Culture and Meaning in Totem Poles Among First Nations in Western Canada - Kwakiutl Lineage

© Patty Inglish; 2011, text all rights reserved. Heritage: Mohawk & European. 40 years' research in North American First Peoples.

In the Canadian Census of 2001, only 305 Kwakiutl individuals were counted and this was a reduction from 340 counted in the 1996 census. However, in April 2011 that number had climbed to 705, nearly double within a decade.

Since 2006, the number of recognized and emerging First Nations groups in Western Canada has increased significantly. Moreover, printed and Internet-based information about the most talented Kwalkiutl and Kwakiutl-European, multigenerational cedar pole carvers living from the 18th through 21st Centuries has begun to appear in a geometric progression of quantity.

During the run of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, British Columbia Four Host First Nations shared with the world that they and related groups had not only discovered and settled the Pacific Northwest as its First Peoples, but accomplished much more for history. First Nations gained new recognition and respect as Olympiad Partners in 2010, but the hard work began around 2007 in new treaties and accords struck with the government of British Columbia, and a wonderfully updated First Nations website.

The Four Host First Nations partnership in the Olympics was as monumental an advance for BC and all First Nations as that of the USA electing an African American president in 2008.

While the Kwakiutl are not part of the Four Host First Nations, they are a core group within the BC native systems. They experienced an earlier restoration when potlaches were decriminalized in 1951 after outlaw status in 1884 (some sources state 1876). They had been held for hundreds of years previously, by the local oral tradition.

The potlatch celebration, from which some linguists believe "potluck" is derived, includes raising a tall family-crest, community, or memorial pole; music, dancing in costumes, honoring the supernatural clan founders, lavish gift-giving, and much food. Whites mistook this party as idol worship, with snowballing steps soon making it illegal for around 7 decades. A potlatch and pole raising in 1953 in Victoria BC broke the fast (decribed further below) and today, the Kwakiutl, Haida, and some other master carvers are respected in their businesses as well as their traditions.

Many of more of Curtis's photographs of North American Indigenous Peoples are held under copyright in various university archives.

First Nations of Western Canada and Alaska are decendants of the first people to step into the Western Hemisphere, some 12,000 years ago or longer.

When UN Ambassador from America to the new nation South Sudan, Susan Rice, proclaimed on 7/9/2011 that the oldest democracy in the world (USA) welcomed the newest, she failed to acknowledge that the Iroquois Confederacy democracy is multiple hundreds of years old and much older than USA. Aside from incorrect history, this is a callous, politically motivated speech indicating that restoration is not complete.

Abraham Lincoln, my great grandfathers, and others of that generation as children wrote their homework lessons with chalk or a stone on the back of shovel blades. In a longer-lasting medium, the peoples of the Pacific Northwest carved poles in order to communicate teir family and clan stories.

Pole carving began in order to record history and culture of a determined people set to preserve its traditions. Because carved red cedar poles, once cut, last only 100 years or so out of doors, we have lost the records of the poles that were carved before 1700.

A drawing of a European explorer in the 1700s, along with oral traditions indicating pole carving was many generations old show us a centuries-old tradition.

Whether a Pacific Northwest native long ago actually found a South Pacific carved pole washed up on the shores of the Queen Charlotte Islands and was sparked with the idea to make his own is still an interesting legend.

Scenes of this pole and building are offered in the video below.

• At the top of the welcome pole is a full THUNDERBIRD in flight, holding KILLER WHALE in his talons. A face on his chest indicates his human shape-shifting and it may be on a copper that portrays the chief's wealth. Thunderbird is a strong leader and the most powerful of power animal, while whale is thought to hold the history of the world. Thunderbird can lift the whale (all of history), while lightning flashes from his eyes and thunder rolls beneath his wings. The US Air Force Thunderbirds jet team remind us of this.
• Under the bird is WOLF, head-down. He is a supernatural human-animal clan founder.
• Next is THE WISE ONE, a human figure that plays prominently in a story of the Wakius family.
• Under the human is HOKW-HOKW, the bird that cracks human skulls and eats their brains. Many masks and costumes are made of this bird. Often photographed by Edward Curtis.
• Next is GRIZZLY BEAR. Human faces are carved into the soles of his paws, because his appendages are believed to each have a spirit that can shape-shift from human to animal and back.
• At the bottom of the pole is huge RAVEN, his upper beak actually a canoe and his lower beak carved to fit. For a celebration, the lower beak was opened for entry. A regular door for daily use was set to the left. Wings, tail, and feet are painted on the front of the house. Raven is the clan founder that stole the sun to bring light to The People.

