One of the National Museum of Scotland’s largest exhibits, an 11-metre memorial totem pole, has been repatriated to the Nisga’a Museum in the village of Laxgalts’ap in British Columbia after the Museum in Edinburgh recognised it was sold “without the cultural, spiritual or political authority” of its owners.

Known as the Ni’isjoohl memorial pole, it is the first totem pole to be returned to a First Nations community by a UK national museum and the second to be returned by any European institution (the Haisla G’psgolox pole was returned by Sweden’s Museum of Ethnography in 2006).

Hand carved largely from a single piece of red cedar, the Ni’isjoohl memorial pole was erected in Ank’idaa village on the banks of the Nass River in 1855. Decorated with carvings of animals, humans, ravens and family crests, the pole tells the story of a Nisga’a warrior who was due to succeed as Nisga’a chief before being killed in battle with a neighbouring Nation.

“We know that a carver breathes life into a pole when it is first carved,” explained Dr Amy Parent, who has the Nisga’a cultural name Noxs Ts’aawit and who tracked down the pole to Scotland in 2019. “And so, after that point we consider that totem pole to have a living spirit in it and to be a relative…. it’s like bringing a family member home after being gone for almost 100 years.”

The Museum acquired the pole in good faith believing it had been “sold” by a member of the Nisga’a community to the Canadian anthropologist Marius Barbeau. Affiliated with the National Museum of Canada, Barbeau was undertaking fieldwork in the area during the 1910s. He sold it to the National Museum of Scotland in 1929. However, Dr Amy Parent, who is the Canadian research chair in indigenous education and governance at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, says the pole was in fact stolen while members of the community were away for the annual hunting, fishing and harvesting season. The pole had been removed from a sacred “house group” known as House of Ni’isjoohl.

The Museum in Edinburgh has accepted it was removed illegally and after meeting with Nisga’a representatives in August 2022 the Museum’s board of trustees agreed in December 2022 to return the pole to the Nass Valley where its spiritual, cultural and historical significance is still keenly felt.

Chief Earl Stephens of the Nisga’a Nation, who led the committee that met with the Museum last year, reinforced the significance of its return:

“It means so much [because] we can connect our family, nation and our future generations with our living history.”

In a statement from the Museum in Edinburgh, director Chris Breward said their landmark gesture aims to “promote understanding and dialogue with respect to those parts of the Museum’s collection associated with our nation’s colonial history.”

The pole’s repatriation conforms with the UK’s responsibilities as a signatory of the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, which requires signatories to maintain minimum standards for the survival and well-being of Indigenous peoples. It also conforms to other provisions for repatriation embedded in the Nisga’a Treaty, which came into effect in 2000.

Instead of “repatriation” the Nisga’a Nation describes the process as a “rematriation” because their's is a matrilineal community (i.e. based on kinship with the mother’s line).

The removal of such a huge exhibit from the Museum’s display and its transportation 4,200 miles to the west coast of Canada presented major logistical challenges. These included clearing galleries on the ground floor of the Museum, the removal of a window, the construction of a specially commissioned steel frame to protect the pole and the closure of a street before it could be air transported to the west coast of Canada in a Canadian military aircraft in August 2023.

It was also a hugely expensive enterprise. At first, the Scottish Government reneged on their commitment to fund the £710,000 cost of returning the pole, putting the entire process of repatriation at risk. But in September 2023 the Scottish Government agreed to honour their ‘political willingness to pay’. Around half of this cost involves creating a replica of the pole that will be kept on display at the National Museum of Scotland.

Photo: Nisga’a Chief Earl Stephens and Dr May Parent with the Ni’isjoohl memorial pole

Courtesy of National Museums of Scotland-Neil Hanna