The Ni’isjoohl monument is “a living constitutional and visual record,” said Noxs Ts’aawit (Dr. Amy Parent), Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Education and Governance at Simon Fraser University and a member of the delegation headed to Scotland. “So removing it is like ripping out a chapter of the Canadian constitution and your most treasured family photo album and putting it in a museum in another country for foreigners to see on a daily basis,” he said. The First Nation in northwestern British Columbia says colonial ethnographer Marius Barbeau stole the pole in 1929 and later sold it to the National Museum of Scotland. The Ni’isjoohl monument is a house post carved and erected in the 1860s. It tells the story of Ts’wawit, a warrior who was next in line to become chief before he was killed in a conflict with a neighboring nation. A replica of the Ni’isjoohl pole monument, a house pole carved and erected in the 1860s, tells the story of Ts’wawit, a warrior who was next in line to become chief before he was killed in a conflict with a neighboring nation. (Nisga’a Nation) In a statement, the Nisga’a said the pole “represents a chapter of the peoples’ cultural sovereignty and is a living constitutional and visual record.” He said Barbeau took the pole without the consent of House Ni’isjoohl – one of about 50 houses in the Nisga’a nation – during a time when the Nisga’a people were away from their villages for the annual hunt, the fishing and harvest season. Noxs Ts’aawit said he belongs to Nisga’a. “We just want our kids to wake up every day and not have to look so hard for the stories of who we are,” she said.
“Deeply emotional”
Sim’oogit Ni’isjoohl (Chief Earl Stephens) and Shawna McKay will join Noxs Ts’aawit to meet museum staff on August 22nd. Sim’oogit Ni’isjoohl said in the press release that it will be the first time in recent memory that members of the nation will see the pole in person. “This visit will be deeply emotional for all of us,” he said in the statement. The National Museum of Scotland did not respond to requests for comment. In 2007, the UK voted in favor of the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, part of which calls for the repatriation of ceremonial objects. In 2010, the Royal BC Museum and the Canadian Museum of History returned 276 historical and spiritual artifacts to the Nisga’a under the terms of the treaty signed in 2000 by the Nisga’a and the governments of Canada and BC. Nisga’a said, to date, only one totem pole from Canada, the Haisla G’psgolox pole, has been successfully repatriated from a European museum. Returned from Sweden in 2006.