When putting together descriptions and images of native art with old news clippings, microfilms, and stories from family genealogies, a sort of lineage of Kwakiutl Master Pole Carvers from the Fort Rupert (Tsaxis) and Alert Bay area visible. They make up what some call the Northern Kwakiutl carvers, although Mungo Martin was adept at Haida carving as well. Authors have written about the older and younger carvers since the 1920s without actually tracing a concrete lineage to the 2010s.

• Chief Wakius, Charlie James (1867 - 1938) - Kwakiutl mother, American father
• Chief Mungo Martin (stepson of Chief Wakius) - Most prolific and recognized Master Carver of all time among Kwakiutl.
• David Martin - son of Mungo Martin and grandson of Wakius. Carver who died in commerical fishing accident when swept overboard.
• Ellen Neel - granddaughter of Wakius, niece of Mungo Martin -- Kwakiutl-Scots
• David Neel, Jr. (born 1960) - son of Ellen Neel, named after his father, both carvers trained by Ellen.
• Robert Neel - son of Ellen Neel.
• Carey Newman – great nephew of Ellen Neel.
• Chief Peter Knox - grandson of Mungo Martin, great grandson of Chief Wakius
• Henry Hunt - brother-in-law of Mungo Martin, brother of David Hunt, an Alaskan Tlingit married to Abaya Martin (Mungo's wife), until David died.
• Thomas Hunt - son-in-law of Mungo Martin
• Rita Sundberg (born 1951) – member of the Hunt family
• Calvin, George, Richard, Stan, and Tony (Sr.) Hunt - grandsons of Mungo Martin and sons of Thomas Hunt.
• Christopher Lines – grandson of Henry Hunt
• Tom Hunt, George Hunt Jr., Stephen Hunt – grandsons of Thomas Hunt
• Jason and Trevor Hunt, David Mungo Knox - great grandsons of Mungo Martin
• Thomas Edward Wilson (born 1960) – his mother was Annie Martin Wilson and he is likely a great grandson of Mungo Martin
• William (Bill) Reid, deceased - grandson of Chief Wakius. Kwakiutl & American mother; European father. Much-respected Master Carver of poles and statuary, author and more. When he discovered his link to Wakius, he went to BC and learned Haida and Kwakiutl arts and, like a Kwakiutl, innovated on his own as Mungo Martin had taught in previous years.

Note: Dozens of other master carvers are less closely related to these lines. Another line is headed by Willie (deceased) and James Seewid (Seaweed).

Alaskan Natives
The great grandsons and great nephews/nieces of Chief Wakius are the people that carry on the carving traditions of the Kwakiutl in the 21st Century. Nearly half are also of Tlingit Native American/Alaskan heritage through the Hunts. By craft, tradition and lineage, they incorporate the techniques and crest animals of Kwakiutl, American and Canadian Tlingit, and Haida Peoples.

STARVATION

Some 1990s publications report that Ellen Neel (1916-1966) enjoyed a thriving totem pole business. In reality, she and her husband were quite ill and had seven children to feed as well. There were very few times in which there was enough money.

After her husband suffered a disabling stroke, Ms. Neel continued to carve small tabletop poles for tourists from her shed on an old bomb shelter in what is now Stanley Park in Vancouver BC. She was able to carve a set of full-sized poles for a shopping mall in Edmunton, which provided more money for a time, but her children have relates that money was always tight and suggest that nothing about life was thriving. Ms. Neel began training as a master carver as a small girl and carved until she was too ill to raise a knife.

Carvers Aubrey Johnson and Stephen Bruce have worked in the same old shed in Stanley Park.

Ms. Neel grew up in a traditional plank house with a carved pole in the center of the front wall, Chief Wakius's house in the photo above. Additional features were painted onto the bottom of the front wall exterior to add details like wings to the great bird at the bottom of the pole. The house and pole were beautiful, but we see them only in old black and white photographs today, because the house was destroyed and a small diner now sits on the site in Alert Bay. The street today is filled with with more modern dwellings in pastel colors.

CONFISCATION

Chief Mungo Martin learned carving from Chief Wakius, but made a living as a commercial fisherman, because each time he carved a pole (which took nine months to a year), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police came and took it, like the IRS going after moonshine. Chief Martin began his carving career in earnest at age 67 in Vancouver BC at the request of the University of BC and Father of Anthropology, Franz Boas.

RENEWAL

Martin and his wife Abaya continued to collect and preserve Kwakiult arts, ctrafts, music, and stories as best they could. Abaya also was proficient in making the Tlingit people's Chilkat textiles. Clan crest animals were a vital part of this collection and Martin painted them in red, green, and black, traditional colors of the Kwakiutl. The Chief was invited to the University of BC in the 1940s to carve and teach. Martin worked at the university until he died at age 83, and with Franz Boas to record Kwakiutl history.

