The American Museum Journal 
Vou. X DECEMBER, 1910 No. 8 
HERCULEAN TASK IN MUSEUM EXHIBITION 
FOREWORD REGARDING THE CEREMONIAL CANOE SCENE IN THE NORTH 
Paciric Hau 
Photographs from the North Pacific Coast by Lieutenant George T. Emmons, 
Museum photographs by Thomas Lunt 
N unusually large task in exhibition entered upon by the Museum 
is that of filling a Ceremonial Haida Canoe sixty-four and a half 
feet long with Indian figures, about forty in all, representative in 
physique, garb and action of the tribes of the North Pacific Coast. The 
conception is that of Director Hermon C. Bumpus, supervision of scientific 
details is under Lieutenant George T. Emmons, and the technical work 
is being carried out by the sculptor, Sigurd Neandross. 
Lieutenant Emmons has spent some thirty years among the Indians of 
the Northwest Coast, working with deep interest along the lines covering 
their culture and is abundantly equipped in knowledge. The Museum will 
always be in his debt for invaluable service. Sigurd Neandross is an Amer- 
ican sculptor of Norwegian parentage who has been honored at home and 
abroad. Notable among his works are a monument in the public square 
in Copenhagen — an imaginative figure of a nymph singing the song of the 
Vikings, a bust of a mother and child shown at the Berlin International 
in 1897 and now in the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum at Krefeld, Germany, 
and in this country a bronze statue of an officer of volunteers in the public 
square at Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Mr. Neandross has at present several 
large idealistic figures and groups in progress. 
The Ceremonial Haida Canoe was made many years ago on the Skeena 
River near Port Essington on the Alaskan Coast and formed a part of the 
Powell collection secured by the Museum in 1883. The monstrous boat 
hung for many years from the ceiling of the hall, taking its present place in 
1908. In this year decision was made to convert it into a great open ex- 
hibition case in which to set forth the primitive culture of the Northwest 
Coast Indians, and the idea advanced by Lieutenant Emmons was accepted 
that the exact expression of the exhibition should take the form of an 
institution known as the “potlatch,” a ceremonial allowing attractive use 
of the rich Northwest Coast materials in the possession of the Museum. 
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