A B.C. First Nation recently reconnected with a powerful piece of their cultural history — nearly a century after it left their land.
A delegation from the Wet’suwet’en Nation travelled to Paris last month to see the K’ëgit totem pole, now housed at the Quai Branly Museum.
Standing about 16 metres tall, the pole depicts the story of K’ëgit, a supernatural figure central to the House of Many Eyes clan of the Wet’suwet’en, says hereditary chief Ron Mitchell, who was part of the delegation.
“He was a healer,” Mitchell told CBC News.
The pole, which he says was carved in the late 1800s, once stood in Hagwilget, a Wet’suwet’en village, along the east side of the Bulkley River.
It served as a cultural landmark and eventually drew the interest of surrealist artists from Europe, according to Joanne Connauton, a geography PhD candidate from Florida State University.
“The surrealist art movement had a keen interest in Indigenous objects … around the globe, but a particular interest in Northwest [Coast] art,” she said during an interview with CBC’s The Early Edition.
In 1938, the pole caught the attention of Swiss surrealist artist Kurt Seligmann, who travelled to B.C. and managed to acquire it for just $100.
Connauton, who was also part of the delegation, said the pole is now prominently displayed at the museum’s entrance.
“[It] is the first thing that a person sees when they enter the Quai Branly Museum … it’s very impressive, as you can imagine.”
For Mitchell, though, seeing the totem pole in-person was a deeply emotional and “upsetting” experience, he said.
“It was cut into three pieces to get it inside the museum,” he noted.
What’s next for the totem pole?
Birdy Markert, a matriarch-in-training, whose great-grandfather Hagwilnekhlh Arthur Michell was among those involved in the sale of the pole back in 1938, said leaders at the time were pressured into agreeing to the deal.
“He [Arthur Michell] was definitely elderly at the time and so I feel like he was being taken advantage of through this whole process,” she said.
As part of her research, Connauton said she is currently looking through the museum’s archival documents to understand how the artifact was sold and acquired.
In the meantime, while there hasn’t been any discussion about trying to bring the totem pole back to Wet’suwet’en lands, Markert said she hopes to create a cultural program that would allow younger generations to learn more about the pole and appreciate its significance.
“I would like to turn it into a cultural exchange [program] and have students visit the pole and maybe create a connection with a class in Paris,” said Markert, who has been an educator for more than 25 years in the Bulkley Valley.
She said she would like students at home and abroad to understand the pole’s meaning and where it comes from.