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Caption

  • A brightly painted totem pole decorated with human and animal faces and figures.

Ilchinik (totem pole)

Tim Paul; Patrick Amos; Francis Mark; Leslie Mickey; Nuu-chah-nulth

June 1998

Red cedar, acrylic paint, red cedar bark

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Description

RAMM’s red cedar totem is named Ilchinick, after a powerful mythological whaler. It celebrates Exeter's connection with the Nuu-chah-nulth nation of Vancouver Island, Canada.

Tim Paul, a renowned Nuu-chah-nulth master carver and artist, carved the totem pole. He was assisted by senior carvers Patrick Amos, Francis Mark and Leslie Mickey, and apprentice carvers Tom Paul and Corey Baiden Amos.

The pole arrived at RAMM by ship. The carving and decoration were completed at the museum in June 1998. The pole’s height of 5 metres meant the museum had to cut a hole in the ceiling to ensure it fit.

You can learn more about Ilchinik on RAMM’s collections site.

Visual description: A totem pole decorated with symmetrical faces and animals. The wood is a light brown colour. It is painted in red, black and blue. The style of the carving means that some sections are raised, while others are cut out.

RAMM Treasures Trail - Object 3 - Totem Pole

Learn about the third object in RAMM's Treasures of the Museum trail, the totem pole.

Treasures of the Museum: Totem Pole

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Transcript

Marilyn Laws: I'm Marilyn Laws, and I've been a volunteer here at the RAMM for 14 years.

I'm absolutely intrigued by the totem pole. As you can probably tell, I'm from North America and so is the totem pole. I'm from the east. The totem pole is from Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

When you walk into the World Cultures gallery, it's pretty well straight ahead. They've actually had to sort of make a space in the ceiling to get it in there.

The story is fabulous. It's a circular story, and it starts at least 500 years ago with a whalebone club. This whalebone club was 250 years old when it was given to Captain Cook by Chief Maquinna, who was the gatekeeper of the northwest Pacific island of Vancouver.

Now, the Nuu-chah-nulth people who made the whalebone club, who are direct descendants of Chief Maquinna, are still on Vancouver Island. And when they discovered that we had that whalebone club safely kept for 500 years, they dedicated that totem pole to us.

They made it, they carved it. Much of it was carved in Vancouver Island, but it was finished here in the museum. And the whole family came over to dedicate it here in the museum with poetry, rituals, music – the usual raising of a totem pole.

Red cedar is actually a very important wood for the Nuu-chah-nulth people. It gave them their canoes, and the canoe takes you out to whale. And when you go for whales, it's a pretty big thing because a whale is 38 tons and you're in a canoe.

Now, the totem pole is the culmination of all those things I've just talked about: whalebone, whalers, cedar, canoes and family.

I actually met the niece of one of the carvers. She happened to come into the museum one Sunday afternoon while I happened to be here, and we gave each other a hug. It was spontaneous. We just hugged each other. We both had this connection. We never met, but we had the totem pole as our connection. That's the importance of it for me.

Credits

Watch RAMM staff and volunteers tell us why they love each of the 16 objects, and hear the fascinating stories that make these items so special.

Additional Information

Dimensions
5 m
Accession Number
133/1998

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