Delegates from the Nisga’a First Nation are in Scotland this week to discuss repatriating a memorial totem pole it says was stolen nearly a century ago.
The Nisga’a totem pole, also known as the Ni’isjoohl memorial pole, was hand-carved in the 1860s. It depicts the story of Ts’wawit, a warrior who was next in line to be chief before he was killed in a conflict with a neighbouring nation.
The nation said the pole was taken in 1929 without its consent by ethnographer Marius Barbeau while members were away from their villages for the annual hunting and food harvesting season, and it was later sold it to the museum in Scotland.
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