Totem: The Return of the G'psgolox Pole Transcript
- [Louise] The original G'psgolox pole was taken from its site in Misk'usa.
- [Per] The then director wanted to have a totem pole because many of the other museums in Europe had totem Poles.
- [Karin] It became state property, according to Swedish law.
- We've traced a lot of our artifacts to museums all over. That was the beginning of looking for the pole. Once it was traced to Sweden, there was a lot of our people that felt that it'll never happen. It's too monumental a task. But the people that went over to see the pole were so moved by the pole that they promised that one day, somehow, you will go home. And they told that to the pole.
- [Narrator] This totem pole is the G'psgolox pole. For the Haisla and Xanaksiyala people, it represents a vital link to their ancestral heritage. A link that was severed in 1929. It now stands as the centerpiece of the Folkens Museum Etnografiska in Stockholm, Sweden. This community, in north western Canada is the home the G'psgolox pole would return to. Gathered together in one spirit, the people of Kitamaat village call themselves Haisla. But this community is an amalgamation of two peoples, the Haisla and the Xanaksiyala, the people of the Kitlope territory. Devastated by European diseases, they were almost completely annihilated. In 1947, Xanaksiyala survivors journeyed north, to join with the people of the Kitamaat territory, thus forming the Haisla nation.
- [Cecil] Mother earth, we thank you for a great gift. We are cleansing you, so that you'll be both pure in the journey that you will go in the far-distant land. To me, that totem pole is our culture. We're trying to hang on to something we are losing fast.
- [Narrator] Xanaksiyala elder, Cecil Paul, always remembered the sadness in his grandmother's voice as she told the story of the pole. A relentless search eventually led him to a photograph of the G'psgolox pole in an anthropology book. Community leader, Louise Barbetti, sings for the pole in Sweden. It once stood at Misk'usa, in the traditional homeland of the Xanaksiyala, the Kitlope valley. This is the old village site of Misk'usa. The G'psgolox pole was carved and raised here in 1872.
- There's a grave site back here. The old village was here. There was villagers all up and down, right up to the lake.
- [Narrator] Louisa Smith is a direct descendant of G'psgolox, the Xanaksiyala eagle chief who commissioned the G'psgolox pole.
- And then there was landslides, I think there were three landslides that killed a lot of people, so they kept, every time there was a landslide, they moved it down. And the last landslide was here. So from here, they moved to the present Kemano site. Mm-hmm.
- [Narrator] Louisa's ancestors were among those who made the move.
- And as we grew up in Kemano, after the day's work is done, we would gather in our little grandmother's house. And very faintly I could remember her stories about the old totem pole. How it was taken against the will of the people, the family of G'psgolox.
- [Narrator] In Misk'usa, influenza, tuberculosis and smallpox decimated the Xanaksiyala. Chief G'psgolox lost most of his family.
- [Louisa] And he went into the forest. And he was walking aimlessly, he was in so much grief. And he came upon a little man. And the man asked him why he was so sad. What caused so much of his sorrow? And he told him that his family died, his children, with the exception of his wife. And he didn't know it at the time, but the person that he encountered was a mythical being. And his name is Tsooda. And Tsooda told him to go back to where he buried his family and at that time, the burial was on top of the trees. And he was given a crystal and was told, "When you go at the base of the tree, and before you call down your family, you take a bite off of this crystal". And he did as he was instructed. He went back. And he took a bite off of the crystal. And he called to his family to wake up, "Come down from where you're laying". And he was surprised when they all sat up and they were coming down from the treetop. And among his family was this little man that he encountered in the forest. And as a result of that encounter, G'psgolox hired two raven chiefs to carve out the mythical being, Tsooda.
- [Narrator] The G'psgolox's pole is a mortuary pole. Commissioned by chief G'psgolox to commemorate both his family and the encounter with Tsooda.
- That pole was not a decoration. It was on top of a grave. We got a name for that.
- [Narrator] Dan Paul holds the hereditary title of G'psgolox. He is considered the owner of the pole in Sweden.
- In our language, they call that . The thing should never be taken out if it falls. If it falls you don't lift it. You let it go back to mother earth.
