Discuss this background information with students. This step encourages them to use their imaginations, and serves as a kind of warmup exercise to deeper deductive analysis. Make them aware of the importance of the leisuretime element coupled with available art material in the development of the totem pole. Talk about the rich variety of plant and animal life, the jungle-like forests of trees, the abundance of fish, fowl and game. Encourage students to imagine what this area might look like and what it would be like to live there. Using just one period have the students draw with crayon, pictures of what they imagine this birthplace of the totem pole to be like.
The Inhabitants
Five major linguistic groups or tribes, all of which carved totem poles, inhabit the Totempolar Region. “The totem nations in Alaska were the Tlingit and Haida. The Quilliute and coast Salish nations were in what is now Washington and Oregon, and the Kwakiutl, Nootka, Bella Coola and Tsimsyan nations were in British Columbia.”
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These Northwest Coast Indians bear a resemblance to Asiatic people. Some Indians were documented as having Fu Manchu style mustaches, an unusual feature since other North American Indians seldom had facial or body hair.
Physically and culturally, the tribes were similar, and intermarriage was frequent. However, the tribes were not organized into a nation. Jealousy of power was so strong that no one leader could overcome it enough to impose his leadership on a linguistic group.
All tribes were divided into a fourclass social system composed of royalty, nobility, commonality and slavery. Royalty consisted of a chief and his first nephews who would succeed him. The nobility class consisted of younger nephews and their families, plus people who had distinguished themselves in some way. Commonality or common people were the free men related to the nobility by blood but who were poor. Commoners could rise to a higher social station through the accumulation of wealth. Rivalry with this group was intense. Slaves made up the lowest social group. These were men and women who were either born into slavery or captured in slave raids.
The clan was the strongest group within the tribe. A clan was a group of people bound together by a tradition of first ancestors. Each clan was headed by a chief. Hereditary descent was recognized from the maternal side of the family. Male children at a very early age were sent to live with and be raised by their maternal uncle. The children bore his name, his totem symbol and inherited all the uncle’s property, wives, and debts owed him upon his death.
Living conditions fitted social station. All classes of a clan lived in the same community house, which resembled a roofed village with a communal fire. The chief occupied the rear of the house followed by the nobility class. Less desirable areas belonged to the commoners, and the slaves slept in the entrance way.
The Northwest Coast Indians, unlike most other Indians, placed great importance on ownership, acquisition of property and the flaunting of wealth. They were a totally ostentatious society, living in an atmosphere of competition and lacking in community spirit. Living on a system of credit forced them to become preoccupied with debt and the payment thereof. Even after death, debts and shame lived on. Wealth was measured by the number of totem poles, blankets, capes, furs, carved boats and copper disks one owned.
Indian religious practices were not immediately apparent. They worshipped no single deity, offered no sacrifices, lacked an organized priesthood, had no houses of worship or idols, and practiced no congregational worship. They believed all things around them possessed spirits which could help or hurt them. Numerous taboos had to be observed to appease these spirits and secure their goodwill. These taboos were always concerned with waste and hoarding. An example of a taboo diligently observed was, “Salmon should not be kept for more than one year. To do so would be to deprive the salmon of natural life and his spirit could not be released.”
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If this taboo was broken, the Indians feared that the Salmon would leave the area.
Indians believed in an afterlife and they practiced cremation.
Indian Art
Their art and customs reveal an Oriental influence. The Indian ceremonial clothing shares similarities with Chinese Mandarin Robes, and they have carved wooden hats resembling Coolie hats. Experts have offered various speculations as to the origin of this Oriental influence. One speculation is that in historic times Japanese fishing vessels had been blown to these shores via the Japan current which swept into this area. Chesley notes in his book
Americans Before Columbus
, “that this strange Northwest Coast Indian culture was some accidental development of a seed from Japan with its powerful feudal nobility system and its emphasis upon forms of personal pride which are called facesaving”.
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Can it be that “art styles may be introduced to a people thousands of miles from the originators with no other intermediary but the ocean?”
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The Indian artist practiced a conventional art style as opposed to a representational style. Representational art shows the object as the artist sees it. There is poetic license involved. Conventional art follows certain formal rules or conventions which are often centuries old. Stated beautifully by Reid in his book entitled
Out of the Silence
, “It was an austere, sophisticated art. It’s prevailing mood was classical control yet it characterized even the simplest objects of daily life. These seagoing hunters took the entire environment as art form.”
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Indian love for ostentation and display is evidenced in their highly decorative style. More meant better, and they disliked vacant space, straight lines and sharp angles. A main requirement was that their art serve a useful end. Objects such as spoons, drums, dishes and blankets were heavily decorated. But artists were restrained by the size and shape of their objects. This restriction led to an almost complete disregard for perspective. “To create within these limitations the artist employed dissection, rearrangement of parts and distortion. Certain parts were greatly enlarged or eliminated, others suppressed, bent or folded until they fit into their allotted space”.
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Balanced designs were desirable and to achieve balance the artist employed dissection. For example, to fit Raven on a drum, “the Raven might be split down the back and laid open resulting in a two headed Raven which did not exist in Indian mythology.”
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If an entire symbol could not be made to fit as a whole, the symbol was chopped and the pieces placed randomly in the area. This chopping process could result in a design having eyes placed next to legs.
