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Xaayda (Haida) Artist
Miniature Totem Pole
Collected 1890

By the late nineteenth century, Haida argillite artists created fewer images of settlers and, with greater frequency, depicted traditional clan symbols, myths and stories in their work for outside sale. Here, an eagle sits on top of a miniaturized totem pole; a tattered inscription on the underside of the carving explains that the carving shows the “crest of the Chief for whose house the pole stood.” This shift away from “secular” themes was an effort by artists to use the souvenir markets to record elements of their culture that were under threat due to state-sanctioned assimilation, missionary influences, and devastating population reductions due to smallpox.Images are not available to the general public. For Indigenous community members, please go to https://agnes.queensu.ca/explore/collections/image-reproduction/ for access.

 
Xaayda (Haida) Artist
Haida Gwaii, BC
Miniature Totem Pole
Collected 1890
Argillite, paper, ink, adhesive
22.9 cm (length)
Queen's University transfer, Acquired 1969
M69-035

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