Grand Hall tour

Moth (Lawrom-balerh)

Photograph: Steven Darby

Moth By Paul Gray, 1998

The bottom section of the pole Gambalch is the Moth. The moth is a favourite emblem of this and other closely related families. This section is a replacement for the original which had rotted. The legend of the Moth recounts how, during a famine and a drought, the people were dying of starvation. They lived for a long time on fern roots, decaying rose berries, and salmon bones. On the body of a mountain goat (matix) they had snared, they found a ghost-like monster with a beak almost like a bird's - the Moth - feeding greedily. They said "it must be the ghost of one of our dead relatives partaking of food. They said we are saved now, we will kill this moth" (told to Marius Barbeau by George Campbell, 1924). They killed the moth and adapted its features as a crest.