- [Louisa] It's a really emotional time for all of us. In order for our ancestors to rest peacefully, you know, everything must be in place. And since this, the pole was a mortuary pole you can use your own imagination and feel what the Xanaksiyala and the Haisla people felt with the pole being missing.
- [Narrator] The G'psgolox pole would have disintegrated long ago and returned to the earth. That's the way it's supposed to be with totem Poles. But the G'psgolox pole never had that chance. In 1929, the G'psgolox pole was given to the people of Sweden by Olaf Hanson, the royal Swedish consul stationed in prince Rupert, British Columbia. Indian totem Poles were all the rage in museums across Europe, and Hanson considered the G'psgolox pole abandoned at Misk'usa. In consort with Ivor Fougner, the local Indian agent, it was cut down at the base and shipped to Stockholm, where it remains to this day.
- So the story says, tells us that there were long negotiations with the tribe. And there was one old woman who was against everything. She knew the value of it, I think, while the others probably were needing money. I mean, that was the situation. I think that was the situation in which they negotiated. That they offered money, the Swedish consul offered money and this group probably needed money. We don't know whatever kind of negotiations they had. I can suspect there were a lot of ugly details in that deal. So the only paper we have is that, is the export permission by the Canadian government.
- [Narrator] West Fraser Mills, a timber company active in the area, donated these logs in support of the repatriation of the G'psgolox pole. A process that began in 1991, following the discovery of its whereabouts.
- It was as if our feet knew where to take us. Going around the corridor, the hallway and going up a stairway and then turning up. And there was the old pole standing there. It was like two spirits connecting. And I cried and cried and cried, thinking it's been such a long time. Such a long, long time. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting, looking out for people to come and take it home.
- When I was standing in front of that pole, I realized at that point, that this was maybe one of the symbols that we could, if we could repatriate it, that might begin to heal the community. And lord knows, there's a lot of healing to do.
- [Narrator] Gerald and Louisa reclaimed the G'psgolox pole.
- In our view, it was taken without proper consent. We feel in a large part that it was, in fact, stolen.
- My grandmother and my mother have told me and have mentioned to all my brothers and my sisters about this pole. And how it was taken against their will.
- [Narrator] On behalf of their people, Louisa and Gerald began negotiations with Per Kaks, the museum director at the time.
- They said, "We want to have the pole back". What could I say? I can't say neither yes or no because I haven't got the right to do that. As this is now national property, government's property, I have to ask for permission. If I find that your claim is acceptable, because, I mean, we didn't have any papers. They couldn't prove, I mean, saying "I am the proper owner of the totem pole". So we started a long, long period of discussions.
- [Narrator] The discussions lasted three years.
- Through the discussions we, and I, I must say, for myself, I had to accept their way of reasoning. That it's not a matter of legal, a legal discussion, it's more a matter of an ethical discussion. Who has the proper right to it? Who has the, let's say, better use of it, if I can use a word like that and for whom does this pole mean something?
- [Narrator] Per Kaks recommended to the Swedish government that the pole be returned. Thus encouraged, a delegation returned to Stockholm in 1994 to press for a decision.
- We took a chance. We said, "Well, why don't we offer a replica? Why don't we put on the table a replica?"
- [Narrator] At the time of the negotiations, Gerald Amos was chief counselor for Kitamaat village.
- And they accepted that. I think that's really what tipped the scale.
- [Narrator] But still some museum personnel resisted. During a break in negotiations, the Haisla were taken to see a Swedish national treasure, the Vassa, a war ship dating to 1628 that had sunk in the harbor on its maiden voyage. Then was reclaimed intact from the sea bed in 1961. Built around the ship, the Vassa Museum is now the pride of Stockholm.
- So these people were showing off their history to us. And you had a fellow there who asked the question, "I don't understand why you want this old one back. Why don't you just build yourself a new one? Wouldn't it be better if your people have a new one rather than an old one that's falling apart?" I asked him, "Let me pose this question to you. How do you think your people would feel if tomorrow, when we left, somehow we were able to spirit away the Vassa and brought it back to Kitamaat and we built a museum round it. And we kept it and said, "it's ours. Somebody gave it to us. And why don't you build yourselves a new one?"
