Header - Thunder Bird Park

Title - Late Park

 

Coast Salish PoleThunderbird Park, 1954.
BC Government photograph.
BC Archives I-26971.

Coast Salish (Songhees) Pole, 1912
Carver: William Clallam

This pole was acquired by the provincial museum in 1940 and installed in Thunderbird Park. It had been carved in 1912 for a member of the Songhees First Nation by William Clallam who was from Port Angeles, Washington. The pole stood in front of a house on the New Songhees Reserve in Esquimalt, where it was photographed in 1920. According to an article in the Daily Colonist newspaper in 1939, it commemorated a man known as Old Sam who lived in the Victoria area prior to 1843. The pole originally had an Eagle and a Salmon at the top. It remains in the Royal BC Museum but is no longer in Thunderbird Park.
RBCM 5043.

 

Coast Salish PoleThunderbird Park, 1954.
BC Government photograph.
BC Archives I-26971.

Raven, identified in the records as a guardian spirit of the owner’s dead brothers.
Bear, another guardian spirit of the owner’s dead brothers.
Killer Whale, with head pointing downward. This is the guardian spirit that gave the owner his personal dance. 
Human, wearing a feather headdress and a braided belt, and holding a mask. Thunderbird Park guidebooks of the period describe this as a Sisiyutł head, and the braid around the figure’s waist as a belt made of Sisiyutł skin that gave the wearer magical powers. The mask is, however, a Nuu-chah-nulth Serpent headdress. Old Sam, whose histories are portrayed on the pole, may have been Nootka Sam. If so, the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) headdress refers to his ceremonial rights.

Wolf, seen from the back with head facing upwards. Thunderbird Park guidebooks refer to this figure as a Mink whose power enables a person to walk under water, but the figure is more likely a Wolf, another important Nuu-chah-nulth ceremonial right. 

 

Coast Salish Pole in Thunderbird Park
Close up of RavenThunderbird Park, 1969.
BC Government photograph.
RBCM PN 12988-9.
Close up of BearThunderbird Park, 1969.
BC Government photograph.
RBCM PN 12988-9.
Close up of Killer WhaleThunderbird Park, 1969.
BC Government photograph.
RBCM PN 12988-9.
Close up of HumanThunderbird Park, 1969.
BC Government photograph.
RBCM PN 12988-9.
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