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    Alaska's Totem Poles
    Alaska's Totem Poles
    Alaska's Totem Poles
    Ebook131 pages1 hour

    Alaska's Totem Poles

    By Pat Kramer and David A. Boxley

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    About this ebook

    Through the mists of Alaska's rain forest, totem poles have stood watch for untold generations. Imbued with mystery to outsider eyes, the fierce, carved symbols silently spoke of territories, legends, memorials, and paid debts. Today many of these cultural icons are preserved for the public to enjoy in heritage parks and historical centers through southeast Alaska. And, after nearly a century of repression, totem carving among Alaska's Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian peoples is flourishing again. In this newly revised edition of Alaska's Totem Poles, readers learn about the history and use of totems, clan crests, symbolism, and much more. A special section describes where to go to view totems. And foreword writer David A. Boxley offers the unique perspective of a Native Alaskan carver who has been a leader in the renaissance. Author Pat Kramer traveled throughout the homelands of the Totem People – along Alaska's Panhandle, the coast of British Columbia, and into the Northwest - meeting the people, learning their stores, and researching and photographing totem poles. Pat is also a tour director and the author and photographer of several other books, including Vancouver, Gardens of British Columbia, and Totem Poles, a guidebook to Western Canada's totems. Foreword writer David Boxley, the first Alaskan Tsimshian to achieve national prominence, is a renown totem pole carver, having carved sixty-five poles in the last twenty-six years. He has been deeply involved in the rebirth of Tsimshian culture through organizing and hosting Potlatches in Alaska and Washington.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlaska Northwest Books
    Release dateNov 15, 2012
    ISBN9780882409016
    Alaska's Totem Poles
    Author

    Pat Kramer

    Pat Kramer writes special interest guides for travelers who yearn to discover western Canada. She writes not for the generic tourists, but for travel connoisseurs who delight in well planned trips filled with hidden wonders that are often overlooked. Because she is a part-time tour director, her books concentrate on visitors' best loved attractions. She is the author and photographer of several books, including Vancouver, Gardens of British Columbia, and Totem Poles.

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      Book preview

      Alaska's Totem Poles - Pat Kramer

      1

      CHAPTER

      An Introduction to Alaska’s Totems

      As travelers leave Seattle and Puget Sound and head north toward Alaska, they sail up the Inside Passage, through the deeply etched channels, bays, and fjords of coastal British Columbia and the Alaska Panhandle, also known as Southeast Alaska. This navigable edge of North America is exceptionally beautiful, with snowcapped mountains, rain-soaked cedar forests, and majestic glaciers spilling into the sea. On the journey, as travelers scan the shoreline, clusters of aged totem poles occasionally appear, looming in the mist. Calling silently to the eagles and ravens diving overhead, their soaring presence seems to symbolize something deep and mysterious.

      The Totem People

      Totem poles and the rich traditions associated with them originated in North America among the Native peoples who made their home along this jagged coastline of the North Pacific. Totems, fascinating monuments carved usually from cedar, are unique human attempts initiated in a time long ago to create a record of each generation’s presence and passing.

      Ancient tales involving Raven as creator, trickster, and transformation expert are often depicted on totem poles.

      From north to south, North America’s Totem People are classified by the languages they speak. The Tlingit (KLIN-kit or TLIN-kit) are the Northwest Coast Indians who have lived in Alaska from ancient times. Two more recent arrivals are the Haida (HIDE-uh) and the Tsimshian (SIM-she-an) peoples. These groups share several cultural practices, including the making of totem poles.

      Sharing in Alaska’s totem tradition are several tribes from the prov ince of British Columbia, Canada, and northern Washington state, extending about 900 miles as the crow flies along the western Pacific coastline. Occupying the same ecologic zone—the temp erate rain forest—these Native tribes together make up the Totem People.

      Tsimshian carver Wayne Hewson, wearing traditional garb, next to a Bear Mother totem in Metlakatla.

      Originally, totem poles with their intricately carved figures were meant to convey important messages to passersby about the family and social status of the people who lived in a particular house in a certain village. Carved from a huge log of red or yellow cedar or sometimes Sitka spruce, a totem pole allowed related members of a family clan to portray their family rights and stories through displaying authorized crests, or symbolic emblems. Oft-depicted crest figures in Alaska included Raven, Wolf, Eagle, Bear, Whale, Frog, as well as an assortment of heroes and supernatural creatures.

      Tribal members could view a totem and, by recognizing the crests, could identify the family’s lineage, status, and perhaps some of its significant accomplishments if depicted. A few crests told the story of the people’s migration into their present homeland, often relayed as stories of Raven leading them on a great journey. Other crests explained the family link to the spirit world of nature; for example, members of the Blackfish (or Killer Whale) clan of the Angoon Tlingit believed that one of their ancestors once visited the Blackfish underwater village and, before returning, received a magical seaweed blanket, copper canoe, and other emblems now exclusive to them.

      The official claiming of crests for use on totem poles and other carvings and regalia was a solemn part of an important ceremony known as the potlatch. These crests became rallying points to which each family member pledged his or her allegiance. Despite early misunderstandings by missionaries and outsiders in general, totem poles were not worshipped.

      ALASKA’S NORTHWEST COAST INDIAN TRIBES

      Totem poles come in several forms, including memorial or mortuary poles, heraldic poles, house front poles, and ridicule or shame poles. Territorial totem markers—a totem crest cut into a live tree—were most notable among the Tlingit, but all tribes used them. A memorial totem raised after an elder’s death often displayed a grouping of the clan crests of a deceased person. A mortuary pole sometimes housed a coffin at the top or contained a small niche for the deceased’s ashes. The heraldic totem was similar to a complex family coat of arms. Among the Haida and the Tsimshian, a house frontal pole was placed on the outside front of the house to tell the heroic stories of the owning family, and the entrance to the house was sometimes carved through the base of the pole. Ridicule poles were meant to indicate that someone had incurred an unpaid debt, and a few interesting examples still exist today. Saxman Totem Village in Ketchikan has a Tlingit ridicule pole that portrays William H. Seward, noted for his role in purchasing Alaska from the Russians. Though the locals treated him with respect and gave him gifts, he was unaware that the gifts he gave them in return were considered unequal in value by his hosts, so he appeared rude. The pole displays him with his ears and nose stained red.

      The meanings of totem poles have expanded since contact with Europeans in the late 1700s. One traditional Tlingit origin story states that long ago, the Old Ones were inspired to carve totems after finding a fully carved log washed up on a sandy beach. In another story, the Haida tell of a master carver who, after seeing the reflection of a totem-dotted village deep within the ocean, created a house front and several poles overnight, and then taught his fellow villagers how to carve. Originally, totems were strictly bound up with the kinship system of the people who made them. Original lineage-specific poles are still being carved today, but the pole tradition has enlarged to include commemorations and other meanings. Today, totem crests are also used to express Alaska’s pride in all of its people, the land, its commemorative occasions, flourishing cultures, and rich traditions.

      IT ALL BEGINS WITH RAVEN

      This clan house, adorned with the Raven crest, stands in Totem Bight State Historical Park, Ketchikan. Native artists in the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed this Native plank house in 1938.

      The Importance of Cedar

      Totem poles evolved in this region of the world, an ecologic zone noted for annual precipitation levels ranging from 112 to 200 inches per year. From Southeast Alaska to the Copper River Delta, great

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