During the last quarter of the nineteenth-century, images of the Haida’s immense cedar houses and soaring totem poles were captured by photographers who travelled to then-remote villages such as Masset and Skidegate to marvel at, and record, what they saw there. Haida Monumental Art includes a large number of these remarkable photographs. They depict the Haida villages at the height of their glory and record their tragic deterioration only a few decades later. In addition, George MacDonald presents an integrated framework for understanding the physical structure of a Haida village, explaining how the houses and poles are part of a fascinating web of myth, family history and Haida cosmology.

George F. MacDonald's profile page

George F. MacDonald is an anthropologist and was the director of the Canadian Museum of Civilization from 1983-1998.

A monument in itself … a sourcebook to which the scholar can return over and over again … pleasurable and informative reading for anyone interested in Northwest Coast culture.

American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The historical photographs are stunning. To see the villages as the earliest photographers saw them is to recapture in part the wonder and majesty that was the Haida cultural heritage. At the same time, the grief that was the destruction of the villages is all too apparent.

Vancouver Province

Without any doubt the most important event of the 1994 publishing years if the re-appearance of George F. MacDonald’s definitive study, Haida Monumental Art. I cannot think of another book that takes a reader so intimately into the culture of a First Nations people.

Geist