Mungo Martin

Mungo Martin or Nakapenkem ( Potlatch - chief , more than ten times) , simply Datsa (grandfather) called (* 1879 (or shortly thereafter) in Tsaxis (Fort Rupert), British Columbia ; † 16th August 1962 in Victoria ), was one of the most important artists of the Canadian First Nations . Born as one of the high-ranking members of the Kwakiutl , who belong to the Kwakwaka'wakw , and who live on the east coast in the north of Vancouver Island , he stood out particularly in the field of carving, painting, but also as a singer and text writer. He was referred to as the Carver of the Century and made a significant contribution to the revival of the art of the northwest coast of North America. Until 1947 he worked in Tsa x is, then he went to Vancouver in 1952 to Victoria , where he celebrated piles in front of the Royal British Columbia Museum left.

Life

The totem pole carved by Mungo and David Martin, as well as by Henry Hunt, which was donated to Beacon Hill Park in Victoria on July 2, 1954 . It is almost 39 m high.

Mungo Martin was born in Fort Rupert in 1879 to Yaxnukwelas, a high-ranking Kwicksutaineuk on Gilford Island , and the Q'omiga (Sarah Finlay) of the influential Hunt family. His mother, in turn, had a Kwakwaka'wakw mother and a Scottish father who had worked for the Hudson's Bay Company . Yaxnukwelas died in 1889 and his mother remarried. Martin's foster father thus became Yakuglas (Charlie James), who strongly influenced his life as an artist.

Q'omiga urged him to become a woodcarver and a singer, with Yakuglas helping him. In addition, the mother kept to rituals in which Mungo Martin could get used to these cultural techniques. He developed such an expressive art that he soon became a driving force in the revival of the Canadian government-suppressed indigenous culture that had developed around the potlatch. He beamed on artists like Tom Omhid , Willie Seaweed , with whom he carved one of the most important mask groups, and Dan Cranmer . He was second married to the artist Abaya (Sarah Smith), who specialized in weaving techniques. She was photographed by Edward Curtis .

Despite his strong roots in the art of the northwest coast, Martin did not shy away from learning and performing songs from other cultures, such as the Navajo and even Japanese folk songs, which he in turn had learned from Kwakwaka'wakw who worked with Japanese or traveled to Japan were. A total of 124 of his songs were recorded, around 400 are known.

Like most of the West Coast Indians, Martin made a living from fishing, which he soon started doing commercially.

Wawadit'la , known as Mungo Martin House , a Kwakwaka'wakw big house with totem poles that Mungo Martin had made for Thunderbird Park in Victoria in 1953 .

Mungo Martin's foster father, Charlie James, was himself a recognized master of carving, who erected his first large totem pole around 1900 in Alert Bay under the name Raven of the Sea . In the 1920s, the Canadian government began to enforce the ban on the potlatch, which had been in effect since 1885, through police means. For this purpose, masks and other ritual objects were confiscated. Indian agents and police officers followed up on leads and searched numerous homes; many items were hidden. Mungo Martin held fast to the rituals and carried them out in secret. When the bans were relaxed in 1949, a group of traditional chiefs, including Mungo Martin, began to revive the ceremonies and arts. Immediately after the lifting of the potlatch ban, which existed until 1951, Martin held this celebration in public for three days in Victoria for the first time.

On the other hand, Canada liked to advertise its cultural diversity abroad. Accordingly, in 1939 Martin was commissioned to carve a totem pole for the World's Fair in New York . In 1947 he was to carry out restoration work for the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and make replicas so that the originals could be protected and restored. In 1951 he erected a totem pole in Vancouver in memory of his ancestor Caliphate.

In 1952 he was commissioned by the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria to create exhibits for Northwest Coastal Art , for which he carved a 160-foot (over 50 m) tall totem pole. It was erected in 1956 and stood until 2000. In Thunderbird Park in front of the museum, he created Wawadit'la , a large house of the Kwakwaka'wakw, and a copy of the Kitwancool totem pole that was stolen in 1883. He became friends with Bill Holm , an anthropologist. Then there was Martin's family, who also lived near the museum, namely in James Bay. These were his son David and his family, as well as relatives Henry and Helen Hunt - the latter was the granddaughter of Martin's wife. Henry Hunt and his son Tony , who was twelve at the time, were studying with Martin. But his son David died in 1959. Henry's sons Stanley and Richard Hunt, however, became professional carvers, as well as Martin's niece Ellen Neel, the first woman among the carvers.

1958 Martin built a 100-foot totem pole as a gift from the Province of British Columbia to the Queen of England in the near London nearby Windsor Great Park near Windsor Castle .

Even the Haida Bill Reid , the ten days working with Mungo Martin Long, was influenced by him, as well as Doug Cranmer , who is also a grandson Abaya'as was.

In addition to the artistic revival and the passing on of skills, knowledge and the ritual integration of Northwest Coast art, Martin also brought his cultural knowledge to ethnological and anthropological research. Gunther recorded his songs in 1953, and he was also interviewed by Holm.

Mungo Martin died in Victoria in 1962 at the age of 83. His body was brought to Alert Bay by a Canadian warship ; Abaya followed him in 1963.

literature

• Bill Holm : Northwest Coast Indian Art, An Analysis of Form , University of Washington Press, Seattle 1965. (Holm is considered the best expert on the art of the Northwest Coast since Franz Boas .)
• Peter L. Macnair, Alan L. Hoover, Kevin Neary: The Legacy: Tradition and Innovation in Northwest Coast Indian Art , Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre 1984, 2007.
• P. Nuytten: The Totem Carvers: Charlie James, Ellen Neel and Mungo Martin , Vancouver: Panorama Press 1982.
• Barry M. Gough: Historical Dictionary of Canada , 2nd ed., Scarecrow Press 2011, p. 264.

Web links

• Thunderbird Park - A Place of Cultural Sharing , Royal British Columbia Museum.
• About Martin
• Ask Art Biography

Remarks

1. ↑ See [1] .
2. ^ Paul Helmer: Growing with Canada. The Émigré Tradition in Canadian Music , McGill-Queen's University Press 2009, p. 224.
3. ↑ Jordan D. Paper: Native North American Religious Rraditions. Dancing for Life , Westport, Connecticut 2007, p. 51.
4. ^ Leslie Allan Dawn: National Visions, National Blindness. Canadian Art and Identities in the 1920s , UBC Press 2006, p. 315.
5. ↑ Jonathan Meuli: Shadow House. Interpretations of Northwest Coast Art , Amsterdam 2001, p. 266.
6. ^ John Steil, Aileen Stalker: Public Art in Vancouver. Angels Among Lions (Surrey 2009, 124).
7. ^ Silver Donald: Seasons in the Rain McClelland and Stewart, 1978, p. 152.
8. ↑ Jonathan Meuli: Shadow House. Interpretations of Northwest Coast Art , Amsterdam 2001, p. VII.
9. ^ Karen Duffek, Charlotte Townsend-Gault: Bill Reid and Beyond. Expanding on Modern Native Art , Vancouver 2004, p. 101.