- [Narrator] The minister of culture announced the G'psgolox pole would be returned. And she presented it as a gift to the delegation, but with a string attached. The museum's condition; the pole would not return to Kitamaat village without a protective facility to house it.
- I wanted to give it back. And we had no conditions. The only condition we had, and I think it's important for me to say that, because I've heard other things said, we, having kept the pole for so many years, and tried to make it survive, it's very important for us that we could, together, both of us, look upon this pole as a kind of, well, property of mankind. I would be very unhappy if this pole is put back according to your traditions. Because it will be destroyed in half a year. It's so dry and so fragile.
- And it was such an awful feeling to know that how dare they make conditions of returning the pole. The pole is ours.
- Here's the picture of this. It was cut down from Kitlope.
- [Gil] Did the museum send you all this?
- Yeah. The Folkens. The measurement of the eyes, the mouth, the nostrils, the feet.
- [Gil] Are you supposed to follow all that? Make it look like that?
- [Henry] Yeah. I guess they want it to be exact.
- [Gil] So you've never seen the pole.
- [Henry] No.
- [Narrator] From the diagrams, these carvers will make exact copies of the G'psgolox pole. One to become a replacement for the museum, another to stand once again at Misk'usa. Henry Robertson is a master carver. He's connected to the G'psgolox pole through his grandfather, the carver of the original pole.
- Straight now, eh?
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] Nephews Derek and Barry Wilson, themselves accomplished carvers and jewelers, assist Henry in the labor-intensive process. Tricia Robertson has taken time off school to work with her grandfather and uncles. Work begins on the museum's replacement pole. For the Haisla, the intent of the offer was more than just a negotiating tactic.
- We said to ourselves, "We don't want to simply rip the pole away and leave a vacant space". That would be doing basically the same thing to them as was done to our people, though in different circumstances.
- We should never have agreed to exchange the pole. But our chief, our chiefs and the chief ladies, decided that, well, a promise is a promise. And out of the goodness of our hearts, let's fight to get a replacement and give it to the museum as a token of friendship.
- People were angry, but people began to see the significance of, if we had allowed mother nature to take its course, as is our tradition, we would not have had that old pole to this day.
- [Narrator] It's a dilemma for the community. Though the G'psgolox pole was taken, it was also taken care of. In this coastal rain forest climate, totem Poles seldom lasted longer than 100 years. Usually falling from decay in about 60 years. Totem Poles commemorate ancestry, linking the past with the present, the pole's figures emblematic of tribal and family identity. They're created to tell stories, Mark historical events or as in the case of the G'psgolox pole, to commemorate a family and record an encounter with a supernatural being.
- [Speaker] There's still 159 centimeters here.
- You didn't put a measurement in there.
- Got to send it back!
- Yeah! So the only thing to do, I guess, to measure from the top down, eh? Then you'll have the proper distance between here and here.
- [Narrator] Rather than letting the spirit of the logs speak to them, the carvers must go by the numbers in order to exactly replicate the G'psgolox pole.
- [Henry] And the arm, 24 and a half, And probably, maybe it's angled in.
- [Narrator] The recreation of these figures links the carvers back to a time before the cultural expression of their ancestors was outlawed.
- Everything our people did was criminalized, eh. Hunting, fishing, dancing, singing and carving and language was all against the law, eh. So the preachers and the government threw everything away and burnt everything. That's the thing that almost destroyed our people is the lack of connection to our past. When the things were taken away from us, we lost that connection.
- In the church's eyes, our dances and our songs and the masks and the paraphernalia were all to do with the devil. As a result, our people, they were intimidated into getting rid of whatever they had. No matter how long you talk about it, you can't ever change what happened to our people. But you can rebuild. And that's why the pole, to me, is so important.
- Henry, am I doing it too much?
- No.
- No?
- no.
- No?
- No, we'll scream!
