Show The Totem Pole of Alaska Clustering around the native Alaskan villages that survey the Pacific coast are tribal legends of pomp and power which perhapsfor the most part have passed into the hoary shades of antiquity All that now remains by which we can trace a “Siwash” ancestry is the “totem pole” This not only weird but interesting monument is one of a traditional custom that has gone the greater distance on the road of lost reverence and final decay— without doubt a fact due wholly to the greater influence of modern civilization This trade mark of the Alaskan Indian the “totem pole” is a log carved to represent the genealogy of a family—a monument as it were to an Indian family’s greatness For true it is that no native can la' claim to a “totem pole” unless he inherits blue blood from a noble ancestry Imagine a tower of stout cowering carricatures of human beings with long noses and exaggerated eyes and a cavernous mouth too out of which is thrust a tongue —a snake this all crowned with the head of an enormous bird a raven perhaps with fiery red eyes and a long green beak Again imagine these figures and similar others interwoven between frogs alligators (Indian conception) wolves and bears one above the other Imagine this with an Indian’s variegated coloring that would make the Northern Lights envious and you have a meager conception of what a “totem pole” is A whole trunk of a tree is thus used up in these carvings and years of toil are said to have been spent It has been in their construction stated that no other nation of un- civilized people has ever been found who display such wonderful ingenuity in creating fanciful shapes from such rough material and with such crude implements The Indians exhibit some wonderful talent for carving as these —their “totem poles” and excessively carved images — attest The favorite symbols are the raven (the regarded source of all life hence held sacred) the crow the wolf and the whale These carved in the most grotesque and demonlike figures represent the crests of different clans or families and the great events in their several careers These colossal pillars of fame as well they may be called are often found towering to a height of a hundred feet or more while their base circumference is occasionally three times the reach of a man The genealogical tree however is allowed an ascent only according to the status of nobility of its owner so of course a few inches in height raises the owner’s social distinction Since the “totem pole” is a social criterion its length is cut not by conjecture but by exact |