Totem Pole Model
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1991
name: label: Collector
content: James G. Swan
label: Donor Name
content: No Information
notes: label: Notes
content: TOTEM POLE - 74" LONG, 6" WIDE. BIRD AT TOP. PAINTED. MARKED HAIDA. WRONG # 56445. THIS MODEL TOTEM POLE IS HAIDA, ACCORDING TO ROBIN WRIGHT, BURKE MUSEUM. - F. PICKERING 6-29-1999
label: Notes
content: ROBIN WRIGHT, BURKE MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, FEELS THIS HOUSE FRONTAL POLE MODEL MAY RELATE TO/BE PART OF HOUSE MODEL ET14554.
label: Notes
content: A photo of what appears to be this totem pole model with house model ET14554 on display at the Smithsonian circa 1879 (photo may actually date more specifically to 1882 - early 1885) is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution Archives: Photo ID 2962 or MNH-2962, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 95, Box 41, Folder: 4, https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_8263 . House model with pole is on back right of photo in front of house front.
label: Notes
content: Per Robin Wright, Professor and Curator Emerita, University of Washington, 2018, ET14554 and ET24468 may be James Swan collection pieces, based on the similarity of the ET24468 model pole to another model pole, No. E74748, that is linked to Swan and carved by Johnny Kit Elswa, a copy of a chief's frontal pole in Tanu. Robin Wright is now convinced that this model pole is based on Kitkun's house frontal pole in the Haida village of Tanu. It depicts the story of the flood with a stack of hat rings. Raven rescued the village during a flood by pulling up on the chief's hat rings making it grow tall enough for the people to climb up out of the flood waters. There were three poles with this motif in Haida Gwaii. The original one was in Skedans - the right to portray this story was given by the chief Gidansta to Kitkun and also to Chief Wiah in Massett where Wiah put it on his "Monster House." The Tanu flood pole was just being finished in preparation for the pole raising potlatch when George Dawson was there in 1878. James Swan and Johnny Kit Elswa were welcomed into this house when they visited the young nephew Kitkun who had taken his uncle's place in 1878. This model has the same colored paint that the other Johnny Kit Elswa pole E74748 has, and Robin Wright now thinks Kit Elswa probably carved it. This model pole has fewer hat rings than the full sized pole, but it does have the dogfish below and human figures climbing to the top.
label: Notes
content: In James G. Swan correspondence in accession record No. 5260, Swan talks about sending two Haida house models. However, only one was catalogued, # E23547. It is possible house model ET14554/ET24468 or house model ET24565 may be from this accession?
label: Record Last Modified
content: 30 Jul 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Northwest Coast, Canada (not certain), North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Haida
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 999999
label: USNM Number
content: ET24468-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Crest Column Model
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 188 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 15 cm