The towering, hand-carved totem pole is being rematriated, not repatriated, and after being put into a sleeping state on Monday the 11-metre (37ft) object will be transported in a military aircraft from its current home in Edinburgh to what is, everyone involved agrees, its true home in Canada.
“It was a wonderful occasion,” said the National Museum of Scotland curator, John Giblin, after witnessing the spiritual ceremony to begin the pole’s complicated 4,200-mile journey.
“It was very emotional,” said Dr Amy Parent, of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, who has led moves to return what she regards as a stolen object. “As soon as we go near the pole we can feel this energy. We know that we will soon have our hearts at peace.”
The House of Ni’isjoohl memorial pole is being returned to the Nass Valley in what is now British Columbia following a request from the Nisga’a nation, one of the Indigenous groups who were the original inhabitants of Canada.
The return of the pole has been agreed in less than a year and signed off by the Scottish government. It puts pressure on other museums and other governments to also return objects of significant cultural importance.
“We very much want to inspire other Indigenous nations that the impossible is possible,” said Parent.
In Edinburgh on Monday, the bigger picture was for another day as the ceremony took place to prepare the artefact that the Nisga’a consider to have a living presence.
“In Nisg̱a’a culture, we believe that this pole is alive with the spirit of our ancestors,” said Chief Earl Stephens, who is part of the delegation in Edinburgh.
The pole dates from 1860 and honours a warrior called Ts’awit who was in line to be chief before being killed in a conflict.
According to the museum’s records, it was purchased from its Nisga’a owners in 1929 by Marius Barbeau, an ethnographer and curator at the National Museum of Canada. Barbeau was buying on behalf of the Royal Museum of Scotland, which later became the National Museum of Scotland.
The Nisga’a argue it was stolen and Giblin, the museum’s keeper of global arts, cultures and design, acknowledged it was bought from someone who did not have the cultural authority to sell it.
“It is questionable whether anybody would have the right to pass on something as important as a memorial pole,” he said.
The pole, carved from a red cedar tree, has been on permanent display in the museum for 94 years and has only moved three times.
Giblin acknowledged this meant it would be “really missed, but we recognise that we’ve had the benefit of its presence for the last 90 years or more. The Nisga’a nation have not had that benefit, so we are also really pleased to be returning the pole to a place where its spiritual, cultural and historical significance is most keenly felt.”
Getting it to Canada is a huge logistical challenge involving the clearing out of galleries and, in the coming weeks, the closure of a road. It will then be transported by the Canadian air force – “like something out of a movie”, said Parent – and is due to appear at a public arrival ceremony on 29 September.
The museum and the Nisga’a delegates are calling it a rematriation, a challenge to the patriarchy and a word that makes sense given that the Nisga’a are a matrilineal society, said Parent, whose Nisga’a name is Noxs Ts’aawit (Mother of the raven warrior chief).
The ease with which the return has taken place is down to a National Museums Scotland policy change on the return of disputed objects, which was decided in 2021 and makes the museum more open to requests.
It has led to what is the first totem pole return by any UK museum.
Giblin would not be drawn on whether other institutions should follow suit. “Every museum has its own statutes, legal frameworks and situations, so it’s not for me to comment on those museums,” he said.
But he believes the right thing has been done, albeit leaving a sizeable gap in Edinburgh.
“I would personally love there to be a new pole, carved by the Nisga’a nation, in the gallery,” he said.
“We have had conversations with them. If we did do that it wouldn’t be a replica … it would be a pole designed collaboratively that would tell the story of the relationship between the Nisga’a nation and Scotland – both its history and our aspirations for the future.”
• This article was amended on 29 August 2023. Editing errors led an earlier version to omit Dr Amy Parent’s title and to locate her work at the University of British Columbia. She is now at Simon Fraser University.
