The Enduring Power of Totem Poles

About a year ago, we launched a special Web site called The Enduring Power of Totem Poles. It has since won the 2009 CASE award for best Web site. Anyone who is interested in learning more about the history of totem poles ought to explore the site a bit. You might learn something about totem poles that you did not know, such as:

• Totem poles, which are defined as free-standing columns with many figures, are not actually indigenous to Washington State. Even though totem pole imagery can be found all over the place in Seattle, it was the northern Northwest Coast groups (Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Kwakwaka’wakw, Tlingit, etc.) that carved totem poles, not the Coast Salish people surrounding the Puget Sound. It’s a common misconception that totem pole carving was practiced near present-day Seattle, but it is not historically or culturally accurate. The totem poles standing outside the Burke Museum are all replicas of poles from Canadian or Alaskan-based tribes.



• Totem poles are not only historical objects; up and down the Northwest Coast, poles are being raised again in a spirit of cultural survival and revival.



• The Burke Museum has been very active in the repatriation of poles and other clan treasures that were taken from communities along the Northwest Coast in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Enduring Power of Totem Poles tells the story of two of the Teikweidi clan’s houseposts, taken from the Tlingit village of Gaash (Cape Fox, AK) by an American railroad magnate in 1899 and donated to a young Burke Museum. In July 2001, along with four other North American museums, the Burke returned the posts and other clan treasures to the Tlingit people of Cape Fox and acknowledged the wrong that had been done. Two new houseposts were created for the Burke Museum by father and son, Nathan and Stephen Jackson, to replace the two posts that were repatriated and are now on display in the Pacific Voices exhibit.

For more fascinating stories about totem poles and the people who make them, visit the Enduring Power of Totem Poles site:

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

Photo: Replica of Tsimshian Memorial Pole, carved by Bill Holm in 1969, now standing in front of the Burke Museum

The Joy of Coffee in Greek and Turkish Life

If you've been coming to the University District for a while, chances are you've been to the Continental Restaurant and Pastry House, home to delicious Mediterranean food and friendly owners, the Lagos family.

This weekend, the penultimate weekend of free coffee tastings before the exhibit Coffee: The World in Your Cup closes, join the Lagos family in discovering the joy of coffee in Greek and Turkish life. Sample coffee made in the traditional methods of Greece and Turkey and get a personal look into the coffee culture of the Northern Mediterranean seaboard. The Lagos' will be at the Burke on Saturday, (8/22) from 11 am - 2 pm.

And if you can't make it on Saturday, come Sunday to sample organic, fair-trade, single origin coffees from around the world with Pangaea Organica.

Saber teeth, killer pigs, ancient fish, oh my!

Although it doesn't open for another four months, many of us here at the Burke are already quite busy preparing for the next major exhibition, Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway. Read all about the exhibition, which combines whimsical artwork by Ray Troll with real fossils from the Burke's collection to answer (and ask!) questions about evolution, extinction, and geologic time.

I'm quite excited about the fact that several of the fossil specimens that will be on display in this exhibit have never before been exhibited to the public. Some of these fossils are among the best in our entire paleontology collection! For example:

Hoplophoneus, an Oligocene-era saber-toothed cat

Entelodont, an omnivorous pig-like mammal, also from the Oligocene

Many ancient fish, like this one, millions of years old

I realize its not every job that requires you to set up a fossil photo shoot, but really, it was just another day at the natural history museum!

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications

Pacific Voices Valued Objects: Coast Salish Voyaging Canoe

Local resident Peg Deam, a member of the Coast Salish community, contributed to both the development of the Pacific Voices exhibit at the Burke Museum and the creation of the accompanying book featuring personally significant cultural objects from communities of the Pacific. Peg Dream chose the voyaging canoe as the object that represents the richness of Coast Salish culture for her.

This is a photo of a Coast Salish canoe model from the Burke’s Ethnology Collection.

“When the cedar tree comes down, it is transformed into another life-form—a canoe. The canoe carries the people. It carries the songs, the language, the traditional protocol. It carries the salmon, the cattails—everything that’s collected. The paddles represent the people who participate and interact with the cedar. It becomes part of the whole culture.”
-- Peg Deam

In preparation for the Washington State centennial in 1989, the Native American Canoe Project was organized to rekindle the art of making cedar voyaging canoes, and with it the skills and stamina for canoeing. Hundreds of Native people from seventeen Western Washington tribes participated in the project . In the summer of 1989, a 170-mile voyage commenced from the Quileute Reservation along the western Washington coast and culminated in the “Paddle to Seattle”—a dramatic flotilla of thirty canoes that were paddled across the inland Puget Sound from Suquamish to Seattle. Thus was born the modern Northwest Coast canoeing revival.

The canoe represents carrying the culture. With the paddles inside, it also represents carrying the people—from the past to the present and into the future.

This text is excerpted from Chapter 14 of Pacific Voices: Keeping our Cultures Alive.

This weekend: Northwest Native Arts Market and Festival in Tacoma

Our friends at the Washington State History Museum have organized a Northwest Native Arts Market and Festival and it's happening this Saturday and Sunday (Aug. 8-9) in Tacoma at the History Museum.

The Market & Festival will feature a variety of Native American artisans selling their wares and offering live art demonstrations. Visitors can also take in Native American culture by watching live performances by local Native dancers, musicians and storytellers, and sampling Native American foods from Whitefoot Fish Company. Cool off inside the Museum and catch Mark Celletti’s documentary “Canoe Way: The Sacred Journey,” a 54-minute documentary on the resurgence of cedar canoe societies. Artists will be providing “Gallery Talks”, an opportunity for guests to learn more about their favorite artwork from In the Spirit: Contemporary Northwest Native Arts Exhibit. Every 15 minutes starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday, artists will take turns talking about their artwork. Gallery Talks schedule will be provided to patrons of the Festival upon arrival.

Go check it out!

New video: Packing the Burke's Geology Collection

A few months ago, we wrote about creating a safer home for our ethnology and geology collections. Following that post, I spent some time with Ron Eng, geology collections manager, learning more about the process his staff and volunteers are going through to pack up the 2 million-piece geology collection in preparation for the new storage compactors that will be arriving at the museum in the future.

Take a look:



Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications