The Totem Pole Comes to Lisbon

by Maurice Rocheleau
December 2, 2003

I accepted a position in 1965 as Agency Highway Engineer, at the Colville Indian Reservation Headquarters, Coulee Dam, Washington. For the first few years I was there, I was busy providing housing for my family and spending a year at MIT. During the summer of 1969, we took a family vacation visiting Seattle, Washington, Victoria, B.C., and Vancouver, B.C. During our visits to the museums, local parks, and dedicated sites, we were exposed to the finest collections of Northwest Indian Art availble in the world.

Carvings, usually painted, literaly surrounded the people. Their homes were repositories of impressed articles. Their tools, weapons, utensils, boats and houses were intricately carved. They truly lived in beauty.

Prominent among this plethora of Native objects were the Totems poles. They were erected under the aegis of a prominent Indian family that wished to enhance their tribal stature. Hosting a Potlach, an ultimate party of parties, highlighted by with the erection of the most elaborate totem pole possible, was the accepted Northwestern Native Indian way to achieve social prominence. Contrary to the customs of most other cultures, the host families gave gifts to the invited guests, instead of reeiving them.

I truly fell under the spell of the native art. I didn't know how to carve, didn't have any woodcarving tools, didn't know how to sharpen them, there were no local woodcarvers, and no logs were available. It looked impossible until I remembered how all American men handle really tough problems--they make them their hobbies.

After that everything began to fall into place. I imported some carving tools from Germany, taught myself how to sharpen them, and how to carve. I found an Alaskan cedar log, in a seemingly endless windrow of logs, naturally deposited in the Washington coast. The figures on a Totem Pole are figures from the clans that the owner of the Totem Pole must be descended from. I picked three figures: a thunderbird, a grizzly bear, and a beaver, from a Kwakiutl Indian book. since donated to the Mashantucket Tribal Library.

After carving, the pole was painted in the traditional native colors. There are only seven: black, white, grey, brown, red, yello, and veri-gris. They were obtained from a Victoria, B.C. paint manufacturer who formaulated them, as a donation, to the revival of native art.

The Totem Pole was finished in 1972 and has been moved from Coulee Dam to Gallup, NM to Lisbon, CT, Ledyard, CT, and then back to Lisbon. The last trip was made by Ruth MacDonald, who them committed the non-native act of restoration. The Kwakiutl way is to let it decompose in place. I agree with Ruth--it is too unique to let waste away.

(View other Kwakiutl (Kwagu'l, Kwakutl) Totem Poles)