02 June 2016 | Tregoning is in Whangarei Town Basin Marina, Whangarei, New Zealand but we are in Vancouver, BC, Canada
Photo: Bill Reid’s yellow cedar sculpture “The Raven and the First Men” at the Vancouver Museum of Anthropology
While staying with generous hosts Rob and Debra in Vancouver, we visited various interesting local sites, including Richmond, Queen Elizabeth Gardens, Stanley Park, and the Vancouver Museum of Anthropology. Part of the University of British Columbia, this research and teaching museum houses extensive collections of more than half-a-million ethnographic and archeological objects from around the world, although the main focus is on First Nations of the Northwest Coast of British Columbia.
Debra and Rob enjoying our picnic in Stanley Park
Houses typical of a coastal village of the Haida people, including a traditional big house, have been reconstructed in the museum grounds. There are also many totem poles, both inside and outside the museum's iconic 1976 building. Its design was inspired by the post-and-beam architecture of northern Northwest Coast First Nations people.
Haida bentwood boxes in which regalia and treasured property was stored
Randall and I took an excellent tour of the main exhibits which included: many, old, traditional wooden carvings: cedar bentwood chests (the wood was bent by steam); dug-out canoes; large animal-shaped, wooden “house dishes” from which ceremonial food was served; and ornate house-posts. There were also quite a few modern carvings by contemporary, native artists and perhaps the most iconic object in the museum was the yellow cedar sculpture “The Raven and the First Men” completed by Bill Reid in 1980. This sculpture, the almost spherical shape of which departs from the traditional totem pole or mortuary monument carving, was depicted on the Canadian twenty-dollar bill from 2004 to 2012. It illustrates part of the Haida creation-story. Rather than try to summarize it, I will copy Bill Reid's description of the story which was presented at the museum. (Haida Gwaii was known for many years as the Queen Charlotte Islands).
“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 monotony. A flash of white caught his eye and there, right at this feet, half buried in the sand, was a gigantic clamshell. 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.”