МАЭ № 2788-1

Totem pole. Model.

Tlingit

19th cent.

wood

Width - 12 cm; height - 69 cm

In the 19th century Tlingit began to decorate the support columns of their houses with complex carving. Such columns, usually called totem poles, look like figures of people, animal and birds placed one atop the other. The image of highest semantic importance was placed in the pole's upper part. In this case, it is a figure of a chief who had organized two potlatches, to which proves his hat with two cylindrical extensions.

Ethnography of America