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Course: The Seeing America Project > Unit 7
Lesson 3: 1700-1900- John Singleton Copley, Paul Revere
- Thomas Jefferson, Monticello
- Jefferson, Monticello
- Becoming a city: daily life in 1820, Brooklyn
- Hicks' The Peaceable Kingdom as Pennsylvania parable
- Catlin, The White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas
- Two sides of Lakota life on a beaded suitcase
- Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson
- Haida totem pole, from Old Kasaan
- Bentwood Boxes of the Northwest Coast peoples
- Tlingit mortuary and memorial totem poles
- Proud Raven totem pole at Saxman Totem Park
- The story of the Oyster Man, a Tlingit totem pole
- Paukeigope (Kiowa), Cradleboard
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Haida totem pole, from Old Kasaan
Totem poles in Ketchikan, Alaska tell a clan's history with different crests representing family lineage. These crests, often animals, share ancestral stories and are claimed matrilineally. The pole's orientation towards the water identifies the clan to passersby. Wealth is shown through unity and skill, not material possessions. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(jazzy piano music) - [Lauren] We're here at
the Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan, Alaska and we're looking at a very tall totem pole
in the center of five poles. - [Teresa] And the poll
we're looking at is sharing a certain clan's history. When you look at a pole, you can see the different clan crests and the different figures
of humans and animals. What a clan crest for us
amongst Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people,
it's like a last name. So you have a family that we follow, and it's always matrilineal,
from your mother's side, is where you claim your clan crest from. We always acknowledge our father's people and who you're the child of, but we always follow the mother's side. Each family has a set of
clan crests that they claim, and it's just not seen as theirs, but it sharing and reminding
them of their history of their ancestors. So each animal crest that
people put on their regalia, on their jewelry, on
their hats when they dance or on a totem pole has
a very special story that goes with it and how their ancestors interacted with that particular animal. If you look at this pole here, you see a combination of
animals that are on the pole and each family has up to
five or six clan crests that the family claims. That's why I tell people
it's like a hyphenation. You don't just claim one, but you have a variety of
clan crests that you claim because of your history
through your mother's side. So if you look at the
very top of the pole, you see a bird and we can
tell us either a Thunderbird or an Eagle by the short hooked beak. Now, if it was straight and
pointy than it would be a raven. Right below the claws of the bird, you see that very particular
face that has that wide eyes, that special nose in a very
wide mouth that is horizontal. That there is actually a frog and it reasserts that it's a frog design by the hands that are hanging
on to the bentwood box. And we think of ourselves
as we hang onto a box that our joints and our
human fingers are straight. They don't curve. But if you look at the hands, that's hanging onto the bentwood box, that the fingers are
curved so it reemphasizes that it's a frog hanging onto the box and right below the box,
you see that tall figure, which we could tell it's
a beaver by its ears that are close set on top of the head, that very distinguished nose, and you got the two
front teeth and the eyes. The animal crests all have different eyes that vary from one animal to another. And right below the chin,
you can see the hands that are hanging on to the chew stick. And right below the chew stick, you see remnants of a baby beaver hanging on to the crosshatched
tail of the beaver. When we look at it, we
could tell what family this is representing by the
combination of the clan crest that's on display on the pole. - [Lauren] And I want
to go back to something that you mentioned earlier. You noted that the frog
is holding a bentwood box. Let's elaborate on what that is. - [Teresa] When you see
this on a totem pole, I was told that it's
representing a sense of wealth that the clan has. We don't think of wealth as in money, or we got a huge house or a
car, like we think of nowadays. Traditionally, when we think
of wealth, we think of unity. We think of the skill that we have. If you're wealthy, maybe you might have three or four Chilkat weavers
in your family, in your clan, or you might have three or
four totem pole carvers, and you have the unity
of your clan members working together to complete
different cultural events. - [Lauren] I'm really
struck by the different ways that the carver has accentuated features for the different crests here. Look at the eyes of the frog, the deeper carving to give the sense that the eyes are inset like you might see on an actual frog. And then with the shallower
carving to differentiate parts of the mouth or the teeth. It really gives you this
three-dimensional quality that would have been picked out with paint at one point to accentuate
these features further. - [Teresa] When you see a pole like this, that has the clan crest, and when we raised the
polls long time ago, one of the common things
that you would notice is that normally you would
see all the totem poles facing the water. It would help identify what clans live or interacted with the
village area that you're in. So the idea is when you go
by a village in a canoe, you can look at the shoreline, you can look at the houses
and the totem poles, and you can see the different clan crests. If you look at a totem pole like this and you see those three figures, then you know what clan is
involved or lived in this area that's interacted with them. (jazzy piano music)