|
Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved on poles, posts, or pillars with symbols or figures made from large trees, mostly western red cedar, by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America (northwestern United States and Canada's western province, British Columbia). The word ''totem'' derives from the Algonquian (most likely Ojibwe) word ''odoodem'' [], "his kinship group". Totem poles are not religious objects, but they do communicate important aspects of native culture. Carvings of animals and other characters typically represent characters or events in a story. The carvings may symbolize or commemorate cultural beliefs that recount familiar legends, clan lineages, or notable events. The poles may also serve as functional architectural features, welcome signs for village visitors, mortuary vessels for the remains of deceased ancestors, or as a means to publicly ridicule someone. Given the complexity and symbolic meanings of totem pole carvings, their placement and importance lies in the observer's knowledge and connection to the meanings of the figures. Totem pole carvings were likely preceded by a long history of decorative carving, with stylistic features borrowed from smaller prototypes. Eighteenth-century explorers documented the existence of decorated interior and exterior house posts prior to 1800; however, due to the lack of efficient carving tools, sufficient wealth, and leisure time to devote to the craft, the monumental poles placed in front of native homes along the Pacific Northwest coast probably did not appear in large numbers until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Trade and settlement initially led to the growth of totem pole carving, but governmental policies and practices of acculturation and assimilation sharply reduced totem pole production by the end of nineteenth century. Renewed interest from tourists, collectors, and scholars in the 1880s and 1890s helped document and collect the remaining totem poles, but nearly all totem pole making had ceased by 1901. Twentieth-century revivals of the craft, additional research, and continued support from the public have helped establish new interest in this regional artistic tradition. ==History== Totem poles serve as important illustrations of family lineage and the cultural heritage of native peoples who live in the islands and coastal areas of North America's Pacific Northwest, especially British Columbia, Canada, and coastal areas of Washington and southeastern Alaska in the United States. Makers of these poles include the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl), Bella Coola, and Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka). Totem poles are typically carved from the highly rot-resistant trunks of ''Thuja plicata'' trees (popularly known as giant cedar or western red cedar), which eventually decay in the moist, rainy climate of the coastal Pacific Northwest. Because of the region's climate and the nature of the materials used to make the poles, few examples carved before 1900 remain. Noteworthy examples, some dating as far back as 1880, include those at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC in Vancouver. Totem poles are the largest, but not the only objects that coastal Pacific Northwest natives use to depict family legends, animals, people, or historical events. The freestanding poles seen by the region's first European explorers were likely preceded by a long history of decorative carving. Stylistic features of these poles were borrowed from smaller prototypes, or from the interior support posts of house beams.〔 Although eighteenth-century accounts of European explorers traveling along the coast indicate that decorated interior and exterior house posts existed prior to 1800, the posts were smaller and fewer in number than in subsequent decades. Prior to the nineteenth century, the lack of efficient carving tools, along with sufficient wealth and leisure time to devote to the craft, delayed the development of elaborately carved, freestanding poles.〔Barbeau, "Totem Poles: According to Crests and Topics", p. 5.〕 Before iron and steel arrived in the area, natives used crude tools made of stone, shells, or beaver teeth for carving. The process was slow and laborious; axes were unknown. By the late eighteenth century, the use of metal cutting tools enabled more complex carvings and increased production of totem poles.〔Garfield and Forrest, p. 1–2.〕 The tall monumental poles appearing in front of native homes in coastal villages probably did not appear until after the beginning of the nineteenth century.〔 The scholar Eddie Malin has proposed that totem poles progressed from house posts, funerary containers, and memorial markers into symbols of clan and family wealth and prestige. He argues that the Haida people of the islands of Haida Gwaii originated carving of the poles, and that the practice spread outward to the Tsimshian and Tlingit, and then down the coast to the indigenous people of British Columbia and northern Washington. Malin's theory is supported by the photographic documentation of the Pacific Northwest coast's cultural history and the more sophisticated designs of the Haida poles. Regional stylistic differences among the poles can be attributed to the application of existing regional artistic styles to a new medium. Earlier theories, such as those of mid-twentieth-century anthropologist Marius Barbeau, who considered the poles a post-contact phenomenon enabled by the introduction of metal tools, are refuted by evidence of the Pacific Northwest's long history of native carving traditions and evaluation of early explorers' and navigators' documents created in the 1790s, which predate the use of iron tools. These early accounts describe and illustrate the existence, although an uncommon appearance, of carved poles and timber homes along the coast of the Pacific Northwest.〔Kramer, ''Alaska's Totem Poles'', p. 18.〕 By the early nineteenth century, widespread importation of iron and steel tools from Great Britain, the United States, and elsewhere led to easier and more rapid production of carved wooden goods, including poles.〔Kramer, ''Alaska's Totem Poles'', p. 13.〕 Scholars have not determined if iron tools were introduced by traders, or whether Alaska Natives produced iron tools from drift iron recovered from shipwrecks, but the presence of trading vessels and exploration ships simplified the acquisition of iron tools, the use of which most likely would have enhanced totem pole construction. In the nineteenth century, American and European trade and settlement initially led to the growth of totem pole carving, but United States and Canadian policies and practices of acculturation and assimilation caused a decline in the development of Alaska Native and First Nations cultures and their crafts, and sharply reduced totem pole production by the end of the century. Between 1830 and 1880, the maritime fur trade, mining, and fisheries gave rise to an accumulation of wealth among the coastal peoples.〔Garfield and Forrest, p. 2 and 7.〕〔Kramer, ''Alaska's Totem Poles'', p. 21.〕 Much of it was spent and distributed in lavish potlatch celebrations, frequently associated with the construction and erection of totem poles.〔Garfield and Forrest, p. 7.〕 The monumental poles commissioned by wealthy family leaders to represent their social status and the importance of their families and clans.〔Feldman, p. 4.〕 In the 1880s and 1890s, tourists, collectors, scientists and naturalist interested in native culture collected and photographed totem poles and other artifacts, many of which were put on display at expositions such as the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the 1893 World's Columbia Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.〔Kramer, ''Alaska's Totem Poles'', p. 25.〕 In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some Christian missionaries discouraged the natives' traditional practices, including creation of totem poles, and urged converts to cease production and destroy existing poles. Nearly all totem pole making had ceased by 1901. Carving of monumental and mortuary poles continued in some native villages as late as 1905; however, as native sites were abandoned, the poles and timber homes were left to decay and vandalism.〔Garfield and Forrest, p. 8.〕 Beginning in the late 1930s, a combination of cultural, linguistic, and artistic revivals, along with scholarly interest and the continuing fascination and support of an educated and empathetic public, led to a renewal and extension of this artistic tradition.〔 In 1938 the United States Forest Service began a program to reconstruct and preserve the old poles, salvaging about 200, roughly one-third of those known to be standing at the end of the nineteenth century.〔 With renewed interest in native arts and traditions in the 1960s and 1970s, freshly carved totem poles were erected up and down the coast, while related artistic production was introduced in many new and traditional media, ranging from tourist trinkets to masterful works in wood, stone, blown and etched glass, and other traditional and non-traditional media.〔 Today, a number of successful native artists carve totem poles on commission, usually taking the opportunity to educate apprentices in the demanding art of traditional carving and joinery. Modern poles are almost always executed in traditional styles; however, some artists have included modern subject matter or used nontraditional styles. A commission for a modern pole ranges in the tens of thousands of dollars and usually requires from six to twelve months to complete. Because the time spent on carving after an initial design is may take a year to complete, the commission essentially functions as the artist's primary means of income during the period. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Totem pole」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|