SHADOWS OF THE THUNDERBIRD: Collections

Notes on Model Poles History

Model totem poles like these have suffered from the pejorative label, “tourist art,” and been written off as culturally vacuous and ethnographically irrelevant, but contextualized, model totem poles are compelling, aesthetic testimonials of Native identity and cultural endurance and reveal much about the intercultural encounter between Natives, settler societies, and non-Natives.

Originating in the Northwest coast, the tall, freestanding cedar totem pole, the precursor to the model pole, has historically served and remains a monument to convey family history, and status. Totem poles traditionally include heraldic crests and figures of ancestors, express lineage identity, memorialize deceased chiefs, mark special claims to territory and hereditary tangible and nontangible property, tell stories, and commemorate significant events. Totem poles in the form of columns and carved house posts existed long before European and Euroamerican contact with Northwest Coast peoples, but the world’s longstanding and enduring infatuation with them commenced with the arrival of explorers to the area in the late 18thcentury.

Captain James Cook, sailing on the Resolution from England to Vancouver Island in 1778, was the first non-Native to record a Northwest Coast column, which he saw in the interior of Chief Maquinna’s house at the village of Yuquot. Other explorers, artists, and botanists documented carved house posts in the years that followed. As Europeans and Americans were increasingly drawn to the Northwest Coast by the bourgeoning fur trade, steel tools became increasingly available, wealth, for some Natives involved in the trade, increased, displays of wealth were enhanced, and the totem pole flourished. By the 1870s, nearly a century later, the totem pole was increasingly coveted by foreigners as natural history museums and international fairs began sponsoring collecting expeditions to obtain totem poles, the greatest ethnographic prize of the day, to compliment displays of other large scale things – Egyptian and pre-Columbian stelae and whale and dinosaur skeletons.

The naissance of the steamship industry in the late 19th century and passengers’ demand for small, portable curios generated the market for the model totem pole and did the most to embed the iconic image in the American psyche. In 1884, steamships began coming to Alaska and tourism companies appropriated the totem pole, transforming it into an iconic promotional tool and image for pamphlets and brochures. Steamships sailed to Native villages, offering passengers views of poles in situ. To facilitate tourists’ access some poles were relocated along steamer routes and to urban parks where they were frequently photographed for postcards. Passengers disembarking at ports were eager to bring home remembrances of Alaska and in response to the new market for souvenirs Native artists of southeastern Alaska and western British Columbia began carving small totem poles for sale and trade. The models were sold directly to tourists by Natives at wharves and were later sold to curios stores at ports of call including in Juneau, Wrangell, Seattle, and Vancouver. Mail order catalogues were developed by retailers to sell model poles to people who could not make the trip to the Pacific Northwest.

By the early twentieth century, model poles became the most popular souvenir bought by Northwest Coast tourists. Despite their popular appeal, collectors, curators, and anthropologists have often dismissed model totem poles as “tourist art,” disparaging their potential aesthetic and cultural value and capacity to reveal important information about the Native carvers who made them and the non-Native consumers who purchased them. Some models were carved with less care than others, but many early model totems have imagery similar to that of full-scale poles, and reflect the artistic sophistication of their carvers and specific local, regional, and tribal carving traditions. Many tourists buying models had little understanding of those traditions and projected onto the carvings their own remembrances, stereotypical ideas about Alaska, and generalized views of Natives.

Yet the commercial value of model totem poles and their marketability made it possible for Native peoples to continue traditional carving and explore artistic conventions at a time when missionary and government pressures to assimilate prevented them from carving full-scale totem poles. In this sense, model totem poles were artistic expressions of cultural resilience and endurance despite and in some ways because of their legacies as commodities.