Sons Carve Parents' Legacy -- Totem Pole Honors Couple Who Shaped Tillicum Village

BLAKE ISLAND - With the groan of strained ropes and a flurry of sacred down feathers, the David family totem finally took wing.

More than 60 men and women heaved on the lines while 10 more supported the bottom, gradually hoisting the 30-foot-high totem pole into place on the shore of Blake Island.

Here the spirits of Hyacinth and Winnefred David will keep watch over Puget Sound for generations to come, said Joe David, master totem carver, who created the totem pole along with his brother, George David.

"We thank the Creator and Mother Earth and our ancestors for this event," Joe David declared. "What is happening here is a very powerful thing."

Yesterday's rare totem-pole raising at Tillicum Village, a Northwest Indian-theme restaurant and exhibit, drew Native Americans from dozens of tribes as far away as British Columbia's Vancouver Island. Among them were some 200 paddlers from seagoing canoes that stopped here en route to a weekend gathering in Puyallup.

While boatloads of tourists came and went, the David family met privately to plan the ceremony. Their pole lay facedown, eyes of the totemic figures blindfolded so the ancestors would not have to look at the ground.

As the sun, tinted orange by smoke from the adjacent salmon bake, dipped toward the horizon, guests took their positions. Eventually, the David family paraded onto the site, accompanied by drums and a solemn chant: "Heey-hoh-hoh. Heey-hoh-hoh."

Joe David, clad in a wolf-head mask and handsome Chilkat blanket, removed the blindfolds and scattered downy white feathers around the pole to help its figures take wing.

Then he directed the team of pullers. Ten minutes later, the pole was erect and bolted in place.

"Now I'd like to tell you what it means," he told the visitors.

The top figure represents his 89-year-old mother, Winnefred, who watched the ceremony intensely from her wheelchair, wrinkled hands clutching her shawl. The bottom figure represents his late father, Hyacinth, a carver and canoe builder at Tillicum Village.

At village since 1961

The Davids are members of the Nuu-chah-nulth band from Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island. They had moved to Seattle when they were recruited in 1961 by Bill Hewitt, founder of Tillicum Village.

"He needed carvers and singers and dancers and people who knew how to prepare the salmon," Joe David explained. "And since then, the David family and the Hewitt family have been united."

Winnefred prepared the salmon dinner still featured at the village, while her husband developed the dancing and carving exhibitions. Their sons grew up working there, learning the ancient arts from their father.

Over the years, George and Joe have become master carvers, their totems luring five- and six-digit sums from museums and other buyers.

Last spring, Mark Hewitt, son of the founder and now president of Tillicum Village, asked the brothers to carve a totem to honor their parents. The brothers started work in May in a secluded area near the village. Joe carved the bottom, George the top, and the work was completed this month.

"This pole is the climax of Tillicum Village," declared the elder Hewitt as he watched. "This is the largest number of Natives we have had on the island at one time since we started."

Simple, bold style

The pole is the first Nuu-chah-nulth-style totem carved in a century, the carvers said. That style is bolder and much simpler than the more-familiar poles carved by the Haida and other tribes from farther north, George explained.

The middle character is a wolf, symbolizing "the strength and power" of the David brothers' parents.

"The wolf represents the proper teaching of life," Joe said. "Many years ago, when our father was initiated, the wolves would come and take the children into the forest to teach them lessons."

Winnefred David watched and listened quietly until asked to speak.

"I'm real proud of my sons," she said. "I have real good sons. They're carvers and artists. And none of them drink or smoke. Except the oldest one."

"And he doesn't drink," Joe added. "Just smokes."

With that, Joe David chanted a traditional song to the rhythm of the drums. Brother George, clad in a fearsome mask and bright red blanket, danced an eerie, slinking wolf dance.

"I like that song," Winnefred declared. "That's my song."

Ross Anderson: 206-464-2061. E-mail: rand-new@seatimes.com