494 ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 193 9 



those former abodes of native life. They fall down and decay, while 

 others lean precariously or totter in the wind, soon to come down 

 with a crash. A few of the finest clusters, among the Tsimsyan, 

 were willfully destroyed in recent years. They reminded the modern 

 villagers too much of their breechclout ancestors whom they were 

 anxious to deny and forget, in their haste to ape the white people. 



The art of totem-pole carving now wholly belongs to the past. As 

 it is not really ancient, it has covered altogether less than a hundred 

 years, mostly from 1840 to 1880. For the Haida and the Niskae it 

 came to an end soon after 1880. Elsewhere it actively survived until 

 after 1900. The Gitksan near Hazelton have erected a few poor 

 specimens in the past 10 years. 



The age of totem poles. — It is a mistake to say that totem poles are 

 hundreds of years old. They could not be. A green tree, cut down, 

 carved, and planted without preservative could not stand very long, 

 as it is highly perishable. It rots at the base, and its weight, to- 

 gether with the force of the wind, brings it down within a fairly 

 definite span of years — often less than 50 years on the coast, where 

 the moisture is intense and the muskeg foundation is corrosive. Up 

 the rivers, where the climate is drier and the soil is sandy, some of 

 the poles, the oldest, have stood as long as 70 or perhaps 80 years. 

 They are among the most archaic specimens of the kind. A minute 

 examination of each one of them on the upper Skeena has made it 

 clear that the art of totem-pole carving there evolved out of humble 

 beginnings mostly after 1840. In a short period of intensive devel- 

 opment it passed through two or three phases or styles. Those of 

 the Kwakiutl of Alert Bay, well known though they are, were erected 

 about 1895 or later. 



The growth of the system of native heraldry. — The growth of her- 

 aldry on the North Pacific coast coincides with that of the art which 

 served it as a vehicle. On the whole it can hardly be said to be very 

 ancient or prehistoric. 



Archeologists so far have failed to unearth anything like the pres- 

 ent totems, even in miniature form. The small stone or bone carvings 

 and rock engravings that have been found in many places, when they 

 are old, are of a different type — rather formless and naturistic. They 

 have very little in common with the highly stylized art of such tribes 

 as the Haida, the Tsimsyan, and the Tlingit. 



The generation of woodcarvers that worked from 1860 to 1880 is 

 acknowledged by the natives as the best. The names of the crafts- 

 men have been partly compiled, details on their lives have been 

 recorded in recent years, and their work often can be identified. 

 They belonged in majority to the Niskse, the Haida, and the southern 

 Tlinffit tribes. 



