LONDON — Members of a Canadian First Nation held a religious ceremony on Monday at a Scottish museum to start the homeward journey of a totem pole stolen nearly a century in the past.
The 11-meter (36-foot) pole is being restored by the National Museum of Scotland to the Nisga’a Nation in northern British Columbia – one of many first instances a British museum has returned artifacts to any of North America’s Indigenous peoples.
The museum agreed final 12 months to return the pole, which has been on show within the Edinburgh constructing since 1930. Nisga’a researchers say it was taken with out consent in 1929 by an anthropologist who bought it to the museum.
Chief Earl Stephens, who has the Nisga’a cultural title Sim’oogit Ni’isjoohl, stated that “in Nisga’a culture, we believe that this pole is alive with the spirit of our ancestors.”
“After nearly 100 years, we are finally able to bring our dear relative home to rest on Nisga’a lands,” he stated.
Carved from pink cedar within the 1860s, the pole consists of household crests and animal and human figures. It commemorates the Nisga’a warrior Ts’aawit and stood exterior his kinfolk’ house for 70 years earlier than being eliminated whereas villagers have been away for the annual looking season.
After Monday’s ceremony attended by delegates from the Nisga’a, the museum and the Scottish and Canadian governments, employees will erect scaffolding across the pole, which will likely be rigorously eliminated, packed and flown subsequent month on a Canadian air drive aircraft to British Columbia. It is slated to go on show within the Nisga’a Museum within the Nass Valley alongside scores of different artifacts recovered from museums.
Amy Parent, a member of the Nisga’a Nation and affiliate professor of training at Simon Fraser University, stated it was “a very historic moment for our nation and for Scotland.”
Museum director Chris Breward stated groups had been working for months on “the complex task of carefully lowering and transporting” the pole.
“We are pleased to have reached the point where that work is now underway, and we are delighted to have welcomed the Nisga’a delegation to the museum before we bid the pole farewell,” he stated.
U.Okay. museums face a number of calls to return gadgets taken from around the globe through the interval of the British Empire, together with friezes that when adorned the Parthenon in Athens and the Benin bronzes from West Africa.
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