Context (Production / use)
Believed to be a copy or an 'artefake' made by non-Indigenous carvers.
Event Date
Author: Kirsty Kernohan

Description (Physical description)
A totem pole with a human figure with uplifted hands at the base, above it a fish (?whale) head downwards, a human mask and a frog.
Event Date
Author: Kirsty Kernohan

Description (Physical description)
The pole is very roughly and crudely carved.
Event Date
Author: maa

Description (Physical description)
A letter from Glaisher to Baron Anatole von Hugel in MAA's uncatalogued correspondence boxes for 1907 notes "the figures are the woman, a whale, a chief, and a frog"
Event Date 1907
Author: rachel hand

Description (Physical description)
Accession register for E 1907.328 reads: 'A totem post bearing on the face, four deeply carved emblems picked out in red, green, and black paint: at the base a human figure with uplifted hands; above it a fish (?whale) head downwards; next a large human mask, and lastly a frog, head downwards'.
Event Date 1907
Author: Lucie Carreau

Context (Field collection)
Collected for the Museum by Dr James W. L. Glaisher (1848-1928), Cambridge University Lecturer in Mathematics (1871-1901) and a collector or ceramics and ethnography.
Purchased from Henry Stadthagen (1864-1927), a dealer in ethnographic material in Victoria, British Columbia, where Glaisher had seen the pole during a visit to Victoria.
Glaisher visited Victoria in 1907 and purchased several items from Stadthagen which, like E 1907.450 and E 1907.331 appear to be fakes or 'artefakes' as noted by Crowther (1996).
Event Date 1907
Author: rachel hand

Context (Acquisition Details)
Accession register for E 1907.328 reads: '(Bt. H. Stadthagen, Victoria, B.C.) and annotated 'who writes 'cannot honestly tell you more about the totem pole except that that same is over 100 years old and comes from the Frog Tribe of the Nootka Indians'.'
Event Date 17/12/1907
Author: rachel hand

Context (Related Documents)
In the Annual Report for 1908 the provenance for both E 1907.328 and E 1907.450 is "Nootka Indians of the Frog tribe."
Event Date 1908
Author: rachel hand

Context (Amendments / updates)
Gillian Crowther (1996, note E 1907.328) noted that The 'Nootka' [Nuu-chah-nulth] provenance was later discovered to be fraudulent.
From the correspondence mentioned above and below it would seem the totem poles wee made for sale to unsuspecting buyers of ethnographic artefacts, and as such are interesting examples of the possibly indigenous manufacture of "artefakes" .

The original European tribal names and, where possible, current tribal names have both been given in separate GLT fields.
(G.Crowther)
Event Date 1992
Author: maa

Conservation (Surface Clean)
CON.2023.5824 | Surface Clean
Event Date 22/11/2023
Author: Stephanie De Roemer

Description (Physical description)
A totem pole carved in wood with a human figure with uplifted hands at the base, then a fish with head downwards, a human mask and a frog with head downward at the top. There are visible tool marks and areas of red, green, and dark pigments.
Event Date 18/12/2023
Author: Kirsty Kernohan