Going to Pike Place Market or Pioneer Square can often be a
battle of elbows and a serious test of your patience with
tourists. But when you do make it out, particularly on a nice
sunny day, you’re likely to get a nice view of a totem pole in
one of their plazas. You look up and see a variety of animals
and other symbols carved out of wood, left to wonder what the
Native Americans could have meant with each one. So you might
wonder … Is the tradition of carving totem poles native to
Western Washington? Experts at the Burke Museum of Natural
History and Culture have the answer in our 14th installment of
Ask the Burke (got a question for next time? Send it here):
Different faces, different places Although totem poles have
become a symbol of all Northwest Coast Native people and their
use has spread to neighboring tribes through the years, they
weren’t always in the Seattle area. Tall multiple-figure poles
known as totem poles were first made only by the northern
Northwest Coast Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian peop