Freezing time, rupturing relations: The K'ëgit pole and the politics of museum preservation

Abstract

This article uses a study of the K'ëgit totem pole to unpack tensions between European and Indigenous approaches to cultural heritage. Taken from the village of Hagwilget to France in 1938, the pole depicts K'ëgit, central to C'inegh Lhay Yikh within Witsuwit'en oral history. We look at three moments in its life in Paris: its original siting at the Musée de l'Homme, its relocation to the Musée du Quai Branly, and its reunion with a Witsuwit'en delegation in 2024. We emphasize how French heritage management isolates objects from their communities—focusing on halting biochemical decay, suspending objects in time, and naturalizing appropriated Indigenous belongings as elements of French patrimony. By contrast, Witsuwit'en approach heritage through temporal cycles of renewing relations within kinship networks rather than suspension in time. Decolonizing heritage therefore requires renewing relations rather than preserving objects in isolation.