Historical Note Scope and Content Restrictions on Access Historical Background Processing Info InventorySubject Terms |
September 17-18, 1970 |
| Creator: | Wehr, Wesley, 1929 |
| Title: | Wesley Wehr totem pole raising ceremony photographs |
| Date Span: | 1970 |
| Quantity: | 9 photographic prints (1 folder) |
| PH Collection No.: | 609 |
| Location: | K900 |
| Languages: | Collection materials are in English. |
Wesley Wehr (1929-2004) was a local artist whose friends included such prominent Northwest artists as Mark Tobey and Morris Graves. Wehr was also a paleobotanist who served as unpaid affiliate curator at the University of Washington's Burke Museum and was the author of two memoirs.
Mungo Martin (Chief NaKePenkim) attended residential school briefly and was apprenticed to his stepfather, master carver Charles James. Martin, one of the Northwest Coast's most significant artists and mentors, contributed greatly to the preservation of traditional Kwakwak'wakw (Kwakiutl) culture and worked to instigate its resurgence. Martin restored poles and houseposts for the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology and for the Provincial Museum of British Columbia (now the Royal British Columbia Museum). He was chief carver at the Provincial Museum's Thunderbird Park. He also replicated and created new feast dishes, masks, dance screens, and other objects, both utilitarian and ceremonial. Martin recorded many oral histories and traditions as well as 400 songs. To celebrate the dedication of a carved half-scale replica of the house in which he was born, Martin held the first public potlatch since the rescinding of the governmental potlatch ban. Mungo Martin was posthumously awarded a medal by the Canada Council.
The collection contains nine black-and-white Polaroid photographs of the Mungo Martin memorial totem pole raising ceremony, held on September 18, 1970, at Alert Bay, British Columbia. Included are images of the partially raised pole and attendees including, Bill Holm, Tony Hunt and Chief William Scow in traditional Kwakwaka'wakw tribal regalia, as well as one photograph taken at Sointula, a Finnish utopian community on Malcolm Island, British Columbia. All photographs were made by Wesley Wehr.
The collection is open to all users.
The totem pole shown in the photographs was the first to be raised in Alert Bay, British Columbia, in forty years. It was carved and raised in honor of Mungo Martin (Kwakwaka'wakw, 1879-1962) on September 18, 1970. Among the attendees at the ceremony were Chief James King, Chief William Scow (Kwakwaka'wakw), Jonathan Hunt, Helen Hunt, Geoffrey Thorp, Isabel Thorp (University of Washington Anthropology Dept.), Bill Holm, Gary Lundell (University of Washington Libraries),Wesley Wehr and Chief Sandy Willie.
The Mungo Martin memorial totem pole was one of two carved by Tony Hunt, a Kwakwaka'wakw artist, carver, printmaker, mask maker, and jewelry designer. Hunt (and his father Henry) carved and raised two totem poles in Alert Bay in the 1970s in memory of his two grandfathers, Mungo Martin and Jonathan Hunt.
Processed by Randy Hertzler, 2002.
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