A society without agriculture and without writing, and yet sedentary, numerous, hierarchical. Along eighteen hundred kilometers of coastline, the First Nations of the American Northwest built, in an extraordinary world of abundant cedar forests, societies of great cultural, spiritual and political richness. Through the presentation of this tangible and intangible heritage, the Musée du quai Branly reveals an art that reads like a sacred language: a heraldic pole, a house, a mask, a garment tell of who descends from whom, which stories belong to which family, which rights are exercised and over what. These are sculpted archives, and they adhere to strict symbolic and stylistic rules.

This language tells of a world of wondrous beings and spirit animals, where Raven reigns as creator and ancestor of the clans. These clans form a mosaic where lineage is most often traced through women, and where rights, knowledge, and obligations connect communities across villages. This heritage is presented in collaboration with the Haida Gwaii Museum, in Canada, where these traditions are still practiced. And they have already influenced the thinking of artists and anthropologists: Lévi-Strauss owes them part of his anthropology, André Breton and Max Ernst part of their surrealism.

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MUSÉE DU QUAI BRANLY - JACQUES CHIRAC
Until January 17, 2027
37 quai Branly, 75007 - Metro: Iéna (Line 9)
Open daily except Mondays, 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Thursdays until... 10 PM
Price: €14 - Reduced price: €11
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