﻿l82 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



be justified unless tourist travel should increase materially and a care- 

 taker could be maintained to keep down the alders and salmon 

 berry brush so as to prevent any future danger of destruction by fire 

 during the short dry season in the fall of the year. At Wrangell, at 

 Ketchikan, and in the park at Sitka there are poles which have been 

 repainted in their original colors. Attempts have been made to use the 

 old native colors which consist of red ochre, chrome yellow, and a 

 mordant composed of water and a gluey mass derived from crushed 

 salmon eggs. These colors and several other native coloring agents 

 produced a well blended effect and are not the glaring paints pro- 

 duced by modern white and red leads. Pigments derived from the 

 mineral coloring matter in rocks and ores were formerly much used 

 by the natives. The Indian was indeed an artist who was capable of 

 carving the designs on the totem pole according to highly convention- 

 alized patterns, and who also had the technical knowledge required to 

 procure the proper paints and to properly apply them to the patterned 

 designs in the conventional style. 



The totemic memorial columns of tall cedars represent the highest 

 achievement of the Northwest coast Indian. They were also his show 

 property. If the Indian who wished to erect a memorial pole in honor 

 of his maternal uncle was himself incapable of the task, he employed 

 an expert or artist. These skilled wood carvers took as much as a year 

 to complete the task. For his guidance, the native artist had a com- 

 plicated set of pattern designs in wood. These panels were incised 

 with sections of the conventional designs. It became thus the task 

 of the artist to carefully fit these patterns to the pole to be carved, 

 special effort being made to estimate the proper size of the pole, the 

 entire front surface of which must be covered with the carved figures. 

 No essential part of the animal figure crest must be omitted, although 

 if cramped for space the figures were so highly conventionalized that 

 what might appear to us as essential parts of the animal or human 

 figure represented were often omitted, and no one was offended for 

 all understood what was intended. It was high art with futuristic 

 leanings. Then too the carver had to take into consideration the 

 number of animal totems or crests to which the owner was entitled. 

 If the one in whose honor the pole was being prepared was a great 

 man in the village, he probably had so many totemic crests that the 

 problem was one of overcrowding. If, on the other hand, there were 

 not enough crests to fill the space of the front of the pole, the artist 

 probably suggested that a smaller pole be selected. If this was not 

 done, he could conveniently fill in the spaces between the animal crest 

 carvings with representations of frogs and the ground worm. No 



