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SMITIISUXIAN EXl'LORATiONS, ig22 



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this region. In spite of all that has happened, there is much of great 

 interest left, as the pictures show. No poles worthy of the name have 

 been carved for 30 years, and for 20 years before that the art was 

 degenerating. Some of the old columns are in a marvelous condition 

 of preservation considering their age. The decay l)egins at ihe top, 



Fig. 124. — Interior of an abandoned native house, showing- 

 one of the totemic house-posts, portraying the Bear. ( Photo- 

 graph by Julius Sternberg, for the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution.) 



where seeds also take root and sprout. Often when the top figure 

 is gone, the remainder of the carvings are fairly sound. At the town 

 of Tuxekan an observer in 1916 counted 125 poles standing. In 

 T()22, only 50 were left. The information about the poles, also, is 

 disappearing even more rapidly than the poles themselves, for only 

 the old peo])le know or care. 