- [Narrator] Roughing out the figures is as far as the carvers will go, for now. The remaining work will be done at the museum in Stockholm. The carvers pick up their pace with the replica pole. It's scheduled to be raised in Misk'usa, standing in for the original, allowing the G'psgolox pole to remain in Kitamaat village. But before that can happen, the community must contend with the museum's condition of having a protected facility to house it. The prospect of financing the museum is an enormous challenge and the community is on its own. Neither the Swedish nor Canadian governments have offered assistance. Foundations and private sources are helping, cover the immediate costs of carving the new Poles, transporting the replacement and raising the replica. But the project budget of $300,000 has yet to be realized. And so the community rallies, with fundraisers like this. And every dollar counts. Louisa's work towards the return of the G'psgolox pole is sponsored by a Vancouver-based environmental organization, Ecotrust Canada. It's a relationship that evolved from Ecotrust's role in helping the Haisla preserve the Kitlope valley.
- Good morning, Ecotrust Canada.
- The other pressing item right now is to get the pole from Vancouver to Sweden. I'm told that it's much cheaper by freight than by air. The big question is- All we wanted was the pole to come home. But as the project unfolded, many things came into the picture. It just opened up to a huge project. Sometimes, very overwhelming. Because finances are always the obstacle. Don't have enough money. Yeah.
- When we first started this, when we first talked about it, they send it down to Vancouver and finish it there. And they said "No." The totem pole committee wants 'em both here so that kids could watch, watch us carve it. My father showed me how to carve in 1947. I was only 12, 13. And we went to residential school, I did finish a couple of totem Poles, small ones for training. And someone told the principal about my carving and he, he got mad at me. Told me, slapped me around. He told me that I'm not going to that school to learn how to carve totem Poles, the Indian ways. You're here to learn the white man ways. He told me, and he stuck a pencil, a lead pencil of mine in here, the lead stayed inside. They had to cut it out with a razor blade. Get the lead out.
- I see the museums as something parallel to the boarding school in the fact that all the artifacts are in there and basically shut off from our people so they won't be used again, eh! Because of what happened to our people in the past, all of our people seem to do things half way and then they quit, eh. That's one of the things that we want to show the young people, that once you start something you have to finish it.
- [Speaker] So we're making this.
- Is this me?
- Yup, it's you.
- Look the same.
- Oh no. I have to fix the eyebrows first and the pokey chin.
- Sarah!
- What?
- Oh, you cut my eyeball! How come you put lips in there. Looks like you. My eyes, my nose.
- Just wink your eye. Yep, yep, there you go. Just wait, this side. Yeah, now there we go. Now look that way.
- Exactly.
- Oh, mustache.
- They told the owner of this pole, what my father told me. That when that pole comes back from Sweden, take that old pole up to Misk'usa and leave it there. Lay it on the ground. Go back to mother nature where it came from. They told me. But the totem pole committee they've got here now, they want it to be preserved more a cultural center.
- [Narrator] Traditionally a totem pole would be connected directly into mother earth. A long trench would be dug, growing deeper and deeper as it went. The bottom third of the pole would be laid in the trench, then stood erect by backfilling rocks and dirt, allowing it to eventually decompose. Thus fulfilling a natural, even spiritual process.
- [Drago] There are places along that figure where it goes down to 17 inches, right?
- [Narrator] As the date of the replica pole's raising in Misk'usa fast approaches, the question of how it will be supported becomes an issue.
- Can you accept, let's say, this steel to be seen outside?
- You have to it's getting too close to being raised.
- If we put pipe in the middle, as per original design, if you cut this slot like that, five feet, which is, we'll say it's up to here, put the pipe inside and you know, you just put this back as as a, you know, as a plug. Can you make it something like that?
- Who's going to cut it out?
- Oh, I thought you'll be doing that.
- [Narrator] Faced with this problem, the question is, why isn't the replica pole being raised in the traditional way.
- Okay, this is out. What about...
- [Gil] Steel brace and everything?
- You really want me to tell you?
- [Gil] Yeah!
- Because we asked the carver to make a replica.
- [Gil] Exact replica.
- Exact replica. And he made an exact replica, by cutting off the end. It was our mistake. But that's the way it happened.
- Give her a try?
- Yeah.
- Ready! Go! Okay, forward!
