USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The figures carved on Northwest Coast poles generally represent ancestors and supernatural beings that were once encountered by the ancestors of the lineage, who thereby acquired the right to represent them as crests, symbols of their identity, and records of their history.

Detailed explanation-2: -A totem pole or monumental pole is a tall structure created by Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples that showcases a nation’s, family’s or individual’s history and displays their rights to certain territories, songs, dances and other aspects of their culture. Totem poles can also be used as memorials and to tell stories.

Detailed explanation-3: -The stories that totem poles tell may be a myth, a legend, or honour Indigenous peoples through symbols. The crests on a totem pole belong to a family and tell its story. Once the stories of each crest are known, the totem poles really come alive.

Detailed explanation-4: -The first recorded mention of a pole, which was a house pole, was on Langara Island in the Haida village of Dadans, c. 1790, by John Bartlett, who wrote: “We went ashore where one of their winter houses stood. The entrance was cut out of a large tree and carved all the way up and down.

Detailed explanation-5: -totem pole, carved and painted log, mounted vertically, constructed by the Native Americans of the Northwest Coast of the United States and Canada.