Honors English 11 Spirit Bear 2

While on the island, Cole works very hard on his Totem Pole almost every day carving animals that have taught him something into it. I chose to research the totem pole to understand them more fully seeing as Cole’s totem pole is very important to him and seems to help him calm himself.
For Native American’s on the Pacific Northwest coast totem poles are a long running tradition. Edward Malin, author of Totem Poles of the Pacific Northwest Coast, thinks that totem poles started by the Haida people in the Queen Charlotte Islands and from there it spread to the Tsimshian and Tlingit and then down to British Columbia (Where the Spirit Bear is from) and northern Washington state. As the poles progressed through the different areas they also expanded from being used as house posts to other things like memorial markers and funerary containers to symbols that expressed clan or family wealth, position, and importance.
Some anthropologists think that Native Americans did not start making totem poles until after the Europeans arrived, however the Native American’s oral tradition says differently. Because totem poles are made from wood they decay easily and relatively quickly so there is no evidence beyond oral tradition for evidence except that the forms and designs of the poles are so distinctive and developed that it seems to support that they aren’t the tradition is not a very recent one. European wood carving tools did spur the amount of poles made though.
Totem Poles are still made today, but in order to have one you would have to be willing to spend a lot of money. The real totem poles are made from only one tree usually cedar; only one solid piece, hand carved, and carefully painted.
Cole used his totem pole to symbolize all he had learned and together he and Peter found forgiveness and balance and together completed the totem pole carving those feelings into a circle on the top.


Works Cited

"American Indian Totem Poles." Nativelanguages.Org. 11 July 2008 http://www.native-languages.org/totem.htm.

"Totem Poles." Crystalinks.Com. 11 July 2008 http://www.crystalinks.com/totempoles.html.