The Haida Crest Pole and the Nootka Eagle Mask

This chapter follows the journey of Norwegian collector Johan Adrian Jacobsen to the Pacific coast of Canada to collect as much as possible from the Northwest Coast tribes (especially the Haida) living between Alaska and Vancouver. The chapter chronicles his predicament when he arrived at the locati...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Penny, H. Glenn
Format: Book Part
Language:unknown
Published: Princeton University Press 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691211145.003.0003
Description
Summary:This chapter follows the journey of Norwegian collector Johan Adrian Jacobsen to the Pacific coast of Canada to collect as much as possible from the Northwest Coast tribes (especially the Haida) living between Alaska and Vancouver. The chapter chronicles his predicament when he arrived at the location of Northwest Coast tribes and found private collectors, a representative of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and tourists—hordes of them—who came in the summers to the port cities, towns, and even some villages. The chapter then describes how he went door-to-door in villages, and found many people with beautiful and fascinating things to sell. It highlights the Haida crest pole, a focal point in the atrium of Bastian's Museum, which Jacobsen purchased from a man who had converted to Christianity in the Haida village of Masset, in the Queen Charlotte Islands. The chapter stresses that Jacobsen's trip was part of Bastian's hypercollecting—attempting to get as much as possible as fast as possible.