Model totem poles in argillite illustrate a style of sculpture that evolved away from the traditional Haida totem pole style. Haida style totem poles, carved from a half-cylinder of red cedar (being half a log hollowed out in back to minimize weight and surface checking), tend to be wider than they are deep. Sculptural form is established by cuts into the log that create relief and allow the three-dimensional forms of their images to be developed. Beaks, fins, and other protruding features are added on to extend the dimensional limits of the log’s diameter. The first generations of model totem poles, in both wood and argillite, replicated the dimensional characteristics of the full-size pole traditions, even to the point of being hollowed out in the back.

Over time, argillite carvers began to push beyond the conceptual limits imposed by the form of cedar logs, creating model poles deeper than they are wide, with a great deal more dimensionality in the rendering of the figures involved. This model pole is an excellent example of the peak attained by that evolutionary path.

Top to Bottom, the figures are raven with a short stack of three status rings between its ‘ears’, and a large frog in its beak. Spots on the frog are represented by small chips cut out of the surface. Next is a bear, shown with four limbs, nostrils, and no teeth, but an inverted human figure captured in its paws. The upside-down position is said by some to represent death, and the human’s closed eyes confirm the condition. Interestingly, the right hand of the human is shown with a hold on the bear’s foreleg, and the left hand appears to rest limply on the forehead of the large beaver figure below. The beaver’s ears are splayed out by the bear sitting between them. The beaver has a large snout with prominent nostrils, and incisor teeth of exaggerated size that gnaw at a stout stick held between them by the beaver’s front paws. The beaver’s elaborate tail arches up in front of his hind feet, and features a mask-like man’s face with open mouth framed by cross-hatched patterns of the tail’s texture. The man’s hands extend out beside his face and touch the surface on which the beaver is sitting. A large square base with beveled upper edges provides a stable support for the model totem.

Steven C. Brown

References: For a chapter on late model poles see Peter L. Macnair and Alan L. Hoover, The Magic Leaves: A History of Haida Argillite Carving, (Royal BC Museum, 1984/2002), pp. 127-138. For various poles with raven imagery see Marius Barbeau, Haida Myths Illustrated in Argillite Carvings, (Ottawa: National Museum of Canada, Bulletin No. 127, Anthropological Series No. 32, 1953), pp. 170-190. See also Marius Barbeau, Haida Carvers in Argillite, (Ottawa: National Museum of Man, 1957/74), various examples, including a raven/bear/beaver fig. 126.