1922] NEWCOMBE, HAIDA TOTEM POLE 197 



might represent them on their houses, totem poles, or other property, 

 and tattoo them upon their bodies. 



The Milwaukee totem pole displays certain of the symbols of the 

 Eagle clan. It was purchased from the last representative of Chief 

 Skilkinans of the long-abandoned town of Ian, on the west side of the 

 entrance of Masset Inlet, Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, 

 in the year 1913. 



It was originally secured at the request of Baron von Hiigel for 

 Cambridge University but, owing to the vicissitudes of the World War, 

 which broke out before the pole could be shipped to England, it re- 

 mained in the writer's possession, until sent to the Milwaukee Museum 

 in 1921. It now stands in a most appropriate place before that in- 

 stitution and displays one of the best examples of Haida wood carving 

 that has ever been sent out of British Columbia. 



Erected at Ian about sixty years or more ago, the ownership of this 

 finely carved representation of the crests of an almost forgotten chief, 

 has passed through many successors. As a result, there is no one now 

 living who can recall the exact rendering of the stories recited at the 

 great feast given at the time of the formal putting into place of the 

 solid portrayal of these hereditary tokens of rank and power. 



The interpretations of the figures on this pole were obtained through 

 the Rev. S. J. Davis, an educated Haida, whom I first met at Howkan, 

 Alaska, in 1902, and found to be a careful assistant and with whose 

 help many rare objects were collected for the Field Museum of Natural 

 History at Chicago. 



Figure 115 shows the details of the pole and its figures, both front 

 and side views. These figures have the following significance : 



1. Raven. ^^ A crest of the Eagle clan, Gitins. Raven is here 

 shown seated upon a cylinder of four sections, which is the ornamental 

 top of a chief's hat (2). 



2. Chief's dance hat with an ornamental top, consisting of four 

 cylindrical sections which signify an equal number of feasts accom- 

 panied by distribution of property, given by the owner of the crests. 



3. Moon. This illustrates the well-known story which tells how 

 Raven stole the Moon from the chief's house, where it was hidden in a 

 box and how he escaped through the smoke hole in the roof. This 



'^The repeated use of Raven in varied forms to illustrate well-known 

 stories is clearly brought out by Dr. J. R. Swanton in his Contribution to the 

 Ethnolog-y of the Haida (Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., Vol. VIII). 



His description of Plate III, figure 4, shows that the "story-pole" there 

 referred to also contains episodes from the Raven story, and in many ways 

 closely resembles the pole belonging to the Milwaukee Museum. In each 

 there is the Raven at the top and Beaver at the bottom of the pole, and in 

 each the intervening space is occupied by figures portraying mythical animals. 



