back only to about 1895." It is Suggested that some connec-
tion with this relatively recent form of Northwest Pacific
coast art may be associated with the Russians after the 17th
Century or have some remote connection with New Zealand
through the rare visits to the coast of Hawaians and Kanakas.
There is no doubt that their use was much stimulated by the
advent of iron tools consequent on the development of the
fur trade with white men early in the last century; the na-
tives gladly exchanging their sea otter skins for what
Superseded their former dependence upon stone, jadeite and
other primitive types of tools. The resultant reduction in
time and goods made it possible for lesser chiefs to imitate
the custom of their superiors in wealth and social status.
For, be it understood, the main object of these poles was to
display the wealth and rank of their owners and thus to shame
their less fortunate rival chiefs.

In any case the lives of totem poles never could exceed 60
or at most 70 years due to the soft wood of the cedar trees;
which rapidly decay when exposed to the damp atmosphere of
the Northwest Pacific coast. Once these costly poles fell
no effort to reinstate them was made; they lay where they:
fell or were cut up for firewood. The reminder may be in
place that these poles were preceded for an unknown length
of time by the huge house front totemic paintings which were
in very general use as recorded by early explorers and ad-
venturers.

The first step in the production of totem poles was to se-
cure the services of an outstanding sculptor who might live
at a considerable distance and demand high compensation in
kind for his skill. Transportation followed on selection of
the fifty or sixty foot tree from the adjacent forest to the
owner's village, this feat and its subsequent erection being
entirely by manpower; the reverse of the trunk was often hol-
lowed out to reduce weight. The sculpturing was executed in
three sections and prescribed ceremonies, involving great
feasts to large numbers, were performed at each of these.
stages, taxing to the uttermost the resources of the owner
and his relatives in the form of food, blankets and other pos-
sessions accumulated for the purpose. In most if not all
cases these costs were spread over a term of years. The upper
and lowest sections of the three divisions of the pole usually
displayed the crest of the owner and that of his wife, thus
announcing the clan or tribe to which they belonged, for with
the Haida and Tsimshian the matrilinear system of descent and
inheritance prevailed. The intermediate section of the totem
pole was generally filled with representations of an ancestor
or by some reference to a family myth.

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