The watchman

Decided we were a bit jubileed out today, so my daughter and I skipped off to Oxford to the Pitt Rivers Museum. If you've never been there, go! It's totally fabulous. The light is very low, but you can take as many photos as you want - you can even use flash, though with all the glass cases, this isn't much of an option for a lot of the collection.

The museum is one huge space with a ground floor and 2 (actually 3, but you can't get to the third) galleries running all the way round. On the back wall of the museum are 3 totem poles. The largest, the Haida totem pole, runs from floor to ceiling. At the top of the pole are 3 watchmen - this is one of them, seen from the second gallery, keeping a sharp eye on the collection.

I talked for some time to one of the guys working there. We agreed it was magic - he said like going through the wardrobe into Narnia. Apparently some kids get quite scared of what they see: skulls, masks, weapons and - of course - genuine shrunken heads! Faces everywhere, most of them grotesque. In one cabinet the heads can be made to move. He tells the kids they have to feed these creatures marmite sandwiches and Tango to keep them quiet. It clearly goes down a storm..

The Haida totem pole was brought over in 1901 from Chief Anetlas's house (Star House) on Graham Island, one of the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, Canada. You can find out more about it and Pitt Rivers Museum here.

And that, I think, is enough from me for today..