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Totem poles and houses at ʼKsan, near Hazelton, British Columbia.. Totem poles serve as important illustrations of family lineage and the cultural heritage of the Indigenous peoples in the islands and coastal areas of North America's Pacific Northwest, especially British Columbia, Canada, and coastal areas of Washington and southeastern Alaska in the United States.
A totem (from Ojibwe: ᑑᑌᒼ or ᑑᑌᒻ doodem) is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system.
A ceremonial pole is a stake or post utilised or venerated as part of a ceremony or religious ritual. Ceremonial poles may symbolize a variety of concepts in different ceremonies and rituals practiced by a variety of cultures around the world. In many cultures, ceremonial poles represent memorials and gravemarkers.
The oldest decorated wooden object ever found in Britain has been discovered near Stonehenge
Poles are placed outside family houses where they display the family's crests, history, wealth, social rank, inheritance, and privilege. [22] The sequence of characters and symbols sculpted into a totem pole is indicative of past family events, ancestors, myths, and heraldic crests, with the bottom figure usually being the most prominent. [23]
Totem poles were less common in Coast Salish culture than with neighboring non-Salish Pacific Northwest Coast peoples such as the Haida, Tsimshian, Tlingit, and Kwakiutl tribes. It wasn't until the twentieth century that the totem pole tradition was adopted by the northern Coast Salish peoples including the Cowichan, Comox, Pentlatch, Musqueam ...
From the Land of the Totem Poles. University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97022-7. The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia by Ronald Rohner and Evelyn Bettauer; The mouth of heaven: An introduction to Kwakiutl religious thought by Irving Goldman; Franz Boas (1910). Kwakiutl Tales. ISBN 0-295-97022-7
The original totem pole had been repainted with successive coats of non-Tlingit colors in an attempt to preserve the pole. [39] The replica, however, used the native Tlingit colors of black, red and blue-green. [39] Totem poles are read from top to bottom, with the topmost figure identifying the owner. [40]