THE TOTEM POLE — BAKBEAU 495 



The best-known carver of the Haida of Queen Charlotte Islands 

 was Edenshaw. This name is hereditary, as are the personal names 

 among the natives. Out of three generations of Edenshaws, who 

 were reputed craftsmen, the second, from 1840 to 1880, was a reputed 

 totem-pole carver and canoe maker. The earliest of the three was an 

 expert metal worker or large copper-shield maker, evidently some 

 time after the introduction of metals by European sea traders; and 

 the third, Charles Edenshaw, who died a very old man in 1924, was 

 the finest craftsman of the three, and the beauty of his argillite carv- 

 ings and of his silver work was seldom surpassed. With him and a 

 few of his contemporaries, native art reached the peak of its excel- 

 lence. In other words, its progress was contemporary with impres- 

 sionism, and even with the work of Gauguin and Van Gogh, in 

 France. 



Some of the older tribes of the Tsimsyan still remember a time when 

 their ancestors were not totemistic, had few, if any, emblems, and 

 did not observe the rule of exogamic marriage, which is the outstand- 

 ing feature of totemic organization. Yet the Tsimsyan are now one 

 of the only three totemistic nations of the coast. 



If this type of social organization and its counterpart in heraldry 

 existed at all before the coming of the Russians, at the end of the 

 seventeenth century, no evidence can be found to prove it, whereas 

 every indication points to its spread and rapid development since. 



Nearly all the early mariners and discoverers, from 1775 to 1800, 

 failed to observe real detached totem poles among the Haida, the 

 Tsimsyan, or the Tlingit. 



Some of them, like Jacinto Caamano ^ in 1792, had ample oppor- 

 tunities to visit Haida villages; yet, after minutely describing canoes, 

 costumes, songs, dances, masks, and headdresses in his journal, and 

 having stopped at Kyusta (opposite North or Langara Island) where 

 many totem poles stood in the 1880's, he described native houses 

 (pp. 221, 293) without a mention of totem or carved poles. That is, 

 with the single exception of what must have been a carved house- 

 front entrance (p. 289) : "To pass through the narrow doorway of 

 the chief's house, over which was painted a huge mask, it was neces- 

 sary to make a litter or hammock of the deerskin. Two of the 

 strongest of the Indians did this, with the other four assisting as 

 best they could, while I was shrinking myself into as small compass 

 as possible * * * to avoid being bumped against the door posts." 



Only a very few house posts and portals, roughly carved, crude masks 

 and carved objects were seen in some places and in house-front 



» The Journal of Don Jacinto Caamano, translated by Capt. Harold Grenfell, R. N., 

 edited with an introduction and notea by Henry R. Wagner and W. A. Newcombe. Reprints 

 from the British Columbia Hist. Quart., July and October 1938, pp. 189-301. 