Ellen Neel's son is master carver and multimedia artist David Neel, one of seven children. Mr. Neel is an intergenerationally trained carver, learning from Ellen Neel, who was trained by her uncle Mungo Martin, and who trained her own husband and chilodren. Ellen was also trained by her grandfather, Chief Akius, Charlie James. Just in this partial lineage we see five generations of traditionally trained carvers, with many more in siblings, cousins, and in-laws.

Today's David Neel is a carver, writer, and photographer that courageously tackles disturbing social and political issues, including those of other tribes and nations - specifically, a Mohawk Nation land dispute in 1990s Quebec. Mr. Neel's forte is carved masks and carved cedar canoes, but he is criticized for his personal style. This is unfair and unfortunate, because Mungo Martin and his wife Abaya trained the young people the University of BC specifically to use the traditional skills as a basis for personal innovation going forward. David Neel is one of the finest carvers of the 21st Century.

Note: Apostrophes (') show up in different places in the English names of the Kwakiutl groups, depending on the author.

The Kwakiutl Band gathers the following list of peoples and likely additional groups, the land area of their home grounds quite large. It extends across Northern Vancouver Island, cross the water to the east and into the Mainland of British Columbia. Many of these peoples have their own distinct foundation stories that do not agree with one another; each has a traditional set of animal crests that symbolize their group of people. When two individuals of different groups marry, the share power animal crests combined on a single welcoming pole outside their home. Kwakiutl groups:

• Awaʼetłala - Knight Inlet
• Daʼnaxdaʼxw - New Vancouver
• Dzawadaʼenuxw - Kingcome Inlet
• Gusgimukw - Quatsino
• Gwasala - Smith's Inlet
• Gwatʼsinuxw - Winter Harbour
• Gwawaʼenuxw - Hopetown
• Haxwa'mis - Wakeman Sound
• Kwaguʼl - Fort Rupert, also called T'saxis - The Knox Family carvers originate here.
• Kwiakah - Campbell River
• Kwikwasutinux and Gwa’yasdam - Gilford Island
• Laich'kwil'tach - Southern Kwakiutl - Quadra Island
• Lawitʼsis - Turnour Island
• Mowachaht Muchalaht First Nation - Just suoth of Alert Bay groups, in Kwakiutl lands. Abaya Martins original clan.
• Mamalilikala - Village Island
• Maʼamtagila - Estekan
• Nahwitti - Cape Scott
• Namgis First Nation - Cheslakees Village, Alert Bay, Nimpkish River.
• Nakʼwaxdaʼxw - Blunden Harbour - Carver Willie Seaweed is a member of this clan.
• Quatsino - Koskimo, NW Vancouver Island - These poles look different from those on the NE side of the island.
• Tlatłasikwala - Hope Island
• Wxalkw - East side of Vancouver Island, moved to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island.
• Weka'yi - Cape Mudge
• Wiwekʼam - Campbell River
• Yalis group of Alert Bay -- This may be the most prolific community of pole carvers among the Kwakiutl, especially in the 1800s. They carved taller poles, painted in many more colors than the usual red, black, and blue-green tradition. These carvers designed and popularized the carving of the Thunderbird with outstretched wings. Alert Bay was the home of Charlie James (Chief Wakius), Ellen Neel, Mungo Martin, and many others, the descendants of whom comprise one of the largest groups of native carvers in the Pacific Northwest.

NOTE: This list may not be all-inclusive and other groups of Kwakiutl may be organized today as well. Interestingly, Kwakiutl groups preserve a variety of foundation stories that provide individualism to most groups. Mengo and Abaya Martin taught individualism of carving style to young people and this individualism may be a quality held in esteem by the Kwakiutl as a whole.

It has become a popular exercise today to discover one's totem animal or spirit guides, but this exercise has been twisted. Among First Peoples, the power animals represent mystic ancestor-persons that shape-shift between animal and human worlds. They are founders, rather than spirit guides, and the word totem does not appear in their languages.

The First Peoples do not summon up their founders on a spirit quest, although some SW American groups using peyote do so. Carving the power animals (including some humans) on the pole pays homage to the founders and to the family or clan histories; the pole is 1) a person and story teller and 2) a document that pays honor, but it is not an idol. There are no prayers or sacrifices to it, but there is a potlatch.

