﻿NO. 5 SMITHSONIAN liXi'LORATlONS, 1^22 I29 



markings. When the shark is represented in human form, these 

 marks appear on the cheek. The mouth is invaria1)ly curved down- 

 z^'cird at the corners, and is often furnished with sharp triangular 

 teeth. The forehead of the shark always rises into a sort of peak. 



The principle of dissection is equally useful to the native artist. 

 It may be illustrated not merely in the ca.-e of totem-poles, but with 

 many varieties of objects. We may suppose for example that an 

 Indian's totemic crest happens to be the Killer-whale, and that this 

 man is ornamenting a slate bowl with this family crest. The shape 

 of the bowl is settled in advance ; that is, being a bowl or dish, it is 

 round. The nature of the design is also a cut-and-dried matter. The 

 man in the nature of the case wishes to represent the Killer, for that 

 is the crest he has inherited from his forebears. He therefore has to 

 make a killer-whale pattern which will exactly fit into a round field. 

 The Indian's artistic ideal is quite different from our own. He feels 

 (apparently) that certain essential traits (or "symbols") of the 

 animal must go in ; and that the design when finished must neatly 

 fill up the available space. 



The monuments left in Alaska are often in the last stages of 

 neglect and decay. Worse than that, even, many of them are being 

 deliberately destroyed. The Indians themselves, under the influence 

 of the whites, learn to despise these monuments of their past, as being 

 reminders of their state of unregenerate barbarism. One Indian 

 chap, trained in the white man's ways and " educated " perhaps some- 

 what beyond his intelligence, cut down with an axe a lot of fine old 

 totem-poles, sawed them into sections, and used them in building a 

 sidewalk. (See fig. 122.) 



The fate which has for various reasons overtaken these monuments 

 is best indicated by the accompanying photographs. The ruin and 

 decay which has fallen upon all things simply beggars description. 

 No work could be better than to preserve, somewhere in Alaska, at 

 at least one house, with its totem-poles and carvings complete. This 

 would at least serve to illustrate the kind of architecture which these 

 Indians developed. Some of these native houses were of cyclopean 

 proportions, the great 1:)eams being 3 and 4 feet in diameter. The 

 older Indians themselves often have toward the whole matter what 

 seem> to l)e an apathetic attitude, but this is misleading. The 

 real inner feeling seems to be that the old times are gone, and that 

 these monuments of the vanished past should, in the nature of things, 

 be allowed also to decay in peace and to vanish quietly from oft" the face 

 of the earth. It would not be impossible to interest some of the more 

 alert ones in the preservation of at least some of the ancient glories of 



