House Post (RBCM 2106)
House Post
This post is one of four that stood in a house built about 1880 near the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ (Ucluelet) village of Ittattsoo, also known as Port Albion. Each of the posts represents an ancestor of the house’s owner, whose name was written in English as Atsek. This one depicts a chief of the family's ancestral village at Long Beach. All four posts were purchased for the museum by Charles F. Newcombe in 1911.
Along with three Kwakwaka’wakw house posts and a Kwakwaka’wakw carving of a Sisiyutł (a supernatural double-headed serpent), three of the house posts from Ittattsoo, badly repainted, were once part of an open-sided structure erected in Thunderbird Park in 1941 that was a pastiche of a Northwest coast big house. The fourth post (RBCM 2109) stood in Thunderbird Park beside the structure. They were later moved inside the museum and restored.
The Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ Nation is one of five Nuu-chah-nulth Nations who signed the Maa-nulth Final Agreement, a treaty with the governments of Canada and British Columbia. It came into effect in 2011. Two of the house posts from Ittattsoo currently in storage at the Royal BC Museum (RBCM 2107 and 2109) are among the belongings that will be repatriated to the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ upon request. The other two posts, one of which is in storage (RBCM 2108), and this one, which is on display, will remain at the Royal BC Museum.
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