References

• Authenticity and the Mungo Martin House, Victoria BC; Visual and Verbal Sources, by Ira Jacknis in Arctic Anthropology ; Vol 27, No. 2; pp 1-12. 1990 University of Wisconsin Press.
• Mungo Martin, Man of Two Cultures. B.C. Indian Arts Society. 1982. Gray's Publishing.
• The Totem Carvers: Charlie James, Ellen Neel, and Mungo Martin. Phil Nuytten. 1982. Panorama Publications.
• Notes, Anthropology/Social Sciences core: Pacific Northwest Indigenous Peoples. OSU. 1975; 1994.
• The Mouth of Heaven: An Introduction to Kwakiutl Religious Thought. Irving Goldman. 1975. Wiley.
• Kwakiutl Tales. Franz Boas. Reprint.
• Kwakiutl Ethnography. Fanz Boas. 1966. University of Chicago Press.

This famous plank house (bighouse, longhouse) is a replica of one of a Martin relative, used for ceremonies and dances in Alert Bay and in others on Northern Vancouver Island, the Queen Charlotte Islands, and small parts of mainland BC across the water.

Master Carver Chief Mungo Martin built the house in 1953 for the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria BC to being authenticity to Thunderbird Park. The replica standing there in the 1940s was not authentic.

The new house also celebrates the legal redemption of the potlatch celebration and pole raising. A new era of Kwakiutl, Haida, and other carved poles and potlaches owe their current upsurge to Martin and his wife, the museum, Franz Boas, and the University of BC.

Mr. Martin had been called upon to restore and duplicate Haida poles as well from the 1940s to his death in 1962, at University of BC's Museum of Anthropology. In fact, images of his Tlingit and Kwakiutl traditional carvings are often captioned as Haida.

This crest pole raised with a potlatch in 1953 is unique in that it includes four crest animals to represent different clans within the Kwakiutl. It is a community pole to honor the larger nation.

The following explanation comes from interviews given to Franz Boas before his death in 1941, from master carvers in the traditions of red and yellow cedar pole, canoe, mask, and other carvings; upheld by Royal Museum of British Columbia and the University of Vancouver since that time. Mungo and Abaya Martin and the Hunts worked with Franz Boas, the university, and museum in placing authenticity into history and into Thunderbird Park.

1. At the top: THUNDERBIRD (note the outstetched wings). The crest of a Knight Inlet Kwakiutl clan whose founding ancestor was such a bird that turned into a man. Note: this is likely the Awaʼetłala group of Kwakiutl.
2. The next two figures represent GRIZZLY BEAR, the first in animal form and the one beneath him in human form. This is the crest of a clan founded by a bear that turned into a man.
3. The fourth figure down is BEAVER, the crest of another clan. Note: this is likely the Nakʼwaxdaʼxw group at Blunden Harbour, who feels they are descended from a beaver-man. You can see a man's face on his tail to indicate his existence in two worlds.
4. The base figure is DZOONOKWA. Note: She is called several places the WIld Woman of the Woods and is sometimes shown carrying a child as she is here. She is the crest of the Nimpknish (several spellings are used) People.

The museum and park are my favorite places to visit in Victoria BC and I look forward to visiting again.

Mungo Martin's Kwakiutl memorial pole stands by his grave in Alert Bay alongside his wife Abaya's grave and memorial pole.

Chief Martin died only 11 days after Marilyn Monroe's death in August 1962.

Few in the United Stated heard the news of the chief's passing other than transplanted native peoples, like the artist Bill Reid. The chief lay in state in his bighouse in Thunderbird Park in a carved coffin and then rode to Alert Bay on a Royal Canadian Navy ship.

Famous carvers Henry and Tony Hunt carved the memorial pole that was raised during a potlatch in the Alert Bay cemetery September 18, 1970 for Mungo Martin. The pole is not shown here, but is included in the scene of the Namgis Cemetery in the video above.

• At the top of the memorial pole sits Kolus, little brother of Thunderbird (distinguished by different head tufts and beaks). Kolus founded the chief's clan as a bird that became a man. He possesses a copper that represents the wealth of the chief.
• Next is the interesting Cedar Man, who is the spirit of the cedar tree from which the pole is carved. He appears to be coming out of the heart of the log. He holds both a copper of wealth and a replica of the chief's own talking stick carved in the manner of a pole. All this shows Martin's importance to his people and to the art of cedar pole carving.
• The next is the crest animal Raven, also holding a copper.
• The final character is the giantess Dzoonokwa, a crest from his wife's clan and she also holds a copper. Four coppers on a single pole is extraordinary in the tradition of pole carving, indicating great value and rank among the community members.

At least one thousand people lined up to watch the raising of this pole. Non-native US-America heard little or nothing of it at the time. US college classes studied the natives of the Pacific Northwest, but it was not until the late 1970s that the 40 years of Franz Boas's writings were introduced larger-scale. In the 2010s, we have a larger part of the story.