- [Narrator] The replacement pole, promised the museum in Sweden, now begins its long journey overseas. Lufthansa cargo cooperated with Louisa in arranging the shipping of the pole to Sweden. The airplane is brand new. It makes its maiden cargo voyage tonight, so a sense of occasion accompanies the loading. Occasion mixed with anxiety. No one has loaded a nine meter long totem pole before.
- Okay. Let's all just push it by hand just real free and easy. Now I got the control, so I won't let it hit. I'll back it back out the door. Very slow. Very slow. Okay, stop for a minute. Stop! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Yeah, straight ahead. Let me do it! You got her! Whoo! All right! That was maxed out, you guys!
- Hold it, pull the pin! Got it! Good, yeah. Okay! Easy! Has to be balanced in there too. Then it won't roll around. 1,400 pounds. You know those trucks will pack three tons comfortable. Yeah. Does it look like the old pole?
- Well yes it does. It really does.
- [Narrator] Special guests from Stockholm have been invited to Kitamaat village to witness the raising of the replica in Misk'usa.
- Okay, ready? When I go like that, you lift the same time. And when you lift you say ooof!
- [All] Ooof! Down! Okay! You're done. You're done.
- [Narrator] It's now the carvers' ceremonial duty and honor to wake up the spirit of the replica pole. They circle it four times, blowing breaths of life into the pole's figures.
- Ready? Let's go. Easy! One here, one here, one here. Quick quick! Gotta go forward. Somebody get the center! Somebody up here.
- [Narrator] On the same day as the pole raising in Misk'usa, the replacement pole is arriving at the museum in Stockholm.
- [Gil] Now is this back here, the main village?
- Yeah, over there I remember they cut the tree where the totem pole comes from. Carved there. 128 years ago.
- [Narrator] At Misk'usa, eagles gather to welcome the visitors.
- [Speaker] Watch the step.
- Down some more. Down some more. Whoa, okay. Ready? Turn it, okay?
- [Narrator] Among the special guests invited to the raising are members of the Sami nation, the indigenous people of Scandinavia. Also invited, is Olof Hanson's daughter, linea Hanson.
- [Gerald] She was pretty happy that she was able to be there, to witness a pole being raised on the site that the original was taken from. She was not too keen on this pole being given back to us, but she's bought into it and I think that in itself suggests that a lot of people understand the significance of this project.
- Okay, we're going to pull on both sides even. And we're going to keep pulling. Let's go! Very gently, very gently! Group pull! Group pull! Pull at the back! Pull! Hold on the back! Come on. That side! That side, pull on that side. Pull back! Pull back, pull back!
- [Narrator] The raising of the Misk'usa replica marks the end of its journey and the beginning of a journey for the carvers. The replacement pole awaits them at the museum in Stockholm. Like most museums, the Folkens Museum has an extensive collection of North American aboriginal artifacts and cultural curios.
- In the museum, this is the kind of thing that you don't do very often, give things back. I'm involved in these things now, thanks to the totem pole. I work with the ethics committee of ICOM, the International Council of Museums. Where repatriation's a very big thing, an important thing. Because we say that, well, why should a people, a group, a nation or whatever, lack the things that we have in our collections, in our storage rooms. Very often you'll see things come to countries where they don't have anything left. But the best collections that are spread out to museums in the Western world, or to private collectors, while they themselves they have nothing and this is wrong.
- It's bigger, eh? It's almost right in half. It's almost split right in half. A shame for it to have to...
- [Narrator] Henry, Derek, Barry and Trish now number among the very few of their people who have seen the G'psgolox pole.
- My grandfather, my grandfather.
- Yeah, who made it. What was his name?
- Solomon.
- Solomon?
- Robertson.
- [Karin] Oh yes, of course, you must be touched.
- And this museum was built for this?
- The building, yeah.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] Karin Westward is an education officer at the museum. She is part-Sami, a people who themselves have known the severing of ancestral links.
- When the totem pole got here in 1929, it became state property, according to Swedish law. And that's why it was formulated that it had to be taken care of, because people have spent years and years looking after it and preserving it. So this is a very complex project. It has a long, long history and contains a lot of opinions and emotions and it's very, very difficult and complex.
