The Importance Of Totem Poles In The North West America

In Native American witchcraft, amulets and charms play the central role. Practitioners of one region dress similarly as well as use same kind of totems to have a sense of unity with each other. For them land is considered as deity that provides them with objects necessary for witchcraft and magic. These objects come in many shapes and forms. These may include herbs, stones, feathers, bones etc (world of Wicca, 2014).

| The tree is symbolized to represent something grown up from. The tree is the past, and it was so much more meaningful before rather than now. The change in importance is due to Gene thinking and reliving it constantly over time.

A great sense of trust supports this mutual ‘give-take’ relationship. ‘If you take care of country, country will take care of you.’ These beliefs are totemist and animist, which basically means Aboriginals perceive all natural objects to possess a spirit or soul. While totems are quite significant within Aboriginal culture as they act as symbols in a system of beliefs, signifying a relationship between an individual or group and an animal or plant. Thus, creating a link between the human, natural and supernatural worlds. As the word ‘totem’ comes from a Native American language where it represents group membership; and literally means is ‘he/she/it is a relative of mine’.

The Southwest Native American and their culture is very unique.There art contained their symbols and signs to show what they believe in.This is important because it is a big part of their daily life and practices.They had dolls that represented the Kachina spirits.This is important because this is an important part of their culture and history.In our exhibit the little girl is holding one.They wore turquoise jewelry because it promotes wealth,happiness and fortune.In our exhibit the people are wearing the jewelry.The South West native american culture is very unique because they used dolls to represent spirits.

In the Eastern Woodlands, the native Iroquoian people populated the area, who set fires twice a year to clear away underbrush to allow an easier hunting season. In addition, they had no universal style of government, with many organized into chiefdoms. Near The Great Lakes, there were several different types of natives collectively called the Anishinaabe. Many Europeans found that the Anishinaabe had a vast social landscape, with the peoples of the Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Potawatomis. Additionally, these people would use canoes to travel across the Great Lakes. Towards the west in the Great Plains, the Comanches were formidable people of the vast territory. They rode on horseback to dominate their enemies, and would mainly hunt Bison.

The belief system of the Choctaws was shared beliefs of the tribes of the south-eastern regions of North America. They believed that they emerged from the earth through a mound called Nanih Waiya. The major deity was the sun, a spiritual being whose earthly representative was fire. Another belief of the Choctaws had to do with death. It was their custom to clean the bones of the dead before depositing them in boxes or baskets in the bone-houses, the work being performed by "certain old gentlemen with very long nails," who allowed their nails to grow long for this purpose. The people of this tribe also followed the custom of setting up poles around the new graves, on which they hung hoops, wreaths, etc. As their name seems to imply, they practiced artificial head flattening. They believed this process would aid the spirit in its ascent.

The native tribes of the Great Plains and the Eastern Woodlands have surprisingly different adaptions and responses to their expansions by settlers; not only in their cultures, but in their subsistence, warfare, peacemaking, and gender roles as well. Both tribes were forced to adapt and change due to the overtaking on the European settlers, but both managed to do it in different ways.

Spiritual jewelry became very popula. Pendants can represent the wish for a long life for the wearer, in some cultures.

“One general truth that threads throughout the Native American spiritual beliefs is the belief of the Mother Earth spirituality” (Coll). They often called earth their mother and called father the air. The earth to the Natives is very sacred to them and is the most important thing to them. Most of the ceremonies were in some way revolving around the earth and they called earth “home.” Most of the ceremonies were practiced for many years and were passed down through generation to generation. The Native Americans didn’t have a book like the bible or any language that was written. One big thing they had was Totems. These were everywhere in their tribes and it was supposed to represent people and the animals that represented them. The Indians were supposed to have 7 spiritual animals and the many animals on the totems were supposed to represent all the person’s spiritual

Ultimately, the totem pole is symbolic in the story because it represents the Indigenous people in Canada. In King’s short story, the museum workers are constantly trying to remove the totem pole from the museum as Walter states that, “” the totem pole is not part of the show, and we need to move it someplace else”” (King 14). This quote accurately demonstrates the controlling nature of the museum workers because they attempt to remove the totem pole numerous times, but each time is as unsuccessful as the last. This correlates to Canadian history with the settlers trying to eliminate the Indigenous people in Canadian Society which was also unsuccessful. Additionally, another example that proves the controlling nature of the workers is witnessed when Walter attempts to find the owner of the totem pole instead of just leaving it in the show. Considering this, the whole notion of ownership is very different in Indigenous and non–Indigenous cultures. Indigenous culture believes that everything is to be shared and no one is an owner of anything. This concept is complete and total opposite in non-Indigenous culture as everything belongs to someone.

In a reading done in class, “Farmers of the Woodlands,” written by Peter Nabokov and Dean Snow, there is discussion of the religious and spiritual beliefs of the people who lived in the Eastern Woodlands. For the Penobscot bands, they had the spiritual belief of totems. These totems were animals. They believed the totems were the ancestors to the people of the band. These totems linked them to the lands they lived, hunted, and fished

The Tlingit Community House is an example of the totem of Tlingit (Frank, 2014). A symbolic of animal form that is laid out in a two-dimensional abstract pattern, with an extensive gently slanted roof, attractively painted façade (Frank, 2014). The flat surfaces of the Tlingit Community House show geometric shapes of beavers, bears, also whales, and ravens. Furthermore, the totem pole in the center contains stacked images that help a family are a clan to reminisce about their history back to mythological periods (Frank, 2014). Also, the Tlingit community house is characteristic of the art and style of that region (Frank, 2014). However, a totem is an object such as an animal or plant that operates as a symbol of a family or tribe (Frank,

The Northeastern Native Americans (also known as the Woodland Indians) had a good geography. Some of the Northeastern Native Americans lived along the atlantic coast. This was good and bad for the Native Americans. This was good, because of the water source they could use for food and trading. It was not so good, because they had contact with the Europeans. That lead to friendships, alliances forged, land deals struck, treaties were signed, and then conflict arose. The atlantic coast will be located on our exhibit behind the mountains and connected to the river/ stream. While having a good atlantic coast as a water source, the Native Americans of the Northeast also had the Gulf of Mexico, which

The Indian mounds built of earth are very impressive landmarks and important remains of native people. There are many reasons why Native Indians build the mounds. One of them was a platform for villages, and place for seasonal gathering, or political gathering. It was also place to bury the important members of the local tribal groups (like Boys, Pharr, and Byum). Mounds were also used as location of major regional trade festivals. There is also theory that the mounds were used as a conventional temples and location of important religious rituals, or as the houses of important leaders.

The word totem derives from the Algonquian word “odoodem” meaning kinship group. You can see how that represents a totem pole well because a ceremony for a new pole is watched by hundreds of tribe members. More than just beautiful carvings, totem poles represent myths, legends, and honourable stories of families or tribes.