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Object: house post 18981
Use: structural support; also spiritual significance; reminder of cultural stories, events and rituals
Era: age unknown, removed from Departure Bay, Nanaimo B.C. by the 1890s
Materials: Western Redcedar
Size/ Dimensions: 3.5 metres (11 feet 6 inches)
Description: Carving of a man holding a bird, possibly a Trumpeter Swan, by the neck. The base of the post has been squared off.
Object: house post 18982
Use: structural support; also spiritual significance; reminder of cultural stories, events and rituals
Era: age unknown, removed from Departure Bay, Nanaimo B.C. by the 1890s
Materials: Western Redcedar
Size/ Dimensions: 3.66 metres (12 feet)
Description: Carving of a sxwayxwuy dancer or chief wearing a feathered mask and tunic with shell rattle in left hand.
Collection site: Departure Bay, Nanaimo, B.C.
Current Location/Museum: Chicago Field Museum, U.S.A.
Accession Numbers: 18981 & 18982
Display Technique: The posts are on public display at the Chicago Field Museum. They are exhibited in a natural, upright position, under low light levels on an end wall of the Northwest Gallery. There are other house posts to either side of them from other locations on British Columbia's coast.
Condition: Good. The posts have been indoors for over one hundred years, as opposed to outside where they are subject to weather and acidic coastal soils.
The Chicago Field Museum acquired both of these house posts from a museum in New York. Traditionally, the Coast Salish people did not carve totem poles. Totem poles are usually free-standing poles with images depicting crests that belong to families. The Snuneymuxw and other Coast Salish peoples did carve grave figures, cedar planks for big house walls, and house posts, which could support beams inside a house or stand outside a big house.