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| Detail of house pole 1901.39.1 © Pitt Rivers Museum |
One of my
favourite objects in the Museum is a carved wooden bowl from British Columbia
(1887.1.632). It is carved to represent a beaver with a human face carved in
the top side of the bowl. The carving is very stylistically striking using a
prominent feature of indigenous art of the Northwest Coast of North America
called formline. Formline is the term used to describe the distinctive style
comprising ‘continuous, flowing curvilinear lines that turn, swell and diminish
in a prescribed manner. They are used for figure outlines, internal design
elements and in abstract compositions’ (Marjorie M. Haplin. “Northwest Coast Native Art”). In 2009 I was lucky enough to be
part of the project team recording information from a research visit of a
delegation of Haida people. This object was viewed as part of that visit.
During their time here I was able to learn a great deal about the collection of
Haida objects that feature prominently in the Museum’s displays, not least the
imposing house pole (1901.39.1) which is positioned centrally in the Museum
Court.
The bowl was
donated by Reverend W. Warner Parry to the University Museum and was part of a
large number of ethnographic objects transferred to the Pitt Rivers Museum in
1886. From the accession entry we do not know if the bowl was also collected by
Parry or if it came to him through a third party. Parry was part of the British
Royal Navy and so it is possible that he travelled to the Northwest coast of
America and acquired the bowl in person. A label glued to the side of the
object tells us that the bowl was ‘from an Indian burial ground. Maple Bank
Esquimault, Vancouver Island’. The bowl is interesting as despite its
provenance having been recorded it is unlikely to have originated at
Esquimault. In fact, the Haida tribal members who visited in 2009 confirmed the
bowl as Haida in origin. However, the style of the bowl is markedly different
from all the other Haida grease bowls in the collection. The bowl is one of
three bowls with carved with the beaver motif in the Museum collections, the
other two coming from the original Pitt Rivers founding collection that came
to the Museum in 1884.
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| Beaver bowl 1884.68.48 © Pitt Rivers Museum |
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| Beaver bowl 1884.68.58 © Pitt Rivers Museum |
The symbol of the
beaver in Northwest coast tradition represents the values of productivity,
creativity, creation, cooperation, persistence and harmony. The beaver is also
serious and hardworking. We have a number of objects with the beaver totem from
Haida Gwaii, an archipelago on the North coast of British Columbia formally
known as the Queen Charlotte islands. Many are associated with rank, status and
prestige. Indeed, the beaver bowl is on display in the Museum in a display case
of the same title (case 58.A), such beautifully carved and handmade objects
belonged to significant Haida families.
It is the
exquisite carving and anthropomorphic nature of the beaver which appeals to me
so much in the design of the bowl. The Haida I met in 2009 were warm and
animated people, it is through them that the objects I had spent time passively
observing came alive and spoke of the people who made them and used them in
their former life before they became a part of a Museum collection.
Faye Belsey
Assistant Curator
