Portrait of Emma Martin – a Highborn Woman

In the time of our great-grandparents, a number of Kwakwaka’wakw people were sent to jail for singing and dancing: traditional Indigenous culture was unlawful at that time. They served their sentences at Oakalla Prison near Vancouver, far away from their communities and families.

One woman, Emma Martin, felt that she had to do something to help her people so she left her village and went to live in the city, where she visited the people, she brought them gifts of food and other items to help them during their incarceration, and when they were released she gave them money and clothes to return home. She is a heroine of the Kwakwaka’wakw and serves as a role model for those who remember her.

The labret in her lower lip represents her status as a high born woman, with copper having special historical / cultural significance. The face on the forehead represents the people that she helped.

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