- [Narrator] The carvers themselves are now on display. And though evocative of the history of museums putting Indians under glass, it is intentional.
- Yeah? What?
- Huh?
- It's a very important part for the school activities. We have to tell history, especially to be able to tell the children it, because they have this vulgar idea that totem Poles were something where you tied up the enemies and you threw axes at them and things like that. That's these Indian books and all that. The totem pole, the old pole, that's where it was standing.
- One of the goals with giving the pole back, was to build up a live contact with the Kitamaat group, the people there, on a human basis, not just we give back something. But we have a lot of things coming back to us their experience, their knowledge, their thoughts, their friendship. Most people think that museums are about objects. But museums are about human beings.
- [Narrator] Day after day, year after year, the story of the G'psgolox pole is told to the Swedish public. The Haisla would like to have the same opportunity.
- When we're telling the story here about the totem pole and why it's important that it goes back, most people understand that and they want it to go back.
- I really wanted the old pole to be a teaching tool. It's an extension of our culture. It holds the umbilical, invisible umbilical cord of our ancestors. And if we were to take the old pole and put it in a museum, our children could see and observe it first hand, in understanding the history of our people.
- [Narrator] In Kitamaat village, the dilemma remains. To house the pole according to the museum's standards, or to respect their cultural traditions.
- We know that the protocol of the totem pole. And, it is a painful thing to, to erect it in a museum.
- Our culture is that when it falls, let it go. Mother earth will cover it. When that thing is no longer there, the new one will come. So in my journey I'm kind of little heaviness. I have broken that. I have now agreed, we'll put it in a museum, the white man way of thinking. I have broken something here. It won't go back to the womb of mother earth now.
- And that's where the pain comes from. But at the same time, when we work on this, we feel happiness because what this is going to do to represent our people in a good way. Because that old pole, when it comes back to our territory, it'll bring back the spirit of our ancestors. When we make this, we show, we will show you the pain and the happiness that we have in our life. Thank you.
- I want to say, I feel it's very generous of you to make such a thing for us. And give us a hint of your history and of your beliefs. And the combination.
- To give this replacement pole is a gesture of forgiveness. But I really feel that the Swedes need to do more to help us bring that pole home. Where we didn't give the pole away. The pole was taken from where it was originally. And for the Swedes to be waiting for us to finance this, you know, that's very wrong. Because that's what's holding everything up.
- [Narrator] The carvers' work nears completion and the Canadian embassy sponsors a reception celebrating the new pole. But the Haisla will celebrate when the G'psgolox pole returns home.
- We believe in sharing. And that's why our law made us come here and do that, because we have to share with you. Share with you our happiness and at the same time share with you our pain and suffering. But to see that pole up there brings both sadness and happiness in my heart. Sadness in the fact that what has happened to our people is represented by what you see up there. And happiness at the same time, to see that finally our people are being recognized as human beings. Our people are being finally recognized as people, not objects of archeology or objects of anthropology. New history that pole is creating. And when it's finished, when you look at it, each and every one of you in here will be part of that history, because you've witnessed something like that being done. I want you to look at that pole and see yourself in that pole. I want you to look in that pole and see your neighbors in that pole. I want you to look in that pole and see your enemies in that pole, and accept that pole as your friend. And accept each other as a friend. There. We have come to a conclusion of the pole project, and we have to do something here in our tradition is to wake up the spirit of this pole and prepare it for traveling upstairs. And hopefully when we blow in that, the spirit that is in this will awaken your spirit. So that you too may have respect for what has been given to you. Our people traditionally never touched a pole when it fell down. If it fell down, you leave it there because it has finished its job. This one here, we have to wake it up, so it can start its job, because it's going to take the place of that old one up there. Let it rest beside the old one first. Let it receive the power of the old one. Let it receive the eyes of the old one. Let it receive the ears of the old one. Let it receive the heart of the old one. Before we take the old one back.
- [All] Whoo!
- [Derek] And when that old one comes back to our people, I hope that that brings back the pride to our younger generation, so that they too will learn their own history. And I pray that that history will come back. When that old pole goes back to our own territory. Because it's completed its job.
