Description (Physical description)
register notes: Whale bone totem post
Event Date
Author: rachel hand

Description (Physical description)
Old attached museum label notes ' E [number missing]/Whale-bone totem post. Fort Rupert/ British Columbia,. (Bt. W.D. Webster, 1909)
Event Date 1909
Author: rachel hand

Context (Amendments / updates)
Label on object gives provenance as Fort Rupert, however, it is possible this object came from further north, in the cultural hinterlands between the Northwest coast and the sub-arctic, the Eyak etc., suggested by the material and the concentric circle designs, and the flattened style of carving
Event Date 1/10/1992
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
Carved whale bone bearing a bird, two creatures, a frog and a human. On the reverse the bone is incised with concentric and chevron designs which appear to have been an earlier decoration since they have been removed where the carving has tapered and shaped the bone
Event Date 1996
Author: maa

Conservation ()
446 |
Event Date 1/3/2016
Author: maa

Context (Amendments / updates)
Jonathan King says this is unlikely to be Eyak as suggested by Crowther, but more likely to be The figure at he base is more Eskimoan/Alaskan tahn NWC and the Yupik/Eskimoan circle on the rear indicate a more northerly provenance. There are no formlines in the carving to connect it to the NWC. The attribution of Kwakwaka'waka has been therefore been removed
Event Date 25/7/2023
Author: rachel hand

Description (Physical description)
Screw holes in the base and a dark rectangular area horizontally across the bases suggest it was previously mounted on a base
Event Date 25/7/2023
Author: rachel hand