(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.
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