“Canadian experts determined that the mast was in good condition to be relocated. They didn’t hesitate to say that he would support his journey back to Canada and our nation. »
Her analysis convinced the nation to return to Scotland in hopes of recapturing the totem.
“You can help us rewrite history through this act of redemption,” adds Ms. Parent. This is an opportunity for the Government of Scotland to show the world that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is more than symbolic. It is a legal tool that can transform the lives of all Aboriginal people. The world is watching us. »
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted in 2007. It aims to set minimum standards for the survival and well-being of indigenous peoples around the world.
National Museums Scotland, the body overseeing the Scottish National Museum, said it was “open to dialogue and encouraging collaboration with communities for which objects in our collections are of particular importance”.
“We are ready to welcome a delegation from the Nisga’a nation to the National Museum of Scotland to view the memorial pole, share information about it and learn about the procedures for requesting the transfer of an object. . »
Parent hopes the museum and the Scottish Government will agree to foot the bill for returning the object to British Columbia.
“We shouldn’t have that burden on our shoulders,” she says.
If the pole is returned, it would be erected in the Nisga’a Museum, which houses over 300 other cultural relics.