Totem poles are a significant aspect of the Alaska Native cultures centered in Southeast Alaska.
The area in and around Ketchikan, Alaska boasts a number of well preserved examples of this Alaska Native art and story-telling heritage.
All totem poles are carved based on an underlying story or cultural myth.
The totem pictured above and the two totems below are Tklinkit totems, which are identified by an upper and lower carved section, topped by a carved figurine.
Pole #1–Abraham Lincoln as Peacemaker, a “celebration totem”:
This totem commemorates the peaceful negotiated end to a armed conflict between two clan houses. The totem was carved, initially, without the requisite topping figure.
The peaceful resolution was achieved with the direct assistance of crew members from a visiting ship. A newspaper clipping showing a picture President Abraham Lincoln, from the waste up, served as the guide for carving the topping figurine. He was known to the Tklinkit people as an honorable peacemaker
Pole #2–Purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million (2 cents an acre): negotiated by Secretary of State, under President Lincoln, William Seward, a “shaming totem”:
Secretary of State, William Seward, visited Alaska and attended four potlatches (celebrations), where the presiding chiefs distribute substantial gifts to all attendees.
These potlatches were known to frequently nearly bankrupt the presiding chief, who hopes and expects to recoup his lost riches by way of receiving gifts from attendance at subsequent potlatches held by other chiefs.
This totem is topped by a caricature of Secretary of State, William Seward, wearing a clownish Tklinkit hat and displaying markedly red ears and nose.
The totem is a “Shaming Totem” intended to recount the fact that the total value of gifts offered by Secretary Seward to the presiding chiefs, at the four potlatches he attended, was around a $1,000. His hosts felt he should have giving gifts valued closer to $1 million.
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