Vancouver, BC 31 August 2015

Museum of Anthropology

Took four buses crosstown through the rain to the University of British Columbia's (UBC) magnificent campus and its equal outstanding Museum of Anthropology (MoA). As noted before, BC's recent history with respect to its original inhabitants is a massive embarrasment, the British mindset absolutely at its worst. Where the 'official' Royal BC Museum pays a pretty bit of lip service to righting the wrongs, the UBC has been in the game for 100 years: scandalized by the government's callous treatment, and diligently doing its best to preserve the best of what went before, the wisdom of the people who really understood the land. 

As one of the modern First Nation artists pointed out, culture lives on, even if it appears to have gone dormant a century ago. The MoA is in that game to the best of its ability, collaborating with some of the best living First Nation artists, and, as here, introducing them to parallel, and very possibly original, resonances in other cultures. This panel is a perfect example.

The artist (whose name I stupidly failed to record) was sponsored to go to work with a totem sculptor in Papua New Guinea (they prefer us to spell it Papua Niugini) for half a year. When he returned (with his new friend, the Niuginian sculptor) they both did carvings, and this is his.

An integral piece of the First Nations' grasp of the spirit of the land they inhabited was the sense of being in the hands of greater beings that either favored or disfavored their lives, depending on the observance of the traditions that had proven effective over the 9,000 or so years that they were living in one place.

The shock of the upstart white Brits arriving as guests, and proceeding to behave like they owned the place, still stings. One whole gallery at the MoA is presently devoted to c̓əsnaʔəm, the Musqueam ('People of the Grass') 'city before the city,' and the struggle to preserve their ancient village sites and sacred precincts from destruction.

Below we see a 1913 photograph of the housepost at left in its original location, after the house it supported was gone.

Like the paintings in European Council Chambers, the post was meant to remind those deliberating here of the rightful place of the People amongst the ever-so-much more powerful spirits that ruled these lands and waters. We are meant to be reminded, the Musqueam are quick to tell us, that these spirits still prevail, and we ignore them at our peril. 

Speaking-Through Post

How did the elders know the wisdom of these mighty forces? By invoking their speech directly, through an effigy like this one, and appointing a person who lent his or her voice to the spirit.

A similar tradition has arisen recently among my generation, the notion of some of us assuming responsibility to speak for those -- the Gray Whales, the Burrowing Owls -- who have lost the ability to make themselves heard.

Personally, I think I will assume the burden of speaking for the frogs. They certainly have a lot to say to us about the general well-being of our environment ...but we don't seem to be attending to them very well.

A lively ongoing debate about these artifacts and the modern ones being produced, goes on between factions of the First Nations peoples, regards whether it's right to preserve these wooden sculptures that were originally meant to have a relatively short lifespan. Anyone who has seen the effects of ground contact with even a resilient wood like redwood or red cedar knows that after 50 years, they're going to fall. Rainforest reclaims idle biomass with remarkable efficiency; it's needed to keep life going. 

On the other side, many First Nations collaborators with the conservators are pleased that these beautiful works of former times will be seen by their grandchildren's grandchildren.

One dimension to the debate is the tension between keeping artistic traditions fresh and alive (by using modern techniques and pigments, for example) or hewing to the old ways. If the deep meanings of these works are to be preserve, should adaptation be a core value?

These were interior house posts -- a typical long house had four exterior house posts and as many as four interior posts. As already noted, the inner posts in particular were meant to illustrate the enduring values; the outside posts often identified the personages and clan that lived within the house. 

This is in the Great Hall of the MoA, a lofty, brightly lighted space rich with totems and carvings of many shapes and sizes. 

This brings us to one of the principal collaborators, over the time from the 1970s until his death in 1998 of Bill Reid, a gifted Haida multi-media artist. In 1970 he made a beautiful little carving, The Raven Discovering Mankind in a Clamshell, a vivid rendering of the Haida Formation Myth. Over the years, his artistry and openness to the inquiries of the UBC academics prompted them and their backers to commission a grander version to serve as the centerpiece of their new museum.

Reid's telling of the legend: 'The great flood, which had covered the earth for so long, had at last receded and the sand of Rose Spit, Haida Gwaii, lay dry. Raven walked along the sand, eyes and ears alert for any unusual sight or sound to break the manotony. A flash of white caught his eye and there, right at his feet, half buried in the sand, was a gigantic clamsheel. He looked more closely and saw that the shell was full of little creatures cowering in terror in his enormous shadow. He leaned his great head close and, with his smooth trickster's tongue, coaxed and cajoled and coerced them to come out and play in his wonderful new shiny world. These little dwellers were the original Haidas, the first humans.' 

 The carving, or yellow cedar, took Reid several years to carve this piece, a major departure from past forms. It was formally unveiled by HRH the Prince of Wales in April, 1980, and then celebrated by the people of Haida Gwaii (aka the Queen Charlotte Islands) in June of the same year.

Reid produced a number of other wonderful pieces specifically for the museum, involving many young artists and helping preserve the Haida way of art and life. In some ways, the MoA could be considered the Bill Reid Show, because in terms of mastery of artistic media -- he worked also in silver, gold, and with paint, carved and painted (with his apprentices) a canoe and a wonderfully lively bear.

His work, big and small, communicates the spirit of the land and his people, better than any words can ever do.