Big Beaver - Chicago, IL
Posted by: 
adgorn
N 41° 52.050 W 087° 37.032
16T E 448778 N 4635249
55 foot tall cedar totem pole tells the traditional story (or Aadizookaan) of carver Norman Tait's family. The story begins: "Five brothers went on a beaver hunt..."
Waymark Code: WM7HZW
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 10/29/2009
Views: 13
Erected with full ceremony on 4/24/1982 on the occasion of the opening of the Field Museum's exhibition "Maritime Peoples of the Arctic and Northwest Coast." Sponsored by the Women's Board of the Field Museum; cedar tree donated by the Council of Forest Industries of British Columbia.
From the Art Inventory site:
Dimensions: H. 65 ft.
Description: This work is a contemporary totem-pole in the traditional mode. It consists of a series of three-dimensional human and animal figures with an eagle on the top.
The totem pole was commissioned by the Field Museum and was carved in Vancouver, British Columbia by a descendant of one of the six major Indian groups living in the Pacific Northwest. It tells the legend of Tait's ancestors and how they came to adopt the beaver as their clan symbol.
TITLE: Big Beaver
ARTIST(S): Tait, Norman, 1941- , sculptor.
DATE: 1982
MEDIUM: Cedar wood.
CONTROL NUMBER: IAS 87720005
Direct Link to the Individual Listing in the Smithsonian Art Inventory: [Web Link]
PHYSICAL LOCATION:
in front of the Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605
DIFFERENCES NOTED BETWEEN THE INVENTORY LISTING AND YOUR OBSERVATIONS AND RESEARCH:
none
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