Carving Out A View Of History -- Artisans Attempt To Transcribe A History Of Totem-Pole Carvings Into A Modern-Day Artwork

How to see totem poles, house posts

-- People can see the Tsimshian totem poles and Salish house posts in Issaquah's Gilman Village, Building 31 (left of the entrance), from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. There are exhibits to explain the work, which is sponsored by the King County Arts Commission. The house posts have been completed and are on display. One of the totem poles has also been completed and the other one should be done later this month.

With methodical strokes of an adze, David Boxley takes several small pieces out of the 30-foot-long cedar log.

But he is doing much more than taking something away. As he chops with the hatchet-like tool, each stroke is building toward telling a story that has been passed down through the years in his Tsimshian Tribe.

Around his feet are mounds of freshly cut cedar chips, and the building at the entrance of Issaquah's Gilman Village is filled with the sweet odor of Western red cedar. Next to the 30-foot log is a 40-foot cedar log, already carved with the legends from his tribe, based on the Alaska coast.

At the other end of the building is David Horsley, an adopted member of the Snoqualmie Tribe and an authority on Salish tribal practices. He's just finished carving three Upper Inland Salish house posts. These are 10-foot-high pieces of split cedar that were used in the traditional long houses of Indians living in the Northwest.

The top part of the post is carved into a head; below are different figures, such as a bear and rabbit. The posts served two purposes: to support the roof and to communicate legends and stories to the tribal members.

Horsley and Boxley are close to finishing their carvings, which eventually will become the center-pieces for Beaver Lake Park, a King County park opening north of Issaquah next fall.

And while the main goal of the project - paid for through the 1 percent for the Arts Program - is to complete the totem poles and the house posts, there is another goal as well.

Boxley and Horsley want to tell stories, just as the totem poles and the house posts tell stories. Only the stories the two men want to tell aren't legends. They are real accounts - about the people who originated the carvings and the traditions.

Both Boxley and Horsley had to learn their art by studying photographs and what few pieces were left. The art of making totem poles and house posts had died out, and the men had to teach themselves.

Even in Boxley's Alaska village of Metlakatla, totem-pole carving had disappeared; Boxley had to study museum pieces to find out how to do it. In the case of house posts, Horsley said, he was only able to find one small piece of the art in a museum and the actual posts had not been carved in this area since 1810.

Once the settlers and missionaries moved into the Puget Sound area, he said, the art of carving the posts died out along with the other traditions practiced by the natives.

Most people think all Indians carved totem poles, Boxley observed. But the totem poles that most Northwest residents have come to think of as "Northwest Indian" are actually from Alaska. The sort of totem pole seen around the Puget Sound area in front of shopping malls and restaurants wasn't known around the Sound until the early 1900s.

"Totem poles were only carved in the northern areas (in Canada and Alaska)," Boxley said. "A lot of people think all Indians carved totem poles, wore feathers on their heads and went `woo woo.' "

Another myth about the tribes the men are trying to dispel is that the natives were all the same in language and traditions. The tribes in the Puget Sound area were known as the Upper Inland Salish - but that name only referred to their language base.

There were 22 tribes in the region, but they didn't speak the same language any more than Spanish and Italians speak the same language (or have the same culture) although they both have the same language base of Latin.

Horsley said that when the treaties were signed in 1855, the government had a member of the Snohomish Tribe act as interpreter for the Snoqualmie Tribe. It didn't work; neither side could understand what was being said or signed, he said.

Most Northwest Indian art didn't last, says Barbara Luecke, of the King County Arts Commission. She said the natives worked during the winter months making baskets, clothing and other items and then used them in their daily lives.

A lot of it was left outside and it deteriorated, Luecke said.

The original totem poles were carved for an individual tribe member and with the idea that they would last that man's lifetime. Now, with modern chemicals, these poles can last several lifetimes.

When Boxley started carving, his native village in Alaska didn't have a single totem pole. Now it has nine. The poles being completed in Issaquah are the 35th and 36th he has done in the past 12 years. With the exception of an electric chain saw to block out sections of the pole, Boxley says, he only uses traditional tools - such as the adze - for his work.

Horsley has the same commitment to tradition. Before he started to carve the house posts, he went to the Snoqualmie Tribal Council to get direction. The house posts use different animals and figures to tell their stories and those figures have been adopted by tribe members as their personal guardians. Horsley said he couldn't use certain figures because they belonged to a tribe member, and it was felt it would bring bad luck to use them.

Once the house post is completed, it supports the roof on a long house, and also serves as a "story board" to pass along stories to family members. Some of the long houses in the Seattle area were more than 1,000 feet long because each generation added to the original house.

"The house posts are teaching tools," Horsley said. "They teach children about social skills. The figures of the bear and rabbit can teach about big and little and the consequences of making a mistake.

"The stories can take months to tell and a lot of them have a moral at the end. They cause people to learn about themselves - and to learn about their tribe."