Almost 100 years ago, a hand-carved totem pole was cut down in the Nass Valley in the northwest of Canada’s British Columbia. The 36-foot tall pole had been carved from red cedar in the 1860s to honor Ts’wawit, a warrior from the Indigenous Nisga’a Nation, who was next in line to become chief before he was killed in conflict. A Canadian anthropologist, Marius Barbeau, oversaw the removal of the memorial pole in the summer of 1929, while the Nisga’a people were away from their villages on an annual hunting, fishing and harvesting trip, according to the Nisga’a government. Mr. Barbeau sent the pole to a buyer more than 4,000 miles away: the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh — today known as the National Museum of Scotland.

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Persons: Ts’wawit, Marius Barbeau, Barbeau Organizations: Royal Scottish Museum, National Museum of Scotland Locations: Nass, Canada’s British Columbia, Canadian, Edinburgh —