Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Aboriginal Art
Totemic culture is surely one of the
greatest legacies of Canada's First
Nations. This culture reached its height
at the middle of the 19th century, and it
is easy to imagine the wonder that the
sight of 30 to 40 totem poles along the
rivers leading to each Aboriginal vil-
lage must have engendered in the fi rst
Europeans to settle in British Columbia.
The totems were not revered like
idols but featured elements relating to
Aboriginal beliefs.
object of growing interest on the part
of Canadians since the 1960s. Today,
more that 100 Canadian museums have
Aboriginal art collections. The artistic
practices vary enormously by region.
Inuit art and the art of other Aboriginal
peoples, in particular, differ in a num-
ber of ways.
The 1950s marked a major turning
point in Inuit art, as cooperatives to
promote and distribute the arts of the
Far North were created. Works had
previously been small: toys, tools and
sacred amulets. The end of the 1940s
saw sculptures like those we see today,
i.e. up to a metre high in a wide variety
of forms and colours. These sculptures
can be made of stone, bone or ivory
(the use of which is prohibited today),
tine or, more uncommonly, tusks or
wood. However, engraving and print-
making are more recent practices that
are very popular because of the purity
of the lines of the works and the qual-
ity of their execution. Certains forms
of Inuit art are exclusively feminine,
including basketwork, dolls, sewing,
embroidery, beadwork and work with
skins and leather.
Unfortunately, totem poles do not stand
up well against the ravages of weather,
and those that have survived to this day
have been preserved in parks and mu-
seums; there are also some standing in
Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve,
under the watchful protection of the
Haida Watchmen. Aboriginal art has
always been linked to the beliefs of
its producers, which were consistently
viewed with suspicion by European
missionaries, who did all they could to
convert Aboriginal people. This ultim-
ately led to a loss of interest in their art
among Aboriginals themselves. Efforts
were made in the 1960s and 1970s to
revive First Nations' cultures in north-
western British Columbia with the
Ksan project, which led to the creation
of a Native heritage site.
Southern Aboriginal peoples prac-
tice less sculpture than their northern
neighbours, except on the West Coast,
a region that is known mainly for its
totem poles. In Eastern and Northern
Canada tiny works of art reign—and
for good reason: most First Nations
were nomadic—but the same cannot
be said for the Aboriginal peoples of
Aboriginal works were long considered
anthropological specimens and collect-
ed almost exclusively by museums of
ethnography. During the 20th century,
they gradually came to be recognized
as works of art. This art has been the
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