The last stop on our Alaska cruise was Ketchikan, Alaska, where we joined an excursion to Saxman, a nearby Tlingit village, where crafts and traditions of Alaska’s earliest inhabitants are kept alive, and presented for visitors.
The presentation included a talk and dance, but for me the highlight was a visit to the workshop where a master carver and his apprentice showed us how the work is done, all with hand tools.
The totems have various purposes: commemoration, recording history, grave marker, house-posts, and more.
The more includes a special category of totems that shame the person represented; this one represents Secretary of State Seward, who led the U.S. purchase of Alaska in 1867. When Seward did not reciprocate generosity at a potlatch given in his honor, the ancestor of this pole was erected.
Here are a few more:
